(Last Updated on April 22, 2024 by Henry)
Gillingham High Performance Gripper –
- Name: Gillingham High Performance Gripper
- Category: Classic Hand Spring Gripper
- Purpose: Crush Grip
- Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
- Vendors: Amazon, Temu
View Price on Amazon See Alternative on Temu (Cheaper)
- Spring Gripper – Ideal to Improve Crush Grip
- Variable Knurls – Finger Side Less Aggressive
- Durable – Made of Steel Spring
- Ten (10) Resistance Levels – 100 to 425 lbs
Gillingham Gripper – Review
Overview, Details & Everything Relevant You Need To Know
What is Gillingham High Performance Gripper?
Overview:
Gillingham High Performance Gripper is excellent for your crush grip strength progression due to small 25 lbs / 11.3 kg weight jump increments per device, ranging from 100 lbs /45 kg to 425 lbs / 192 kg. Made by professionals for professionals.
Made of steel spring & having aluminum knurled handles, these are one of the finest classical spring grippers on market. GHP redesigned the hand gripper from the ground up using modern design and manufacturing techniques.
Coupled with years of grip training experience, the founder of Gillingham High Performance, Wade Gillingham, has made the GHP Hand Grippers a world-wide hit right out of the gate.
What sets GHP Grippers apart from others are unique, innovative look and feel. Most notably variable knurling on handles, palm side is more aggressively knurled & the finger side is less. It helps to dig into the palm of your hand while being less stressful on fingers.
Many are saying this is the best gripper sold today. If you are serious about getting your forearm strength this is a good way to train your grip. These are serious competition grade grippers with accurate poundage & durability to keep your training consistent. GHP grippers are also on rather expensive side, so prepare to pay more than the usual to get quality.
Whether you’re weight lifter, climber, wrestler or motocross driver, strong grip is a must to be on top of your game. Keep in mind that grippers are not toys, these are professional training devices that will tear up your hands in no time to help you to make them tougher. Suits for both men & women, seniors & teens who have different levels of grip strength.
Easier resistance levels can be effectively used for rehabilitation. Heal injury, surgery or treat some form of RSI related condition such as Carpal Tunnel, Tennis Elbow, Arthritis or Tendinitis.
What are the Pros & Cons with Gillingham High Performance Grippers?
Smart Mark Grooves
Pros:
- One of the Best Grippers Available – Made by specialist, on bar with Heavy Grips & CoC grippers. Designed for high-intensity, low-volume workout sessions to gain maximum grip strength in shortest window of time.
- Accurate poundage – Quality gripper solves the #1 problem of cheap grippers: accurate resistance level of the device you are using. They’re consistent, reliable, won’t wear out over time. You don’t have to guess your progress, know exactly what you’re doing.
- Durable – Makes accurate poundage possible in the first place, durable spring won’t wear out over time. Made of metal parts, steel spring, no plastic parts that can break, degrade or chemically deteriorate.
- Aggressive Knurling – Tears up your hands. One of the main part of getting your grip & the skin of your palms stronger. Unless your hands are injured, get rid of fitness gloves & rep with gripper to tear up skin in your hands to build formidable forearms.
- Variable knurl depth – A heavy duty hand gripper that has aggressive knurling on the palm side, less aggressive on the finger side.
- “Smart Mark” grooves – Indicate where to put the gripper in your palm and where to place your fingers.
- Radius Edges – Gives GHP a streamlined look and don’t beat up your pinky like the industry standard chamfered end.
- High Carbon Content Oil Tempered springs – Polished for appearance and lubricated with a high tech odorless, colorless synthetic lubricant
- Virtually Indestructible Label – Labels on the handle ends give GHP grippers a unique look and make gripper identification a snap whether open or closed.
- Resistance Levels for Beginner & Advanced – Covers all of your gripper training levels from trainee who just started working with grippers to gripster master.
- 10 Resistance Levels – 1-100lbs, 2-125lbs, 3-150lbs, 4-175lbs, 5-200lbs, 6-235lbs, 7-275lbs, 8-325lbs, 9-375lbs, 10-425lbs
- 25 pounds /11.3 kg increments – Ideal for progresson, small weight jumps are extra important so you won’t get stuck on certain level & to help you gradually build your grip strength to elite level.
- Portable – Put one into your pocket, keep in desk drawer or throw into gym training bag as you hit the gym. Easily portable, so you can always keep one nearby.
- Easy to Maintain – Consists of springs that are made of steel. Wipe spring occasionally using a drop of light oil to prevent it from squeking & breaking. Use a stiff nylon bristled brushes to clean knurled handles.
- Great for Rehab – Suits for rehab, prehab & recovery in general. A viable option to alleviate pain in hands & battle multiple RSI related conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Golfers or Tennis elbow, tendonitis & arthritis. To get rid of pain in your hands exercise is a must. Put more muscle on bones where it counts. Hand grippers are designed to achieve this kind of functional strength & fight off nuisances like nagging pain in forearms.
