A few weeks ago, I was doing some hanging leg lifts. This is where you hang from a chin up bar with your arms straight and lift your legs up until your toes touch the ceiling.
I did a bunch of them and noticed that I was losing my grip.
My abs hadn’t reached full fatigue but I had to stop.
I thought to myself, “Dang! I never realized before how important grip strength is.” In order to perform hanging leg lifts or any calisthenic exercise from the bar you have to have a strong grip.
The muscles in your hand and forearm work in tandem to keep your body suspended in the air.
If you lose your grip faster than your other muscles fatigue (Like I did) you destroy your chances of using the bar as a strength tool.
That’s why I created the 4 Steps to Improving Your Grip Strength.
4 Steps To Improving Your Grip Strength
Step 1: Fingertip Squeezes
The first exercise that you’ll want to do is called Fingertip Squeezes. This exercise strengthens all the muscles on the inner part of the hand.
You can’t see it in the picture but I am in a plank position. My weight is suspended on my feet and my fingertips.
Once you have that position. Squeeze your finger tips together against the floor. These will be very small movements.
Do 10 reps.
Step 2: Hand Squeezes
The next exercise is a yielding isometric. My Isometrics Strength program that I’ll be launching soon goes into much more detail but essentially yielding isometrics are when you tighten against a force that is not immovable (like overcome isometrics).
For this exercise you’ll be griping your hands together and squeezing as tightly as you can for 10 full seconds. After you have finished one side flip the hands over as shown in the video below and do another set.
Step 3: Wrist Lifts
The third step in the routine is called Wrist Lifts. You’ll be in a doggy position.
Lift your wrists up as high as you can with the weight of your upper body directly over them.
The more weight you put over your wrists the harder the exercise.
Do 10 full reps.
Step 4: 2 Handed Hangs
The last step is called 2 Handed Hangs. Essentially, this is just hanging from a bar.
I use this as my “finisher” move because its fun and its a great move to try to max out.
If you can do 60 seconds of these than you’ll want to move on to the alternate variation below.
Step 4 (Alternate): 1 Handed Hangs
The 1 Handed Hang is the alternate variation to the 1 Handed Hang. Its much more difficult and requires you to grip the bar with even more force.
Once you can hold a 1 Handed Hang for 60 seconds on both sides consider your grip strength to be at a very proficient level.
The Video
The Routine:
I recommend following a schedule of 3-4 days per week. You can go through the above routine once, twice or three times if desired.
Here are some sample routines to follow:
Mon/Wed/Fri
Mon/Tues/Thur/Fri
Sun/Tues/Thur/Sat
Strengthening the muscles of your hands and forearms will happen by doing normal calisthenics such as handstands, front levers and pull ups.
However, your grip strength will improve faster by doing the above routine.
-Todd
Hi!
love your workouts as they are all bodyweight based but du to lack of time in my schedule…
i haven’t been able to actually reach the goal that i want to achieve.
i just want a perfect ripped body with muscles shaped and ripped specially chest and arms…and my lower body and obviously fat loss workout too.. I want short workouts…well it might be hard to get shorter workouts but well i thought i might just give a try by mailing u…
thanks Todd 🙂
Hi Siddharth,
Yeah, its totally fine to do short workouts if they are very intense. Most of my workouts on the site are short. Also, in order to get “ripped” you really have to hammer down on your diet. Drop the carbs WAY down and get some healthy meats and fats in your diet. Also drop the processed foods. Good luck!
I know this should be about working out, but your daughter is like your Mini-me! Very cute! Your daughter, not you. Just in case. 😉
LOL! I have heard that she is a mini-me many times Don. I definitely have some strong genes! 😉
There is a huuuge step from 4 to alternate 4. There are many steps between, where you hang using bar in one hand and atowel in the other, then towels in 2 hands then some fingers to help, tetc
Hi Todd this is very interesting i have been trying to source exercises to improve my grip i will difinitely give these a try.
Where did you get your pull up bar from? Seems to have a lot of choice for hand positions i need one like that.
Thanks Mate
Todd,
I can’t believe this showed up today in my email! I’ve been doing your Isometrics program and just completed week one. I was thinking about grip strength and boom here it is! It’s a perfect add on for the program. Dang, now you’re a mind reader. Thank You so much Todd! Gary
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/05/15/odd-exercises-for-physical-vigor-an-oldtime-strongmans-15-minute-morning-routine/
may be easy but fantastic!
Hi Todd!
Interesting reading on gripstrength.
I do my griptraining twice a week and it’s mostly Rolling Handle and onearm deadlifts.
Sometimes I also do pinchlifts and platecurls.
All these exercises work really hard on my flexors and I usually train my extensors once a week.
For my extensorwork I use rubberbands over my fingertips and force them open and I also use a oversized can filled with a few kilos of sand, put my hand in it and extend my fingers to lift the can up. By can i mean a big container where there used to be some kind of “gainers powder” in it.
And sorry for my english, it’s not my native language but I hope you all understand what I have written.
Merry X-mas and a happy new year 🙂
i’ve tried 3-4 times, and that link always fails c. 1/3 to 1/2.
what appears to be spam i guess is the link to”website”