How Often Should I Do These Forearm Workouts??

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

How often should I do the following exercises on a weekly basis: hex dumbbell holds, farmer walk, the plate pinch (walking, standing, 360, etc), and Captains of Crush grippers? Last time I did plate punches, the top of my right forearm near the elbow was a bit painful and still is right now…I’m assuming I should wait until the pain dissipates and then continue on.

I’m not sure why this happened in only the right forearm and why this happened in the first place. Maybe I should have stretched the extensor muscles beforehand. Can you help with this second question of my right forearm pan as well? Thank you guys.

2

If the pain continues, stop doing that exercise until you get it fixed.

As to your question, forearm muscles recover extremely fast and you can train them every day as long as you use different exercises. Meaning you can do one or two exercises on day A and one or two different ones on day B. So the answer to your question is - train them as often as you feel like it. I would recommend at least twice a week mixed into your usual workouts.

3

In my opinion the Hex Dumbbell hold is a lot like a plate pinch with super wide plates. Super wide pinches are stressful! Especially if you already worked those muscles doing plate pinches, then you hit them again, in a super weak position. I’m pretty sure this would make my forearms hurt too.

I would just pick one, plate pinches or hex dumbbell holds, and work that lift for awhile. So, pinch plates for a month, then try hex-dumbbell holds for a month.

In addition to stretching your extensors, you can also work them to keep them strong. I like to do 1 or 2 “grip” exercises, and 1 “forearm” exercise during a grip workout. Like pinch and reverse curl. Or farmer’s walk and wrist roller. Hex dumbbell hold and reverse wrist curls super-setted with behind the back wrist curls.

Some guys recommend doing finger extensor work, spreading your hand open against rubber bands or in a bucket of sand or something, but I don’t have any experience with this. Doing some wrist work, making sure to hit the muscles on the “top” of the forearm was usually enough to keep my forearms feeling OK.

A sample grip week could be like

Day 1
Hammer Curls
Plate Pinch
Wrist Roller

Day 2
Farmer’s Walk
Reverse Curl
A few Gripper squeezes at home

And grippers at home, once or maybe twice a week. I always found it hard to build strength on these things. Usually I would try to progress on plate pinches, wrist work, thick dumbbell stuff, then come back and test myself on the grippers to see if I’d made progress.

Are you just trying to get a stronger grip in general, or do you have some specific grip numbers you want to hit?

4

FlatsFarmer, I am just trying to improve my grip and overall forearm strength and mass. I can currently close c.o.c 6 times in my right hand but can only do it 3 times on my left. I would like to be able to close number 2 five times for each hand, although the progress is very very slow…don’t know…

5

[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
In my opinion the Hex Dumbbell hold is a lot like a plate pinch with super wide plates. Super wide pinches are stressful! Especially if you already worked those muscles doing plate pinches, then you hit them again, in a super weak position. I’m pretty sure this would make my forearms hurt too.

I would just pick one, plate pinches or hex dumbbell holds, and work that lift for awhile. So, pinch plates for a month, then try hex-dumbbell holds for a month.

In addition to stretching your extensors, you can also work them to keep them strong. I like to do 1 or 2 “grip” exercises, and 1 “forearm” exercise during a grip workout. Like pinch and reverse curl. Or farmer’s walk and wrist roller. Hex dumbbell hold and reverse wrist curls super-setted with behind the back wrist curls.

Some guys recommend doing finger extensor work, spreading your hand open against rubber bands or in a bucket of sand or something, but I don’t have any experience with this. Doing some wrist work, making sure to hit the muscles on the “top” of the forearm was usually enough to keep my forearms feeling OK.

A sample grip week could be like

Day 1
Hammer Curls
Plate Pinch
Wrist Roller

Day 2
Farmer’s Walk
Reverse Curl
A few Gripper squeezes at home

And grippers at home, once or maybe twice a week. I always found it hard to build strength on these things. Usually I would try to progress on plate pinches, wrist work, thick dumbbell stuff, then come back and test myself on the grippers to see if I’d made progress.

Are you just trying to get a stronger grip in general, or do you have some specific grip numbers you want to hit?
[/quote]

So would you say to just do these two days of arm work during the week without having a third day added in?

6

If you’re also doing stuff like deadlifts, chin-ups, rows and curls, + 2 grip workouts, you’re already doing a bunch of work.

Start with 2 sessions, and see how you do. It’s OK to be sore, and your hands and forearms are gonna hurt sometimes, but you don’t want to push it so much you are in chronic pain. Once you get some kind of frame work or simple routine set up, and make some progress for awhile you can start adding more grip workouts.

Like Aopocotex mentions, you can work up to a high volume of work for grip/wrists. There are like 17 muscles in your hands and forearms. There are tons of different exercises you can do. Spend some time working within your capacity, doing workouts that are tough, but that don’t absolutely kill you. Push a few exercises at a time, and experiment with a few other with light/easy weights.

At some point you’ll want to
-use thick handled barbell/dumbbells
-bend nails
-leverage sledge hammers
-Do 3, 2 or 1 finger chinups
-tear phone books
-pick up plates by the hub
-1 arm deadlift
-crush apples/beer cans/potatoes

Once you have have experience with a few more moves, it will be easy to structure your grip training to include more sessions without working the same stuff over and over.

Don’t sweat slow progress on the C.O.C.'s. Sometimes I’d go no where on them for weeks or months at a time. Just continue to push progress on other lifts that you can add weight to more progressively. If your pinch/bending/supporting grip all get stronger, your crushing grip will get stronger too.

When you are closing a gripper with your left hand, and you are about to run out of steam, grab the spring with your right hand. Stabilize the gripper, and kinda turn it “against” your left hand to get more leverage. See if that helps you force out another rep or two.

7

And because we’re in the bodybuilding section, I’ll advise you to shave your forearms. They’ll look huge.