Who Am I
Welcome to Improve Your Grip
Hi, nice to meet you! I’m Henry, a friendly fellow who started this website to help you.
Sharing my passion, everything that is related to improving grip.
Healing injured hands, building functional strength, fighting various forms of ailments like arthritis.
I am glad you’re here. Regardless of your level of expertise, I am ready to assist you & share my insight to encourage you to improve both mentally & physically, offering you various ideas & directions to take on.
Your questions are valuable. Please ask if you got one & remember, comment sections are always open.
I’d also like to be upfront & transparent with you. Most of the stuff you find here will be similarly formatted as review style blog posts for ease of use. Compressing & compiling all the necessary data I’ve found through the research to be readily accessible for you to help you in a meaningful way.
Doing all the legwork for you, chasing down pertinent information so you won’t have to.
Down the road, would love to have you consider this place a reliable go-to gripster hub where you can quickly gather multiple pointers & locate various innovative devices that you can potentially benefit from.
Let it be a starting point of our journey together.
A Little Bit About Me
Maybe you’re wondering, what am I doing right now?
Likely crushing a set of grippers while you’re reading this because they’re fun & effective.
Had an Honor to Shake Hands with
the Legendary Strongman Big Z
Yes indeed, I’m fascinated with strength sports. I am a fitness enthusiast, powerlifter & martial artist. I am influenced by strongman scene & therefore, first & foremost interested in functional strength itself & in overall approach I put a little less emphasis to proportional illusion of it.
Nevertheless both are equally important. Naturally, you want to appear looking good while being strong. In athleticism I value mental toughness & fortitude as well as physical abilities. Curiously, we’re only as strong as our weakest link. Healthy, strong grip is a prerequisite to no nonsense type of capable physique.
About This Site
Part of this site is also me being a veteran member of Wealthy Affiliate. In case you’re curious how exactly this website was, has been & will be built in future. And maybe you like to start your own thing. That’s how.
In my case I am just an individual, not a company. Starting with absolutely no kind of prior knowledge how to do any of this. And now actively sharing my passion with you what I love to do in this life & it’s been fantastic.
Grip Strength becomes exceptionally handy in any case – Almost any athlete out there, that you can name or think of, needs a great grip. There are 4 primary hand movements that you can focus on to improve your overall grip, finger, hand & forearm strength:
- Crushing grip – Grabbing & squeezing an object with your fingers – It’s the most basic hand movement, where you’ll be moving your fingers towards your palm
- Pinching grip – Movement that involves your thumb to pinch grip an object – The idea is to always use your thumb in combination of any of your other 4 fingers
- Supporting grip – Also called static grip, that focuses on holding onto something as long as you can while maintaining it in the exact same position the whole time
- Extending grip – Complex extensor movements, in your wrists & fingers, to adjust your grip position, move opposite directions & to build muscle balance
Crush it – Build a Powerful Foundation of Your Grip
Pinch it – Improve the Weakest Link in Your Grip Arsenal
Support it – Use Smart Leverages to Improve Your Grip
Extend it – The Top Way to Build Hand Muscle Balance
In Addition to 4 Major Hand Movements – There’s Actually 5th As Well
Twist it
Working your wrist flexor & extensor muscles is an equally important part of grip & functional strength of forearms. But how to start training your wrists?
You guessed it – Wrist Rollers & Resistance Bars. These are absolutely fun to use training devices that can be brutally effective, making your forearms burn up quickly. It’s also beginner friendly approach, starting with low, easy resistance levels suitable for everyone with an option to be scaled up next to impossible.
This makes it a versatile approach that can be used both casual users as well as advanced athlete. There are many portable variants of wrist-rollers available, making it a conveniently accessible training tool that you can throw into your gym bag as you’re on your way to next workout.
These things are worth their weight in gold. Easy to use, effective. Nurse an injury, add overall functional strength or bulk up your forearms quickly.
Twist Yo’ Wrist by IronMind
Sportneer Wrist Strengthener – More Speed, Power & Muscle
SideWinder Pro Review – No More Weight-On-Rope
SideWinder Revolution Review – Powerful, Knurled Yet Smooth?
