Forearm is the muscle that makes your hand strong, as well all know, the hand grips. Now, there are three types of grips:
- Crush Grip - the grip where you apply force by squeezing, trying to make an object deform, for example, would be giving a firm handshake, that represents a good crushing grip
- Support Grip - the grip that holding an object, for prolonged periods of time. an example would be deadlifting with only one hand, a strong body is necessary to lift the weight, but without a strong support grip, one wouldn't even be able to balance the weight off the floor.
- Pinch Grip - as the name suggests, it is when you press your thumb against your other fingers to hold things, holding a bottle, a drink, would be a simple metaphor for a simple pinch grip.
As to why I say that it helps with overall development of the body, when it only works the hand.. When you see people, mostly powerlifters, they lift with something called wrist straps around them, wrist straps help with the grip. When they lift over 700+ lbs on deadlifts, squats, bench, most can't keep up with their grip, and they're grip becomes a limiting factor on developing the whole mass. But if their grip was strong enough to hold on the weight, developing the body wouldn't be limited by a atrophied grip.
There are many ways to improve a grip, one of the easiest ways to improve the grip, is to abandon straps. As they weaker the grip and don't provide much growth to the forearms and wrists, once they're abandoned, the forearms will develop, and holding on the the bars will be easy as pie.
The other way, which is literally fun itself spelled backwards, and a sport in its own regard, are hand grippers. The most popular series of grippers, Captains of Crush, are employed by many strongman, most notably Magnus Sammuelson. Whose crushing grip is strong enough to open a can of soft drink just by squeezing. Taming the grip of a Captain of Crush are alone physical feats already. There are originally 5 in the series :
Trainer - The easiest of the original series, but now due to addition of CoC's, is the third easiest of the series. Most people should start off with this level. People with under-developed grips should start with this level, yet, this still proves a challenge for most beginners.
#1 - People that have been lifting for quite a time now should start with this level, even though it is only a step up from the trainer level, the difficulty is increased ungodly.
#2 - This should only be started if severe grip training has been previously done, as it is no longer just a physical feat, but also a mental challenge. Being able to close a #2 Captain of Crush gripper, is like a Bench Press of 2x Bodyweight.
#3 - This is where it gets official. Since #3 is HARD HARD HARD HARD HARD! Ironmind, the company which makes CoC's allows people who can close the #3 to get certified. To understand how hard this is, a little over 100 people in the world can close it. Even Mr Olympia, Ronnie Coleman wasn't able to close it, thought, he didn't set it. If he did set it, doing a #3 would be a walk in the park for Big Ron. LIGHTWEIGHT!
#4 - The final, gate to conquering these devil grips is near. Only 5 people in the world have closed this gripper. But those were the days when a credit card set was not necessary for the official certification. I, also someday hope to be able to decorate the official certification list with my name.
Accompanied with my horrible description of the hand grippers, their difficulty is way harder than the way I described it. A youtuber once commented on a video of Magnus Sammuelson closing a #3 gripper - "With Captains of Crush #5, they just start mailing you coal and you have to crush them into diamonds."
As you can see, the line of Captains of Crush are very beneficial for the grip. The conclusion, train your grip to become an all round person! Cheers!
0 comments:
Post a Comment