http://www.1tonhooks.com/JackHammer3.htm
It seems like it would be a great tool to increase grip strength, but its also really expensive. The website claims that other squeeze grip tools are “a joke”.
Does anyone know of any other tool to increase grip strength (since mine is relatively lacking) thats cheaper. OR just any excersizes to help? Thanks
Hey man, you don’t need the “jackhammer” to develop a “bone crushing” grip (I love the marketing).
First of all what sort of activity are you trying to develop your grip for? Wrestling? Powerlifting? Baseball/
There are many, many great grip movements that you can do. Let me know why you are interested in developing your grip and I will put a program together for you.
Take care,
Zeb
Other grippers are just as good. Here’s some things you can do:
Gripper: Get one. I like the Ivanko supergripper; a lot of people like the COC grippers
Hub lift: Hold a hex dumbbell by the hex part, if you don’t have a hub. Hold for time, weight, etc.
Pinch plates: Pinch two or more plates together. 10’s, 25’s, 45’s, whatever. For weight or time
Think bar deadlift: If you don’t have a thick bar, you can use the end of a barbell and do one handed lifts.
Farmer’s walks: Pick up some dumbbells and walk around with them for distance, speed, or weight.
Towel Pull ups: Throw a towel over a chin up bar and hold on to that for pull ups
Towel curls: Put a towel through the center of some plates and do curls:
Thanks
Another grip training/contest machine is a Rolling Thunder.
Similar set up, with a fat bar (up to 3") for a handle. Trick is the handle is free floating, so you can never just hook the weight and pull like you would a Farmer’s Walk implement, for example. You end up with and over-the-top pinch grip similar to picking up a pop can lying on its side.
I’ve seen 95lbs kick some very strong strongmen’s ass is this event.
Yeah we have one here at our personal training centre in Canada eh. One of our Strongman trainers purchased it. There are plenty of alternatives as ZEB pointed out but this one is good for just squeezing gross amounts of weight and you don’t have any concerns about dropping the weight on any bodyparts.
I’d actually be very interested as well ZEB.
I’d love to have a stronger grip for some exercises (deadlift and chinups, for example). I’ve also found that some friends can beat me at armwrestling even though I’m miles ahead of them in the gym (doing 50 lbs more on a BB bicep curl, for example), and I was wondering if this had anything to do with grip/wrist strength?
Duration hangs from a pull up bar,single handed…then wrap a towel around the bar.Use time as your measure of progress.
good luck!
Well ZEB, I would primarily be using it towards powerlifting since I can deadlift alot more with straps, being that my grip is my weakpoint. Also, while doing chinups, my grip gives out way before my back and bi’s.
If you would be willing to put a program together, if the excersizes listed already arent enough, that would be great. thanks.
And Imjudek: arm wrestling is more rotators in your arm, not primarily biceps. I beleive there are a few articles on rotator cuff strength on the site.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
Well ZEB, I would primarily be using it towards powerlifting since I can deadlift alot more with straps, being that my grip is my weakpoint. Also, while doing chinups, my grip gives out way before my back and bi’s.
If you would be willing to put a program together, if the excersizes listed already arent enough, that would be great. thanks.
And Imjudek: arm wrestling is more rotators in your arm, not primarily biceps. I beleive there are a few articles on rotator cuff strength on the site. [/quote]
As you know there are different exercises for the different kinds of grip strength that you desire.
I purchased some Iron Man Grippers several years ago and at one point could close the #2 Gripper six times in a row. This did not help my Pull-up or Deadlift grip one bit! Interesting huh?
In order to help my Pull-up grip I found that nothing was more effective than hanging from the bar for a time count. At the end of each workout I would hang from the bar for as long as possible. I did this for two sets.
To imporve my Deadlift grip I used a thick handle barbell. (You can make one if you don’t already own one). I would simply hold the thick handle bar with with about 200lbs. on it (adjust weight for your own strength level). for as long as I could. I also did two sets for this exercise at the end of each workout.
For a more in depth look at grip training, Mr. Chad Waterbury has written a very helpful article below:
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=184grip
After you are done reading about how to increase your grip strength, here is a little article on how increasing your grip strength may cause osteoarthritis. I know, no one wants to read about this stuff, but I think it’s a reality:
http://www.docguide.com/dg.nsf/PrintPrint/6416A55C280417248525670C0051AB59
Good luck with your grip training,
Zeb
I just started wrapping a sweatshirt over my thin pullup bar and doing weighted pullups - my forearms felt like they were being ripped after only 1 set
Thanks ZEB.
I agree with the advice given already. Especially Johnny Tangs and ZEB’s. You don’t really need to buy expensive items to get a great grip workout. Another one is knife fighter pushups.Get a couple of small lengths of dowels-about a foot each and as thick as you can grip with your thumb and fingers touching. Place their ends on the floor so they are vertical and you grip them somewhere in the middle like you were holding a knife to stab downwards and do pushups. IT takes a lot to balance them on their ends and it really works your wrist and grip. Triceps too, to an extent. Also, it sounds weird but ringing out water from a towel repeatedly will work every muscle involved in gripping. Check out John Brookfield on Ironmind. Lots of excercises.
Great advice ZEB.
Rope pulling worked real well for me. I did tree removal for a long time. We lowered branches and logs using 11mm arborist rope. I would usualy be the one controlling the drop of the branch. I noticed that I had a humongus grip after a couple of those goofy “Handshakes” people like to do.
With a lat machine or some other simple rig, just attatch a rope,add weight, and raise and lower the rope/weight, controlling the descent and pausing on the way down.
This got my grip to a point where I could squeeze those grip springs at 240 lbs till I was blue in the face,god knows how many reps.