Helping You to Get Started With Grip Training
Correct Equipment to Start Grip Training
Whether you simply wandered up here by chance, became curious about grip training or have a serious reason of seeking recovery for your beat up hands to get rid of pain. Adding some muscle to forearms to bring up functional strength, muscle balance for overall healthier body or just trying to get better at your gym weight lifting game. I can offer little bits & bobs, here & there.
Starting with basics: Getting yourself a classical spring gripper is an universal, portable & one of the more easily accessible forms of forearm trainings that will go a long way. In most cases look no further, it can be all you need.
Those seeking to further specialize there are entire myriad of additional equipment to get fancy down the road. Most of the archetypes you’ll find here to learn about & can be applied to your workout sessions.
There are multiple different types of grippers available that you can benefit from, with wide variety of different resistance levels to cover all of your training needs & routines, including the rehabilitation part.
Getting in better shape as well as nuturing injuries are important, inseparable parts of your hand health.
Whether you’re trying to get your strength back up for your recently dislocated finger, or trying to treat repetitive strain injury like Tennis Elbow, proper gripper can be an excellent way to go. You can benefit from classical right handed gripper as well as lefty gripper, smooth gripper & also a thumb gripper.
#1 Classical Gripper
#2 Lefty Gripper
#3 Smooth Gripper
#4 Thumb Gripper
Toughen Your Palms With Specialty Equipment Like Hand Grippers
Avoid Fitness Gloves
You should use fitness gloves only if you absolutely need to. Unless you’ve deliberately made it your goal to make glove manufacturers wealthier by grinding through one pair after another. Many folks rely entirely on gloves when they hit the gym & as a result vast majority of them usually have weak palms. Gloves are a foreign objects between the palms of your hands & a weight you are trying to lift that directly prevent your palms getting any stronger.
If that’s the case, once you take off your fitness gloves & touch first barbell or dumbbell set you see, you’re going to shred the palms of your hands almost instantly. Your hands definitely start aching & in the long run you likely get blisters.
So, how do you solve that problem? No, you don’t put your gloves back on – Many hand grippers have aggressively knurled handles that are specifically designed to toughen the palms of your hands. Keep training, your hands get stronger, simple. Gradually, over the period of weeks & months while regularly exercising with grippers, skin in your palms will toughen up. It’s one of the key parts to be able to perform more strenuous exercises with bare hands.
Unless your hands are injured, or you’ve already worked your hands to the limit you have no business with gloves. There’s no excuse & likely no practical reason to use fitness gloves. If you lift awkward object & it’s a huge safety issue, use gloves.
If you’re trained athlete in the middle of competition where gloves are allowed & give you both competitive edge & chance to avoid injuries – In that instance you want to use gloves for a sound reason. Other than that you always want to put fitness gloves away & work with your bare hands for functional strength.
What Grip Training Resources Can You Use?
Learn How to Train Your Grip
Simply work with hand grippers & specifically specialize in them or up your entire game by learning new exercises along with crushing grippers. Among these authors are famous names like Tommy Heslep, who is one of only five people in the world who have certified for IronMind’s Captains of Crush #4 Gripper. Learn it all from the experts, legendary grip masters who have done it all & have wealth of experiences to share. Learn dozens of different methods from easy to impossible.
Always Prioritize Muscle Balance
Rubber Hand Bands Can Work Wonders to Keep Your Hands Healthy
Balanced Muscles, Healthier Hands
As always, for rehab purposes & for hand health in general, having balance is key for getting much stronger in functional strength department.
I recommend to pair up your gripper training with extensor training. For that task you can use rubber hand bands to work on counter-movements to balance your forearm muscles.
Rubber Hand Bands are excellent addition to your hand training, whether you’re using one or multiple different speciality equipment devices or regular gym machines in your training routine.
They’re easy to use, enjoyable & help to keep your hands pain-free.
Ask any qualified physio-therapeut, chiropractor or doctor. They all confirm that exercising is a must, once you can you should start doing so. Using hand-bands is a good way to be healthier.
Thanks for Stopping By
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