Cons:
- Designed for Right Hand – Uses right wing spring, viable option for training both hands, with a slightly different feeling when training your left hand. It’s a minor detail that most folks won’t notice at all. Once you progess you might start nit picking on it – To get maximum comfort, correct angles, performance & precision for left hand training I’d recommend to use left-hand grippers, such as Captains of Crush Left-Turn gripper.
- One Resistance Level Per Gripper – One-difficulty-only per gripper type of training tool. There’s no workaround for it other than investing more & getting whole set of individual grippers for yourself with different resistance levels. There’s an option to steer towards adjustable grippers as well once you get more serious about grip training.
- Too Agressive Knurling For Some Users – The higher the resistance levels get the more damage rough rigid surface on knurled gripper can do to your hands. Tearing up your hands with it is one of the main parts of getting your grip stronger, it sometimes can be too much so be mindful about it, approach your gripper with care & caution.
Gillingham High Performance Grippers - Ranking 92 out of 100
How Can You Benefit from Gillingham High Performance Grippers?
Fastest Way to Build Crush Grip
- Improve Your Finger Tendons Strength – This is one of the most important aspects of your hand health & strength: The actual hands ability to support the workload of activities & exercises you’re regularly performing. Using hand grippers helps you to gradually build tendons strength to work on more difficult exercises.
- Build Maximum Crush Grip Strength – Squeezing objects between fingers is one of the 4 major hand movements & it’s called cruch grip – To grab an object most of the time you use this type of grip. Hand gripper is the absolute best way to quickly improve your crushing grip.
- Improve Static Support Grip Strength – Gripper can be used when you squeeze the handles together & then hold them closed as long as you can. This is extra important exercise for you, if your main training equipment is barbell for example – Training like that allows you to hold bigger weights & for longer periods of time.
- Get Your Palms Much Tougher – If you haven’t trained in gym or with grippers before, beware the aggressive knurling on this gripper will beat your hands up & it will do so very quickly. This is a good thing – This is how your palms get stronger. The key is NOT to use fitness gloves, throw them out of window & get palms stronger instead.
- Build Well Conditioned Grip – One of the most important details to be on top of your sport is to have a better grip. Having an overall stronger, less fatigued grip helps you to perform your workout routines more effectively, as well as give bigger advantage in competitions.
- Protect Hands from Injuries – Having a bit more muscle is excellent – Muscles act like cushion to protect our body. By increasing your functional strength as well as overall muscle mass grants you healthier hands & greatly protects you from possible injuries. Staying injury-free is prio #1 regardless of your sport.
Technical Details
- Dimensions: 5 x 1 x 4.5 inches
- Weight: 7 ounces / 198 grams
- Handles – Knurled, aluminum handles
- Materials: Steel Spring
- Quantity – One (1) gripper
- Resistance Levels – Ten (10)
- Manufacturer: Gillingham High Performance
Grippers can be effectively used for rehabilitation & stress relief, if you suffer from bone stiffness.
Recover from finger or wrist injuries, tendon surgery, Carpal Tunnel or Tennis elbow.
Grips are portable. Put it into your pocket or throw into your training bag.
How to Choose the Best GHP Heavy Duty Gripper for you?
Ten (10) Different Strength Levels
- 1-100lbs
- 2-125lbs
- 3-150lbs
- GHP Levels 1-3 are in the Beginner’s Series which is just right if you are starting out with grip training.
- The Level 1 gripper will be challenging for teens and women and a good warm-up gripper for men.
- The Level 3 is challenging for men with no grip training experience, with the LvL 2 fitting right in between.
- 4-175lbs
- 5-200lbs
- 6-235lbs
- GHP Levels 4-6 are in the Advanced Series which is perfect for men that are looking to take their grip training to the next level and women looking to make their mark in the grip world.
- The Level 4 will challenge the mightiest women and is a good starting point for men that have done some grip training, weight training, or work with their hands on a daily basis.
- The Level 6 is probably the end of the road for women and if there’s a woman out there that can close a Level 6 we would love to hear from you.
- 7-275lbs
- 8-325lbs
- 9-375lbs
- 10-425lbs
- GHP Levels 7-10 are in the Professional Series. If you can close a GHP gripper in the professional series you should consider yourself a professional grip strength athlete. Almost nobody will close one of these grippers without at least some dedicated gripper training.
- The Level 7 – Less than 100 men in the world have closed the Level 7 gripper under strict certification rules as part of the GHP Gripper Challenge.
- The Level 10 – No man to date has closed the GHP Level 10 Gripper.
First Person To Close GHP Level 9 With Both Hands
Who Can Benefit from Hand Grippers?
Any Athlete, Men & Women, Older & Younger
Gripper training is excellent for both, beginners & experts alike to get your grip stronger, or even stronger than it already is.
