The 10 Muscles That Are Most Neglected But Most Important!

Hands and Fingers!

We use them every day and need them to be healthy just to carry out those daily things. Also you see a lot of bad wrists, carpel tunnel syndrome (overuse damage) and joint pain in the hands. It’s also not a “show muscle” like biceps or shoulders so not many really think about it.

But your grip is needed for things as simple as carrying groceries to your car or home or holding on standing in the bus. Things like wrist curls are great for forearms but I’d also say doing things like rolling a towel into a ball and back out or crumpling a piece of paper as small as you can or squeezing those stress balls or just standing holding a weight in hand suitcase style is good as well and practical to use.

The ancient Wrist Roller is a great overall conditioner as well if you had no time to do anything but one exercise! For lack of the Wrist Roller (not all modern gyms have them sadly!) you may take a light barbell and starting with it at your upper thigh level, arms straight down “Roll” the bar up your body as if rolling up a newspaper.

First, do a roll up flexing your wrists downward with each repetition so your knuckles point toward the floor each time. Repeat this til the bar reaches the top position (upper chest just below your neck). Lower slowly and controlled and repeat the exercise until you can’t complete the trip to the top position.

Rest a bit, then perform the same motion in a reverse direction where your wrists flex upward each time with the knuckles arching skyward and infront of you.

Lower slowly and controlled and repeat the exercise until you can’t complete the trip to the top position.

Another way would be to set a barbell up in a squat rack and tie off a length of rope and knot it in the end (smooth loading end of an Olympic bar is thicker and slick thus more challenging.) or centre of the bar and run it through the weight plate(s) and use your wrists and forearm power raising the weight by turning the bar set in the pins of the rack. (This version can be seen and demonstrated in the excellent WORLD’S STRONGEST ARMS dvd from www.ironmind.com with former European armwrestling champion and world strongman Magnus Sammuelsson of Sweden. )

One full roll to the top in each of the 2 directions equals 1 set of the exercise. Repeat the exercise until you can’t complete the trip to the top position.

Add weight when you are able in either/each variation.

GET ON A ROLL!!

TIL NEXT TIME GRIP TITE!

ARE YOUR LOWERS  LAGGING??

          Lower arms that is.  The answer is probably a resounding YES!

But wait, who cares about forearms?

Well think about this… 1) Even if you wear a short sleeve shirt the first thing someone sees are your POPEYE forearms (or WIMPY’s ….But not for long!!  ) and 2) it doesn’t matter if you have a big bicep because they aren’t as big and strong as possible without a big and strong forearm with it.

          A little known fact is that there are different areas of lower arm training depending on your goals, activity or sports.

 

1)     CRUSHING GRIP:  Good for Football, wrestling, armwrestling, martial arts, injury rehab to site a few examples where applied.

Probably one of the two most basic in this list to train.   Let’s look at a few exercises….

Hand Grippers or Stress Squeeze Ball or Tennis Ball Squeezing :  The easiest way to do this is go for 5 minutes each hand while watching t.v., driving your car, on the bus, ANYWHERE!

 

Another way you can work this in is  taking a piece of newspaper and crushing, rolling it up as small as you can.    (GREAT! For injury rehab.)  You may work fingers independently here as well.

2) SUPPORT GRIP: Good in gymnastics, weightlifting/powerlifting.  Done by holding weight in your hand(s) for time.

SIMPLE!

Dumbbell Holds: Grip weights as in doing heavy shrugs and hold statically for as long as possible.

Barbell Holds: Grip Barbell as in doing heavy shrugs and hold statically for
as long as possible.

HERCULES HOLD:  Stand in a Cable Crossover Station in the centre, grip each handle in each hand and hold the weight stacks on either side from dropping for as long as you can.  (**HINT**  Curl in your wrist and squeeze the shoulder blades together as much as you can while lowering and widening your stance to look as if you’re riding a horse to add time to your holds!)

3)     PINCH GRIP STRENGTH: Most used in certain styles of martial arts, climbers  and by many musicians.

What you do here is  grab and lift something using your thumb and finger digits with your hand forming like an eagle’s claw or a pair of pliers.  THIS IS POSSIBLY THE TOUGHEST FORM OF GRIP TRAINING THERE IS! 

Because of the small areas of the actual hand involved here.  Try a few ideas mentioned below and see.

Pinch Grip Plate Lift and Hold: Lift a barbell plate at your side suitcase style with a “PINCH GRIP” between your thumb and fingers like an eagle talon and hold in your grip as long as you can.

Pinch Grip Plate Curl: Lift a barbell plate at your side suitcase style with a “PINCH GRIP” between your thumb and fingers like an eagle talon and turn it over so your hand is palm up with the flat side of a gym plate facing down.  Proceed to “curl” the plate  up to your shoulder and back down slowly as you would with a dumbbell, barbell or machine curl in the gym.  This is a very tough and strange exercise and you must build up a tolerance to it.  At first you will feel as if your fingers with snap off!

Do for maximum reps with a manageable weight 1 set each hand.

Pinch Grip Pull up/Chin up: Basically doing a chin up holding onto a flat surface or board using the “eagle talon” grip mentioned earlier above.

Do for maximum reps 1 set and/or a timed hold in that position.

Plier Lifts: Attach a pair of pliers to a paint bucket filled with sand, stones, paint, water, whatever you can use and simply lift it with the plier handle, hold for time or carry it around.  (An exercise from the book MASTERY OF HAND STRENGTH by grip master John Brookfield)

4)     FOREARMS/WRIST POWER:  Probably the second most common element of training the lowers and the simplest.

Applied to Golf, Hockey, Armwrestling, Boxing, Lacrosse, Mechanical work.

Barbell/Dumbbell Wrist Curls : Take the weight in a palms up grip and flex the wrist up toward the forearm and lower it back down slowly.  Perform these standing or seated with arms resting on a bench.  I will also recommend for more mass and strength and heavier stress do them standing with the bar at your upper thigh level as if doing the earlier Bar Holds and proceed to do the wrist curl in this position.

Work the forearm flexor muscles here.  (The meaty under belly of the forearm)

Barbell/Dumbbell Reverse Wrist Curls : Take a palms down grip instead here and flex the wrists up and back so your knuckles point skyward.  Perform these standing or seated with arms resting on a bench.  I will also recommend for more mass and strength and heavier stress do them standing with the bar at your upper thigh level as if doing the earlier Bar Holds and proceed to do the reverse wrist curl in this position.

Work the forearm extensor muscles here.  (The harder to hit neglected area on top of the forearm.)

Hammer Curls: A dumbbell Curl with palms facing each other or parallel position, thumb up.  Proceed to “curl” the ‘bell  up to your shoulder and back down, repeat for desired repetitions.

Work your Brachial muscles here. (the gnarly bundles of muscles around  your outside of the elbows giving your arms the rugged power look!)

Finally…..

Hand Grippers with a Curled Wrist Squeeze:  A variation on Grippers training.  Simply attempt to squeeze a gripper shut while maintaining a flexed wrist position throughout.  If wrist straightens out or you can’t squeeze any more terminate the exercise for that session.

I hope this will be helpful to you to build Upper Class lower arms!

Try 1 exercise from each of the 4 groups mentioned (CRUSHING, PINCH, FOREARM/WRIST POWER, SUPPORT STRENGTH)

2 - 3x a week with at least 1 day rest between for a well rounded balanced routine.

TIL NEXT TIME GRIP TITE!