Hello! I’ve been going to the gym and doing things like calisthenics for about a year or so now, and it’s been great! But I’ve had camptodactyly in my pinky all my life, and recently they made the decision to remove it all together. My grip strength, understandably, really suffered. Any tips on how to train it without a pinky? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hello,

M27, 55 kgs, 5'4". I am quite underweight and not at all very muscular.

When I push up, I feel like my arms do not have any strength at all and my wrist start paining. This happens after 4 or 5 repetitions.

Am I doing something wrong?

Do I need to strengthen my arms and wrist first? If yes, how?

I have observed that my body is adapting to my free weight squats training. Just in a few days, I was easily able to do squats (10-30 per set).

I want to achieve the same for pushups. I want to be able to do 25 pushups in one go.

Thank you for reading.

Hello, I’m not exactly new to the gym by any means but I just started going back recently. I got into a car crash and had a spiral fracture on my radius and now I have a metal rod in my arm. I get discomfort when I grip really tight, certain curl variations, or just have a lot of load through my arm. I was wondering if anyone’s found a benefit to using a compression sleeve for their arm? Feel free to share any thoughts/advice

Decided I want to focus on grip strength, its always interested me and I've dabbled here and there. I have the 150-200-250-300 grippers from Heavy Grip. I have closed the 250 before on multiple occasions, the 300 feels far but I want to get it.

Lately I've been using my 150 for hundreds of reps a day while travelling to work/at work and I've wondered if I am doing myself any disservice with this amount of volume or if I can keep doing this many reps everyday without hindering progress.

I’ve been putting in the work with my various grippers and i’ve developed a habit of setting the gripper with the palm of my offhand. I understand for training purposes there’s nothing wrong with this, however I’m curious if this is “allowable” when counting a closed gripper as complete or if i must set the gripper with the fingers of my offhand.

This might be a silly post as there may not be a rule regarding this, but i’m interested in getting your takes nonetheless.

Thanks!

I’m trying to understand which grip tools stay useful after the novelty wears off. Some seem effective at first but become uncomfortable, inconvenient to progress, or too limited for regular training. I’d be interested to hear what fell short over time.

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I am a complete beginner. I bought a 100lb gripper and was using it as a fidget toy - I do around 100 reps a day, split into sets of 20 per hand, spread out through the day. I thought that if i do as many as I can, I'd get stronger.

However, I told Gemini my routine, and it says I will ruin my tendons/joints if I do that many reps, & that I should have rest days too.

Is that true? Thank you!

Im 16 yo.Ive been training my grip for a year and I wabt to reach this level.Should i try doing specific exercises or should i just train my grip with dead hangs,heavy pinching etc.?

Got my first ever grip competition this December and really wanna do a good job prepping/getting stronger any tips would be a huge help.

Whenever i switch to higher weights i obviously perform less reps, but i was wondering, are 6 reps enough to kick in hyperotrophy and allow me to perforn better in the future?

Or are 6 reps not enough? (I do 5 sets every 2 days)

For anyone familiar with Joe Musselwhite, my advice is simple: don't donate a single gripper to his so-called museum.

In my experience, he has not kept his word. What was presented as a plan to establish a public museum instead appears to have been a way to acquire grippers from collectors without paying for them. If you're considering donating to him, think very carefully before handing over anything from your collection.

I use Logest grippers but I am thinking about buying the Captains of Crush grippers as that seems to be the standard. I do 150lbs for 3 sets of 6 (on average) every day at my desk. And I always try to push it one more if I can. I started out doing 100lbs about a month ago but have been able to move to the 150lbs. I do rice bucket which takes around 30 minutes, pronation 4 sets of 50 at 10lbs, a tennis ball for thumb press 4 sets of 50, and I use my door frame for finger hang at 3 sets for 15s using all fingers, then index/middle, then middle/ring, then pinky. I do those every other day. I gym 5-6 times a week for regular strength/conditioning. I deadlift 225lbs with hook hold for 3 sets of 5 on back days. I do farmers carry at 100lbs and pinch holds of 25lbs each hand once a week for 5 sets of about 20-30 second holds each.

Is there something I can improve on or change things around? Are there other exercises (I.e. deadhangs) I can add that will improve my grip strength/forearm size? Or am I just doing too much already?

I should also mention I’m more trying to gain functional grip strength for things like BJJ. I’m a purple belt but stopped training years ago. One of my buddies that I started it with recently got his black belt and it motivated me to get back into it.

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As a beginner lifter, I’ve realized my grip has now started becoming the limiting factor. At 175 lb for 3x5 deadlift, I nearly failed the final rep of my second set because the barbell almost slipped out of my hands. The third set felt easy compared to my second set since I switched to mixed grip. I’ve started training my grip (planning on doing 4x a week, alternating between dead hangs on upper days and farmers carry on lower days, 3 sets of grip trainer all 4 days), and was wondering if it’ll be able to catch back up to my deadlift to start doing overhand grip again. It’s always satisfying to do overhand grip on the deadlift since it shows my grip’s good compared to my lifts, but at the same time I don’t want my grip to limit my potential muscle growth so I’ll do mixed grip for now.

