Strong Hands for Strong Men
By Nick McKinless
For www.EliteFTS.com
Strong Hands Not Geek Grip!
There was a time when having strong hands was just part of training and not
a subculture all of its own. Strong hands were one section of the body trained
equally hard and rested enough to recover and work them again the next session.
However, having strong hands does not mean you have to start discussing the
intricacies of grip technique. If having strong hands does nothing but give you
great confidence to hang onto the bar for deadlifts or farmer’s walks then the
goal has been achieved.
Closing a No. 3 COC Gripper might be a nice feat, but it isn’t going
to give you a decent all round grip strength for Strongman, powerlifting, or
any other strength based sport. Rarely does the dynamic nature of grippers come
into play in any sport or activity. Grappling is one such sport, but even for
these athletes I can still think of better exercises than grippers alone.
Most of the strength required for strong hands is that of supporting
strength, pinching strength, and wrist strength. If you train these three areas
diligently, you will have a great all round grip and strong hands to go with
your already (I hope!) strong body.
Supporting Strength
The power rack deadlift with a 2-inch range of motion. I have all
beginners do this exercise for grip work. Many trainers like to have people
hang from a chin-up bar. I use this as well, but there is nothing like feeling
heavy, heavy weights in the hands to make you feel strong.
Start with a double overhand grip and work up to a maximum weight. Here’s
the “secret” bit though. Make sure you have the bar behind your back and still
have the hands double overhand. If you do it in front, you can pull the bar
into your thighs. Behind the back and it’s all grip. When you can’t lift it
anymore in this style, switch to a reverse grip and load up those wheels! The
very best can handle well over 1000 lbs so don’t be shy. For a change of pace,
try a fat bar.
The farmer’s walk or holds. Farmer’s walks are now famous in strength sports and
rightly so. It doesn’t matter whether you use dumbbells, EZ curl bars,
kettlebells, or farmer’s walk bars. The point is to
just do them. If you want an exercise that hits just about everything but puts
extra stress on the hands then the farmer’s walk is for you. For overload work
that doesn’t require any movement, do farmer’s holds. Make sure you are only lifting
them a few inches so that it’s the hands not the back that’s getting worked.
Pinching Power
There are so many pinch exercises, but the best ones for any gym no matter
where you are in the world are two handed pinches with two 45s and one handed
pinches with two 25s or two 35s. If you need to add weight, get a short piece
of 2-inch piping and stick it through the middle of the plates. Add weight as
required. The greatest strength gained from pinching is the stress that it puts
on the thumbs. Thumb strength is crucial for strong hands. I also like pinching
with a towel over the plates or with gloves on. It means less weight, but the
advantage is that you can do more volume without getting any tears in the
webbing of the hands. More volume equals a bigger pinch, which equals stronger
thumbs which equals stronger hands!
Wrist Flexion and Extension
Wrist strength is so overlooked that many great grippers and guys with
strong hands don’t do anything for the wrists, and that’s a recipe for an
injury from a lack of balance in the forearms. Ideally, you would want to do
all forms of wrist work. However, with time constraints, I would consider wrist
curls and reverse wrist curls essential training.
For wrist curls, I like to have people do them with thumbs under the bar and
with the backs of the palms resting on the knees or a bench. This will allow
you to use more weight and train them through a range of motion that won’t
cause wrist injuries. Rarely is the wrist bent back into the extreme range of
motion that people usually do wrist curls. Eventually, this is asking for
trouble. Worse still is opening up the hands. There’s plenty of safer ways to
stretch the wrists. The competitive table top wrist curl has seen lifts of over
600 lbs!
For the extensors, I like to have trainees simply grab a 5 lbs or 10 lbs
plate. Hold it over the knee in a pinch position and perform a reverse wrist
curl. This, like many great exercises, is simple but effective.
How?
If you want, you can fit all this into one session. This will give the hands
plenty of time to recover until the next workout. Dedicating one whole training
session to grip alone has worked well for many in the past. Here’s an example:
- Pinch, 2 X 45s adding
weight until you reach a maximum weight. Drop the weight to 85 percent and
either do a couple of holds or do as many reps as possible.
- Power rack 2-inch deadlift,
work up to a maximum weight with a double overhand grip (behind the back,
remember). Switch to a reverse grip and work up again. Hold the top
weights for five seconds or so, just enough time to know that you “own”
the weight but not so long that it’s an endurance feat.
- Wrist curl on knees, three
sets of 15–20 reps
- Reverse plate wrist curls,
three sets of 15–20 reps
Fitting It into the Routine
For a traditional Westside approach you could do something like this:
ME lower
Pinch, work up to a top max in the two handed pinch
ME upper
Support, work up to a top max in the 2-inch partial deadlift
DE lower
Wrists, 3 X 15–20 of wrist curls and plate extensions
DE upper
Pinch, work up to a top max in the one handed plate pinch
Then the next week you would start with a support exercise like the farmer’s
walk, thus rotating exercises from session to session like the Westside
conjugate method.
Strongman training
ME upper body
Pinching, one handed plate pinch to a max
ME lower body
Wrists, 3 X 15–20 of wrist curls and plate pinches
Events
Farmer’s walk or holds, 3–5 sets at 75–85 percent
or work to a max hold
I’d like to finish with a word on hand care. Forget looking macho and
building up rough, calloused hands. Get a
Employ these methods, leave the grippers and feats alone for a while, and
watch your hand strength soar!
Nick McKinless is a professional stuntman with film
credits that include the Matrix trilogy, Troy, and Batman Begins.
He has won numerous grip competitions and is a 105 kg Strongman competitor. He
has been involved in strength sports for over 20 years. Nick can be contacted
at nick@beyondstrong,com.
© Copyright Nick McKinless October 2006
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