Quest For Gripstrength Starting With Gripper #3

[Geralt]

Today grippertesting, to see how far all the thickbar/RT work up till here is killing my gripperwork. Or not. As it seems, i haven't lost much strength at all. This is really surprising, since I did pretty heavy thickbar last Wednesday. Would this be....'progress'?

several #3 MMS closes, even the 153lbs rgc felt good. Missed my BBE by a hair from a pretty decent paused MMS set. Lighter repwork with 2.5. 

We continue this quest. 

 

[Geralt]

Wasn't feeling it today at first, since I have done a lot of physical work this weekend. Should be a rest week now, but I am skipping it since I have two weeks to go before vacation. 
Gripwise also a few days more rest, since I have done a lot of volume last week. 

Cycle 4, week 1, Squats, last set up to 112kg x 8, Shoulderpress last set up to 55 x 8. No assistance due to time restriction. 
Ending with 4 x 8 bw neutral grip chins. Surprisingly, everything felt easy and I held myself back with the squats. 

Now, I have been fumbling around with using straps. I want to save my grip a bit since I am doing enough of that already. I am amazed in some exercises with a difference this makes, not having to worry about grip, although it is not my limiting factor at all when doing all over work.  Changed my squatform to low bar, oddly with straps, but the bar sinks in more comfortable and from the side, I saw (video) that the bar is now much more in line with my knees. I noticed a world of difference today. 

 

Also cool note, my wife has started lifting a few weeks back and she likes it, we made a nice program which is pretty basic but covers most lifting movements and follows basically the 531 principle (no I don't care what programs are better). She tested a pretty solid 70kg 1rm on the backsquat with pretty good form and 80kg on the trapbar DL. I was amazed  Nice to have a lifting buddy in the garage now. 

Edited June 27, 2016 by Geralt

[Geralt]

Griplunch. 

- Warming up; 
- RT didn't test well. So switched up to grippers. 
- All 20mm blockset: IM#3 (144) 1 x 3 reps; MM2 (150) 1 x 1, IM#3 (149) 4 x 1. 
- Plateloader gripmachine, fingerwork; 
- plateloader 100kg one hand holds. 

The plateloader work was heavy for them tendons. It's not the hold itself, it's the sudden drop in pressure which is killing. Now rest a while for specific gripwork. 

[Royz]

Very cool that your wife has taken up lifting too. No more hiding in your mancave from now on though.

[RTvG]

This might come in handy in near future: 

 

 

Or this one, when the kids want to start too:

[Geralt]

Maybe if I win SHvN in October some sponsor will donate me equipment like this  small chance though 

[Royz]

1 hour ago, Geralt said:

Maybe if I win SHvN in October some sponsor will donate me equipment like this  small chance though 

Your not gonna win duuuude.

[Grind]

46 minutes ago, Royz said:

Your not gonna win duuuude.

Lol

[Geralt]

9 hours ago, Grind said:

Lol

Don't encourage this kind of behaviour, Mark! 

[Geralt]

This morning before work. 
Flat bench and dips, worked up to 110kg one hand holds on plateloader. Pretty intense gripwork this week. Did a lot of extensor work, which was my main goal this workout. Need to balance things out. 

Didn't feel the energy for DL work. It's ok, since this was supposed to be a rest week for 531. Lower intensity next week. 

[Geralt]

Cycle 4 week 2, Backsquat, shoulderpress didn't feel right today. So be it. Next week no room for training, so I mixed my training up a bit. After my vacation I will begin with this cycle again. Ended with 1 x 5 and 3 x 3 all with 120kg pretty easy, which felt nice. 
Assistance rear foot elevated split squats with weighted vest. Couldn't finish my sets of 10. 

Light leverwork with dumbbell loaded on one side. Tomorrow physical therapist visit, for stretching and massaging my lower arms. Maybe he can un-tie a few knots in there. 

For the rest, just a recovery period for grip. 
 

 

 

[Geralt]

Flat bench worked up to 1 x 8 @ 100kg, 1 x 5 @ 100kg (grinder). Bench is coming up very slow but steady. Never been a great bencher and mostly my shoulders acted up because of stupid programming (or even lack of any form of programming) and maxing out every time with bench.

Push ups from pushupstands 1 x 20, 1 x 15, 1 x 12, 1 x 10; 
Some tricep isolation stuff with cable pulls. 

2HP, slick wooden block 4,5cm (45mm), worked up to 1 x 80kg. Had more in the tank for sure, but don't want to try and max out every time. For some reason I like blockpinches more than Europinching. Probably because of easier setup. Ended with 2 x 5 x 70kg. 
Will probably start using the Europinch also after my vacation. Need to work on programming it all in. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2016 by Geralt

[Royz]

49 minutes ago, Geralt said:

1 x 8 @ 100kg,

Gettin' strong bro.

[Geralt]

34 minutes ago, Royz said:

Gettin' strong bro.