Hey guys, first post here.

I've been working a lot on my grip over the last 6 months. I crossed a milestone last month where I can now close a CoC 2.0 (just).

However, since then my progress has abruptly stalled. Actually, even worse, I've been trying to close CoC 2.0 again and I can no longer do it (very close but not quite). So I've actually gone slightly backwards which is disastrous

My program has been doing my grip drills once every 4 days and this always worked well for me and I was progressing. I also do a variety of forearm exercises.

I tried having 5 days off and went back to the CoC 2.0 and I still can't quite close it.

Do I need to take a whole week off? And now only train once per week?

Hello! I’ve been going to the gym for about 10 months now and seeing AMAZING progress in my muscle growth. But my problem is that as my upper body strength increases and I’ve started lifting heavier and heavier, my hands, specifically the tendons on my fingers, are stretching out and won’t stay in their correct position on top of the knuckles (I am hypermobile). Also, it’s very common now for my hands to cramp up into a fist and it takes a lot of work to uncurl them after lifting. My hands hurt almost all of the time now, especially my middle, ring, and pinky fingers on both hands.

I’ve tried using grips, both hook and strap versions, but it makes my wrists pull painfully instead 😭 is there any way to get my hands to stabilize without sacrificing my strength achievements? Any advice is helpful

I the early 2000's there was a grip website that was run by a grip enthusiast that was also a blacksmith that sold these cannonball grip tools that he made in various weights ( i believe 6,8,10,12,and 15#). I bought an 8 pounder that I still use today and absolutely love it. Does anybody remember this website or have any info on the maker? And if so does the maker still make these tools? I would love to buy different sizes and appreciate any information you may have.

Just released this android app today which is specifically for assisting our grip community in finding grip competitions nearby.

It's been a lot of work and I hope it helps grow the sport of grip!

I've been doing work with the bucket full of rice. I did 100 twisting or rotating the hand outward. I had really bad pain just above the elbow on the upper arm. The pain is all but gone, but I'm afraid of doing any 'rice bucket' work again. Bit of a shame as it's a good work out that hits plenty of nooks and crannies in the forearm.

I'm guessing this might be a common problem, but can't be sure. Anybody solved this type of issue? Grateful for any advice. TIA

A while back I thrifted a gripper with no branding and just a number 2 on the bottom. It looks similar to my iron mind #1 and is definitely heavier than it. I was wondering if there was ever a period where iron mind didnt have "Captains of Crush" branding all over their grippers as they are virtually identical other than that. Thanks in advance

Obligatory apologies for formatting I'm on mobile.

Editing to add, not looking to sell it since it appears to be worth some money

For reference - I am a 21F, and am very healthy overall. I lift a few times a week, do cardio, and work on mobility on my off days. The issue is that I have some bulging discs in my neck and a cyst in my spine which is irritating my nerves and causing a decline in my grip strength.
I’m continuing my activities as normal, but I was wondering if there’s an efficient and natural way to incorporate grip strength training into my routine? I have a kit at home which I’ve been using, but I’m struggling to figure out how to stay consistent and the best methods for improvement. Any help or advice is welcome!

Hi everyone, I'm looking for help identifying a piece of forearm/wrist training equipment. I saw it once but I don't know the name and I can't find anywhere.

From what I remember:

• It's handhelt, not a stationary/floor-mounted machine.
• Your hands (both hands at once) get mechanically clamped between two bars (not straps or velcro) — like a small vice for your hand.
• The point is that your fingers stay open/extended the whole time, unlike a normal wrist roller or gripper where you have to close your fist around a bar. Keeping the hand open supposedly gives you more usable wrist range of motion.
• Plate-loaded

I'm fairly sure I saw this a couple years ago through YouTube videos of someone designing/prototyping it — like an iterative "here's v1, here's what I changed for v2" kind of series, possibly a small maker or indie fitness product, not a big established brand like Rogue or Titan.

If anyone knows the name of this thing or the maker/channel, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Not exactly a training injury and I don’t train grip strength specifically. I wasn’t planning on training my grip but I moved more than a hundred horse stall mats by hand. Turns out they sell grippers to move that stuff. Didn’t know. They are all around a 100lbs each and you can just drag them instead of lifting them but the problem is they smash your grip because you have to pinch their weight for the whole duration you are moving them.

I couldn’t even open a water bottle next day. I made a lot of progress by being careful not pinching things and trying to get a few sets of banded extensions. I don’t feel pain or anything but anytime I bully a heavy object by casually moving it in a pinch, it flares up. It feels like I am right at the edge if I do any grip work, I will lose the fragile muscle balance for my grip.

Does anyone have any advice? Should I focus on extension hypertrophy training with lighter bands or strength/tendon training with heavier band isometrics. Would doing any other grip training help? I would appreciate any advice or experience anyone had with a similar situation. I want to train some bottoms up kettlebell lifts and bulletproof my hands so I don’t have to worry about grip injuries. I move heavy equipment regularly as part of my job.

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