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Advice From The Grip & Bending Veterans


Jared Goguen

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I have learned so much from digging into the old threads here, this forum is goldmine of information.

You guys that have been training grip and bending for years and years if you could go back and change one things about your training when you started what would you do differently knowing what you know now?

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Nothing at all. I'm very happy with the way my bending and grip turned out. My body could take 90% of the abuse I threw at it.

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For me, I wish I had focused on balance from the beginning. Balance between flexors and extensors, open hand and crushing, pinching and supporting, left hand versus right hand etc etc...

When I started dabbling in grip 11 years ago I focused too much on wrist curls with almost nothing for my extensors, and much too much on grippers without any open hand training whatsoever...or really pinch for that matter.

These mistakes led to tendinitis as well as a severe disproportionate strength on grippers versus thick bar or 2HP.

I've spent the last 2 years trying to correct these imbalances and I'm still not there yet.

Tendinitis is mostly under control but strength imbalances are still obvious and will take even more time for me to correct.

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A few thoughts of what I've learned: (1) Only invest in the tools you'll need, (2) find the right training volume that works for you, (3) play with ideas and mold them to fit exactly to what you're going after, (4) experiment with your programming, (5) have fun no matter what you're doing.

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Lot of good things mentioned. Only thing I would add is something that most of the folks who have been around here have implicitly learned - patience. Some folks start out and go crazy with their workouts, then end up injuring themselves, and then we never hear or see them again.

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I wish I had gone climbing more.

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I wish I had gone climbing more.

This!

Not specifically climbing per se. Just make sure you are making your own progress toward better. YOUR better, not someone else's. Took me 7 years of strength training to realize it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Find your own path!!!

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Train diverse... If your training has a narrow focus, then it will show in competition - which good ones are designed to showcase the most balanced competitors. Train grip as part of the whole body. What good are Pirellis without a great engine? Just like the big bodybuilding guys have soft sissy hands, we don't wanna have monster mitts for hands but are weak as shit with everything else. Train a variety of disciplines!

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I have no regrets - I was fortunate enough to get to compete with many of the best Grip Athletes in the world while pursuing my climbing with my wife all over the country - playing with my grand kids, and loving my retirement. I also got to make some wonderful friends that I cherish. I'll stay in grip a few more years but I want to focus on a few climbing goals for now.

I like to think the only real true weakness I allowed myself to have was grippers - I just couldn't get into them for some reason.

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Such great advice here.

I agree, happy I read thru this one.

I am hoping to add block weight and maybe some type of pinch.

Right now I'm limited to having a few db's and body weight stuff, anyone have a simple plan to share.

Goal is to MM0 before years end, but I'm seeing I need to change it up for sure.

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Here is the big big big piece of advice I can give:

You ready??

Toughen your hands, your grip and bending will advance so much quicker. do that now, because later it will be sooooo much harder and annoying. I'm debating on doing a small write up on how to toughen hands quick and safe.

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I'm debating on doing a small write up on how to toughen hands quick and safe.

I would read that for sure.

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Here is the big big big piece of advice I can give:

You ready??

Toughen your hands, your grip and bending will advance so much quicker. do that now, because later it will be sooooo much harder and annoying. I'm debating on doing a small write up on how to toughen hands quick and safe.

Get a job :). One where you actually work with your hands - one week with a shovel etc and your problem is solved.

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Get a job . One where you actually work with your hands - one week with a shovel etc and your problem is solved.

Lol great quote!...and very true

Working with a shovel brings some good memory's to mind

I remember when I was a laborer for the first masonry company I worked for back when I was about 17...it was the dead of winter and we were laying brick on some mansion on the tip of a private island with the wind blowing across the frozen water on three sides of us and I was complaining about being cold....my boss looked at me and said "hey kid if your cold, then pick up the heater" and he pointed to the shovel in the mortar box....all the brick layers laughed and I thought about it for a moment...darn it if he wasn't right!

Working with a shovel day in and day out builds a lot of character among other things...hand toughness is certainly a side effect of shoveling that we in the grip world can truly appreciate!

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Lol! Chris, for some time now i have seemingly disagreed with many of your statements. But i couldnt agree with this one more.

Not sure what I think that you disagree with but we all see things from the perspectives of our own lives. And each is different for sure. I look "back" at things now more than forward like I did when younger- a lot of the things I say are things that I learned the hard way (with stitches, casts, surgery, or therapy of some kind) - and they are things I never could have accepted as true when I was ten foot tall and bulletproof as a young man who trained like a madman. It's often my hope that I can prevent just one injury to someone from my experiences and views. In the future when you disagree with things I say - come back with your point of view - we might both learn something from the exchange.

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I will add that, So far as i can tell, having rough hands helps with everything grip related accept pinch.. It almost seems like my dry overly callous hands just do not allow me to get a good texture to help "stick" to a pinch implement. ..if that makes sense

Try cupping your hands and breathing moisture on your hands right before you pinch - it's a balancing act between too much and too little but play with it and it can help. People have set some big numbers using a "spritzer bottle" even :).

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Having a 9 pound hammer in hand for 8 years building traditional wooden ships has proven to be great training for grip. I can drive 10 inch by 1/2 boat spikes with one hand. Sledge levers all day basically

Ha

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Having a 9 pound hammer in hand for 8 years building traditional wooden ships has proven to be great training for grip. I can drive 10 inch by 1/2 boat spikes with one hand. Sledge levers all day basically

Ha

That would work :)

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I would have milked my training and proceeded with a touch more caution, listening to my body when it hurt and rested more. Injuries suck.

Tom

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