Thnx Roy, don't feel that way haha Hardest thing for me is the unracking, I think I have my uprights a bit to low still, so I push it out and have to find my balance a bit too much, which causes me a rep I think every time. I noticed I got a lot stronger on bw dips also, so good thing. The 531 method gave me very good results so far. My shoulders are still behind very much. I would need to test my shoulderpress, but a 1rm between 65 and 70 kg (strict)  would be my best guess. Not good. Pressing my own bw (100kg) sounds like out of this world for me. 

[Geralt]

Been off for a few days for vacation with the family. Since I was not far from Belgium, I had talked with Joefrey Wibrin some time ago about meeting up. We have been doing some corresponding now and then from the beginning of me joining the GB. We finally found a good time to meet up with each other last Wednesday, so I payed him a visit with - of course - some of my equipment. After I arrived, the day literally flew by!

After a cup of Joe and some talking, we decided to begin our session and I was permitted to enter the holiest of holy places in Belgium in Joefrey's house. Lot's of gripstuff to play with but so few things to do before the hands go numb. Turns out that Joefrey has a lot of neat stuff, a lot of it handmade or just gathered and fabricated from found materials. Also a lof of nice original implements. Just like me, Joefrey likes grippers a lot and it shows. 

We did a warming up with the grippers and while talking, we closed already some pretty heavy grippers up till RB260 and HG's - just for trying - before we actually got started. I had no idea where I would stand gripperwise, since my effort had lay a lot in the thickbar field last weeks. 

We both closed several 3's from the easy range to the tough range. I also closed a 155 Ghp7 quite easy and Joefrey showed me his Monster Hunter collection from Silvis. Tried them and he suggested me filming the level 4 for a certification with the settingblock. I believe it's a 30mm block. He filmed me closing it for 4 reps. I am pretty sure I could have managed a TNS with it, but I wanted to try some heavier stuff. We talked a bit back and forth after this and he gave me an 'lighter' IM3.5 to try. I made a good MMS set judged by him but I missed it by just a hair. I was really surprised with this! Apparently my current training works out well. Joefrey hadn't been doing a lot of gripperwork lately but still did some pretty strong closes from MMS to TNS with a lot of different heavy grippers. Our hands started to get pretty tired from the gripperwork and in the end Joefrey showed my his certification #3 on which he certed in 2014. He wanted me to try it, just for fun and I had no expectency for myself that I would even come close. However, I got it down,CCS, to again, just a hair! I was very glad with this, since I had been doing a lot of gripperwork before this. 

Joefrey prepared some lunch and the keyword here was: 'Meatballs'. Nom. 

After lunch, we started with the rolling thunder. We worked up in reps with some different weightloading and we discussed some technique. We didn't end up very high in weight, probably because of the high volume of grippercloses we did in the morning, but I managed to pull 75kg. I believe I tried 80 or a bit less, but after the 75 I was a goner and didn't get good lifts again. Joefrey and I were on the same level. After the RT he introduced me to the IM Hub and we worked up from 10kg up till 21kg, which I could lift in a good way to lockout and back. I have never trained the Hub and so didn't Joefrey for some time, so this was a good base to establish. 

After this we did Globlifts, penny lifts and some other stuff I don't even recall any more from memory. We did so much and talked and laughed a lot. I had taken my 25kg Blob with me, but we couldn't do anything with it at this point anymore. 
I was quite toasted but Joefrey insisted that I would try some bending. At this point I couldn't get the technique down right, so I just watched him doing some stuff. Turns out that for bending, Joefrey was amped up and he bend - first time - the equivalent of red nail with suedes! He was stoked and wished he had put that energy in a red nail, so I suggested why not try it again, which he did. It was very cool to see someone bending in realtime, but also getting his first red nail! Although not in the IM pads, it was a great feat to achieve and to witness. Also, he did it easily within the official time frame, just two hits for the kink and two hits for the crush. It melted. Now Joefrey knows he can pull it off and he will start in working the padding down to IM wraps. It's a matter of time before we will see him bend the red nail under cert conditions. 

Joefrey introduced me to his wife and one of his sons who just came home after that and we drank a cup of coffee again before I traveled back home. He showed me his IM#3 certification papers and was clearly stoked about his red nail bend. Big achievements. We had a great day! joefrey thnx for your hospitality and we will meet up again in the future for sure. It was a good motivating workout for future things to happen. Persistence is the key. 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2016 by Geralt

[Grind]

Sounds like you had a great time and at the look of your new avatar the vacation did good!

[anwnate]

Great writeup man!

[Geralt]

3 hours ago, anwnate said:

Thnx! We did so much, it's hard to remember everything.  

4 hours ago, Grind said:

Sounds like you had a great time and at the look of your new avatar the vacation did good!

Yeah...the photo was taken before my morning coffee, true story haha

 

Dammit, I forgot that we both also did a silver bullet hold at the end of the day. 'Regular' IM#3, 2.5kg with original implement. Both around 22 secs strong hand and 17 or so off hand. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2016 by Geralt

[Geralt]

Getting back into training after a week vacation and a grip meet up. A bit rusty in the movements, squats are always tough for me, even after the shortest breaks. 

