Forearm Strength [Archive]

Nemesix

27th February 2008, 05:29 AM

Air grabs
Stand, arms forward, elbows locked, palms forward. Grip to fists, then open up to flat palms, at a very rapid pace.
Don?t cheat! Works the grip and clawing ability for martial arts.
"Waves": palms horizontal and facing floor, raise to vertical facing wall, lower to horizontal. Repeat lots. Especially
good to do after air grabs.
Sideways wave: same position as above, but bend wrists to the inside and outside, never rotating wrists or
hands.
Vertical waves: arms locked and parallel. Palms flat, facing each other.
Wrist roll: start same position as waves. Bend wrists and fingers up/in/down/out and continue, fingers describing
the largest possible circle on the centerline plane without moving arms. Good for developing huen sao.
"trigger" air grabs: start in same body position, but point with index fingers directly forward out of fists. Clench
index fingers into tight fists, straighten them. Isolates muscles in the top of the forearm.
Grips
Grip exercisers. One set defined as 50 each hand.
Grip holds
Grip exercisers. Hold closed for 1 minute while bending wrist through full range of motion.
Wedge
Grip exerciser that isolates the forearm muscles. Also called the palmup machine. Definition of one set is (each
hand) 40 curling the palm inwards to a fook sao position, 20 backwards (ending in a palmheel position).
WC Long Pole Exercises
Pole exercises are done with snappy motions. Should be smooth and not tense. Energy should be felt (and maybe
even seen) in the tip of the pole.
Outward pole shocking
Take a long pole, tuck under armpit. Grasp pole where hand falls. Curl hand up (use thumb), and place off hand on
end of pole, palm down. Curl the wrists in. Then punch and retract quickly, keeping the pole level and straight.
Works the palm-up arm. Do near mirror, and look only at end of pole in mirror.
Downward pole shocking
Same grip as outward pole shocking, but shock down to waist and retract.
Centerline pole shocking
Bring pole to chest level, pointing forwards. Shock the gripped end to waist, keeping the far end still and at chest
level. Improves power for low gon sao.
Roll the pole: hold pole in center horizontally at shoulder height, palms down with elbows locked. Roll as quickly
as possible in one direction for one minute, then reverse. Do not drop or lower pole, do not stop. Try with
horizontal or vertical grips. Don.t forget to switch the grip.
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Shifting with pole: hold pole in center horizontally at shoulder height, palms down with elbows locked. Shift with
it at arm?s length. Adds inertia, helps determine if you are shifting with proper stance.
Roll the pole: hold pole in center horizontally at shoulder height, palms down with elbows locked. Roll as quickly
as possible in one direction for one minute, then reverse. Do not drop or lower pole, do not stop.
Spearing jabs. Hold pole at centerline, center of chest. Thrust the pole outwards.
Wave the pole: hold pole in center horizontally at shoulder height, palms down with elbows locked. Keep elbows
locked and wave pole from waist to forehead height (no higher) as quickly as possible.
Shifting with long pole
Arms horizontal and forward at shoulder level, holding in pole in center horizontally at shoulder height, palms down
with elbows locked. Shift with it at arm.s length. The pole?s inertia at the end of the shift will show you if you are
shifting improperly. Off-balance, overshifting, falling side-side or backwards, all will be shown with this drill. Helps
determine if you are shifting with proper stance.
Wrist Rolls . take a bar or dowel. Attach a weight to the center by a rope, twine, chain or string. Roll the bar with
your hands to raise it, and roll it to lower it. Do it with your fists up, fists down, arms straight, and arms bent with
elbow in.

-credit for this goes to crazydan81 on bombshock just thought itd be helpful and interesting for everyone-

auto493398

25th May 2008, 01:39 AM

Your article is interesting but none of those methods are gonna drastically improve your forearm or grip strength much or at much speed either,
Heres a much simpler, faster easier way to massively increase your forearm and grip strength

1. For forearm strength you need to get some adjustable dumbells and not those pink or blue babyass dumbells, you need the ones that are made of steel that you can take one weights on and off, get a lot of weight, You gotta go heavy with weights for low reps to get max strength, basically 3-5 reps per set with 2 sets being the most you should do. Load the dumbell up and do dumbell wrist curls, make sure there is enough weight that by the time you reach 3-5 reps, you can no longer force your muscles to do the exercise, you must take it to muscle failure, this will in turn spark the most growth in the muscle (muscles grow & strengthen when you are resting in the days after your workout, the workout is simply the spark that starts the growth) Once youve done your 2 sets, then give your arm a week to rebuid & repair before you do it again. Next time you will be stronger, if you can do the full amount of reps, then you need to add more weight, repeat using this process week after week. This is how powerlifters become so strong

2. For grip strength im just gonna post up an article from a site I visit:

"First off I have to say that the absolute #1 source for grip info and the only place you can talk to over 70 certified captains of crush, all the mash monsters, elite benders, strongmen, and all around kings of grip is www.gripboard.com, (you must have an account to view or post). Read up and ask questions there that this article doesn"t answer.