Younger or older, man or woman, casual trainee or hardcore athlete, training grip is giving you functional strength that youcan use & likely will use every single day. In most sports, the very first point of contact with object is literally through yourfingertips. Doesn’t matter if you’re holding a basketball, baseball bat, golf club or weightlifting barbell..
The more functional strength you have in your hands, the better the performance in your respective sport likely will be.
Toughen Your Palms With 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.
Why should you always avoid excessive use of fitness gloves? Many folks rely entirely on gloves when they hit the gym & as a result majority of them usually have weakened 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 competitive athlete in the middle of a competition where gloves are allowed & give you competitive edge to win & help to prevent injuries as well, use gloves.
Other than that you always want to put fitness gloves away & work with your bare hands for functional strength.
Are Classical Spring Hand Grippers Good for Rehabilitation?
Grippers Are Excellent for Recovery
There are multiple different types of grippers available that you can benefit from, with wide variety of different resistance levels.
It helps to cover all your training routines, including the rehabilitation part. Getting in better shape as well as healing injuries are important 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.
#1 Classical Gripper
#2 Lefty Gripper
#3 Smooth Gripper
#4 Thumb Gripper
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. Learn it all from the experts if you like.
Among these authors there 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.
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 grip training, whether you’re using one, two or multiple different grippers in your training routine. They’re inexpensive & help to keep your hands pain-free. If you’re not sure, ask any qualified physio therapist, chiropractor or doctor. They all confirm that hand-bands is good way to go be healthier.
Why Should You Always Choose a High-Quality Gripper?
Consistency & Precision
Nothing is indestructible, except old Nokia mobile phone. Even high quality gripper can break, especially when mishandled & poorly maintained. Storing grips in too humid conditions or not keeping equipment clean enough can do the trick. Also modifying or exercising improperly with your gripper.
1Cheap grippers spring will wear out quickly. It keeps getting weaker, giving you illusion of progression. It gets even worse, they’re likely inconsistent. That shows in their geometry: Uneven handles, spring positioning. Subtle but vital nuances.
2 Durability is another common problem that cheap gripper have. Their springs tend to snap easily becoming both a equipment failure & safety issue for you.
There’s a chance that you’ll injure yourself, especially when spring snaps in the middle of the exercise & you’ll get hit by the shards of broken spring. It’s better to invest into high quality hand gripper. They are consistent across the board & there is much less chance for equipment failure. In addition being well engineered, there is no surprise geometry, so you can monitor your results more precisely. Train like a professional & eliminate guess-work.
What is My Final Evaluation of Gillingham High Performance Gripper?
Competition Grade Gripper
If you can, get entire set of them. Estimate your own expertise & strength levels, proceed accordingly. If you’re beginner first three grippers are plenty for couple of years. Those who are further in can focus on more advanced grippers as well.
No need to worry about grippers that get easy to close for you, they serve the purpose of being both warm up grippers & rehab devices. They will never go out of style. It all contributes towards building crush grip strength as fast as possible.
Small weight increment jumps between each gripper is the key. This helps to progress more smoothly & not get stuck on certain level because of too big weight jumps.
Remember, the fact how easily a certain gripper can be closed depends on your individual features, hand shape & size – Genetics, it’s different for everyone due this uniqueness factor. Everyone has slight variation, there’s no one size fits for all.
Grippers can be used for rehab. If you’re fighting off some form of RSI related condition like tennis elbow, mending past traumas like fractured wrist or suffered from stroke, hand gripper is a great way to build up functional strength in your forearms.
If you are looking for superior quality, GHP is pretty much it. A competition grade gripper that is reliable workhorse, sturdy & durable. The next two besides GHP you want to look at are Heavy Grips & Captains of Crush. These will be hands down your best bet.
Quality gripper helps you to strictly monitor your grip strength progress. Accurate poundage & a spring that won’t wear out over time. Consistent devices makes it easier for you to get the correct stats & to know exactly how strong you’ve are.
Thanks for Stopping By
Have Questions?
Please Leave A Comment
Wow Henry, what a thorough and comprehensive review.
It was great to see you noticing the fact that the gripper is designed specifically for the right hand, I definitely agree that most people won’t notice it.
Your strong stance against fitness gloves is interesting, I never heard it from anyone else, but I agree.
I always like to go back to a human being’s natural state – are we supposed to have some extra object on our hands when we’re going around carrying stuff? No, so fitness gloves aren’t necessarily a good idea.
Here’s my question: Do you think improving one’s grip goes hand in hand with getting stronger forearms?
Yes indeed, those two are tight-knit friends so to speak. Grip happens to be the very first link in the chain.
Everything else upwards works through & is literally engaged through our fingertips.
Thanks for noticing, fitness gloves are a cool double edged sword. While protective, like a band aid, they can totally screw over ones ability & chance to grow stronger.