New 531 cycle, ended with 1 x 5 @ 112kg and did a joker set of 5 again. didn't want to push to max reps first set because of the rest week. 
Rear foot elevated split squats, 3 x 10 @ BW. Tough exercise for me. I suck @ legs. 

Shoulderpress, ended with 10 x 52 kg. 
Assistance front raises with thickbar. 

Ab wheel rollouts from the knees and chin ups @ BW.  
Ended with a few rounds of tyre hammering. Killing! 

Bought a nice pulley attachment for my squatrack, for pulling both from the ground and from above. Cool implement to have and my wife also wanted to have it, so that's a win! 
Also a pair of Ab strabs will be delivered tomorrow for leg raises. My home gym is getting better and better throughout the years now. Only thing that would be cool in the future would be 50mm sized material and bumperplates for olympic lifts. But for now I am proud of what I saved up for and what I could gather. Home gym is cool. 

Edited July 17, 2016 by Geralt

[RTvG]

Geralt, I always wondered whether the pulley attachment and weightstack would complicate setting up for squats? Meaning when pushing/pulling yourself under the bar, don't you bump your head then? Because of that fear, I invested in a barbarian lat machine, also low and high pulley. Quite nice! 

[Geralt]

11 minutes ago, RTvG said:

Geralt, I always wondered whether the pulley attachment and weightstack would complicate setting up for squats? Meaning when pushing/pulling yourself under the bar, don't you bump your head then? Because of that fear, I invested in a barbarian lat machine, also low and high pulley. Quite nice! 

I tried it in the shop while we were passing by in Druten and it still works, but just. If I don't like that after trying a few times during training, I just put the clamps on the other poles inside the squatrack, so I can still squat in the cage, only facing the other direction. I really want to keep everything as much as possible in the cage, so I don't need to sacrifice the car space. Choices choices....

[Joefrey]

Nice write-up Geralt! And thank you for your kind words! I will remember that day for a long time. Day passed too quickly and this was the really first time I shared same passion with someone else - live ! We didn't spare any effort and I've seen great closes from you. No doubt you'll cert on #3 one of these days. I've put aside grippers for too long. Your visit really inspired me. I'll train much more now and get the GHP 7 certification. Good to have challenges !!

My conclusion is that friendship developed on the Gripboard has always been valuable and appreciated.

I wish you all a great day and great training session !

[Geralt]

12 hours ago, Joefrey said:

Nice write-up Geralt! And thank you for your kind words! I will remember that day for a long time. Day passed too quickly and this was the really first time I shared same passion with someone else - live ! We didn't spare any effort and I've seen great closes from you. No doubt you'll cert on #3 one of these days. I've put aside grippers for too long. Your visit really inspired me. I'll train much more now and get the GHP 7 certification. Good to have challenges !!

My conclusion is that friendship developed on the Gripboard has always been valuable and appreciated.

I wish you all a great day and great training session !

All likewise Joefrey. 

Griptraining today

Very warm day, been bicycling with the family today so I felt very lazy after dinner. Still, wanted to do some gripwork since later this week we have other vacationplans. 
After my vacation I will divide the several implements throughout the week as much as possible, but today just did a bit of everything in one session. 
Grippers after warming up: 

Ghp6 2 x 5 25mm blockset; 
IM#3 (153) 2 x 1 25mm blockset, felt hard today. Note: Joefrey also tried it a few times and he also experienced that this is a gripper that feels harder than it's rating. Probably                                  more sturdy sweep.
IM#3 (149) 3 x 1 25mm blockset; 
Ghp6 1 x 1 TNS, but just. (More of a technique problem though)
          1 x 3 CCS; 
          1 x 2 CCS. 

Wasn't feeling it today very much for the grippers. I could have done better. Again, after vacation I will fall back to my workout regimen with more thickbar and such, less emphasizing on grippers.

Rolling thunder: 
Lifts up to 75kg;  

Leverwork;
wrist and lowerarm on the ground, repwork with up till (I think) 5 kg with a homemade hammer thingy replica with thick handle. Wanted to weight it, but the scale didn't pick the weight up properly. 

Pinchwork
with wooden pinchblock (45mm), up till 70kg, few reps. 

Wasn't much more in it today. Tomorrow 'normal' lifting. 

[Grind]

How did the lever work go? Did it feel heavy? 

[Geralt]

Really hard to say since I am not sure how much my empty dumbbell weighs and the fact that I didn't feel on my 'normal' strength at all. These kinds of levers I have never trained before, so I still need to see where my baseline is. For tonight this weight was more than enough to get some good reps. I think for the strict form we want to see in the comp,  the big difference in contestants' experience and so on, I would not go higher in weight than wat you are planning now, specially for a first comp. I also must add that I use a pretty thick handle so that also causes my implement to feel pretty tough.