Hand grippers:
First things first, you need to know what a good hand gripper is and no it's not something with plastic handles and a tiny 3/16" spring. These are what I'm talking about:
Ironmind Captains of Crush(COC) grippers- http://www6.mailordercentral.com/iro...cts.asp?dept=8
Beef Builder grippers(BB)- http://www.wwfitness.com/handgrippers.html
Robert Baraban(RB) grippers- http://www.fatbastardbarbellco.com/RBGRIPPERS.html
Heavy grips(HG) grippers- http://www.heavygrips.com

True heavy duty grippers designed and built to increase crushing hand strength. These are not your $5 sporting goods specials, they average around 20 US$ plus shipping. The CoC's are considered the gold standard of grippers and are made to strict standards. If you visit gripboard you may see someone rate a gripper as 2.6 or 3.2, these depend on the person but they are referring to the specific gripper being a little more than half again as hard as a COC #2 or abit harder than a COC#3. The Beef Builders and RB's are hand made and are of very good quality. You can also contact Warren Tetting(of Beef Builder grippers) and he can make you a custom model to your specifications, knurling, handle spread, toughness. HG grippers are the bottom of the barrel but are useful training tools. HG's vary a lot hence their price. In fact, when you look at the big picture the HG's don't get very difficult until the HG250 and HG300.

How to train:
I'm not going to bother saying "don't overtrain" because when you first get the grippers you will overtrain, everyone does, and your hands will be very sore, a deep soreness in the knuckles, wrist, palm and fingers. This will go away with more frequent training on the lighter grippers.
When it comes to frequency no one general rule applies, some guys can train balls to the wall 7 days a week and get good results while some can only do so 1 or 2 times a week, find what works for you. Once the initial soreness in your hands goes away you can easily gauge how long it takes your hands to recover and base your training around that.

HIGH VOLUME HIGH VOLUME HIGH VOLUME HIGH VOLUME!!! Beginners should use HIGH VOLUME, take a gripper you can close (if you can close a #1 then take the Trainer, if you can only close the HG200 then take the HG150) with you everywhere you go and just do closes. Take the gripper with you where ever you go and do over 100-200 closes throughout the day, everyday for a week or two then take 2 days off or as long as it takes for your hands to heal and you'll find that your grip strength has grown by leaps and bounds, then redo it with a higher strength gripper. As a beginner the #1 goal isn't to find your max and work with it, it's to increase the strength and durability of the tendons in your hand then work from there.

A little realized fact about hand strength is thumb strength. Thumb strength is vital to all forms of hand strength, even when closing grippers. If you're going to have strong hands then you'll need strong thumbs and the way to get strong thumbs is to work with blockweights and pinching. Blockweight training is where you take something as simple as a brick and tie weights to it and lift, the thumb is forced to push the brick into the fingers. Pinching is where you take two smooth, metal plates and "pinch" them together and try to lift them. You could use varying widths and surfaces to add or subtract difficulty. The pinnacle in blockweights is to lift "the blob". "The blob", made popular by Richard Sorin, is 1/2 of a vintage 100lb York dumbbell, the sides are rounded and smooth and it weighs 50lbs. The pinnacle of pinching is to pinch two 45lb plates together and fully deadlift them. You can exceed these "feats" but these are considered the benchmark for the elite. There is one more area that is extremely benificial, thickbar work. You simply use barbells and dumbells with thick handles, starting at 2" and on up to 3". This is very effective because it engages the whole of the hand at one time, kind of like a squat for your hands. The benchmark for the elite thick bar guys is lifting the "Thomas Inch Dumbell", a 172lb globe ended dumbell with a 2.47" handle, there is also what is called the Millenium Dumbell that weighs in at 225lbs with a 2.38" handle, only a handfull of men worldwide have even deadlifted the "MDB". You can also read more on thumb strength on gripboard.

Gripper training techniques:
www.gripfaq.com/Hand_Grippers describes gripper exercises but here are some not mentioned.

Two finger closes, try closing the T with two fingers, then work towards the #1. Especially work like this with your pinky and ring fingers, these fingers are perhaps 99% of most people's weakness when they first start out with grip so the more strength you gain in these two fingers the faster a higher gripper will fall.

One finger closes, I don't recommend doing these with a heavy gripper because if you're not warmed up properly you could pull a tendon or hurt yourself some other way but I do them with the G and S and they have really helped my closing strength.

Inverted, you can Invert the gripper and do closes that way, you'll probably be stronger this way with your left hand because of how the spring is wound.

Extensors:
Extensors are the muscles on the back of the forearm involved in opening the hand and are extremely important to hand health and strength. While training grippers, pinches and anything involving closing the hand you may develop a strength imbalance between the two sides of your forearm and you will feel pain or soreness in the back of your hands and your progress on you grip training will halt. To cure this you must train the extensors, you should train them all the time! Some ways to train the extensors are Reverse Barbell curls, you could wrap rubber bands around the ends of your fingers and open your hand(open pretty much means your pinky and pointer fingertips are farther from the tip of your thumb than you middle finger is long, my middle finger is 3 1/4" long so my pinky and pointer should be more than 3 1/4" from my thumb) and fingertip pushups.

Rest and Recuperation:
Rest is the most important thing in weightlifting of any kind. If you feel deep pain in your hands (and you"re more than a complete beginner) then stop gripping for a few days. Contrast baths are good for recouping faster, you fill two buckets or sinks with very hot water in one and ice water in the other and just switch your hands from one to the other every 2-5 minutes. You could dip your arms up to your elbows in ice water for 2 minutes then take them out for 2 minutes and repeat until you feel better. Dexterity balls, play with some dexterity balls, Chinese balls to get the hands loosened up. Anything that gets blood flowing to your hands is a good thing so there are some weird ones, like wearing mittens to bed, it sounds stupid but it does work. I've actually found that playing Fight Night Round 3 on the PS3 gets my hands pumped, in fact I've used it as a warm-up before though I'm pretty sure playing the Wii wouldn't have the same effect.

Well this is just a primer for those who are interested in grip so good luck to all of you future gripmonsters! Keep in mind I'm leaving out card tearing, phonebook ripping, steel bending and all sorts of other fun feats of strength!"