DocDeadlift's Grip Workout

[Guest 68-1005097157]

People frequently approach me on the street and ask, "Doc D, how do you train your grip?"  Well, maybe they don't.  But I always find it interesting to find out how others train, so I'll give a week's worth of training for myself.  Note that most sets are done to absolute failure with a rest of between 3-5 minutes between sets.  I soak my hands in very hot followed by cold water before each grip workout.

Monday: Before grip --- Begin by deadlifting heavy triples, then go stone-lifting (each week, I'll target a stone on campus and then attempt to lift it during my Monday workout.  This is rather grip-intensive in itself).

Grip --- 1. Block Work with severed head to a York 50 lb DB (so the head itself weighs 24 lbs): 9/8 (i.e., RH/LH) cleans + presses, block toss.

2. Plate pinching with thick rubber plates: Attach 2 5lb plates to 2 25lb plates via PVC pipe, 2 reps per side with short hold

3. Finger Seated Rows: I don't currently have a finger ring to do finger deadlifts, so I remove the handle to a seated row machine and do rows with individual fingers on a metal hook (quite painful).  1/1 pinkies on 60, 2/1 index fingers on 80, 3/1 ring fingers on 90, 2/1 middle fingers on 110.  I find it strange that my ring fingers are stronger than my index fingers.

4. Finger walking: 1 rep with a 6lb hammer.  This is a great exercise described by Brookfield in MHS - highly recommended.  

5. Farmer's Walk with 100 lb plates (thick handles): 3 sets, first two roughly 240 feet, 3rd roughly 160 feet.  This is hard as I have to stop and turn around every 40 feet or so when I reach the ends of the gym.  Also, everyone else in the pussy school gym where I lift stops what they're doing and stares at me while muttering things like, "What's that freak doing?"  One moron actually came up to me once b/w farmer's sets and said, "If you want to exercise your shoulders, why don't you just use the Cybex Press?"  Very upsetting.  

6. Attempt to make a fist - do not succeed so I decide to call it a day.

Thursday: Squat, overhead press lockouts and misc.

Friday: Before grip --- Bent-over rows and heavy shrugs for triples.  

Grip --- 1. Sledgehammer levering with 6 lb hammer: 3 sets of singles with my right around 6" from end of handle, left 10" (but one hand at a time, of course).  Then 1 set per hand of behind back levering.  My primary goal right now is to very strictly lever a 6lb hammer with my arm out straight from the shoulder.  I truly believe that the dults in chrome-and-fern land think I am certifiably insane when I bust out with old Sledgy.

2. COC: 3/3 w/ Trainer, 3/3 w/ #1, 12s timed hold with #2 RH, failure to close #2 w/ left, 14s timed hold with #2 RH, barely close w/ left.  You know, when I first started with the COC grippers in early July, I could barely close the #1 RH and could not close it with LH.  In 5 weeks I could close the #2 with either hand during which time my routine was to do as many reps as possible on the #1 each hand once a week.  At my best, I got to 4 reps with the #2 RH.  Now I have been doing timed holds for a month and have weakened to the point where I can barely close the #2 with either hand.  Maybe reps aren't such a bad idea after all ...?

3. Towel deadlifts: Use one towel per hand, do 2 doubles with 290 on an olympic bar.  One of the towels seemed to be coming apart under the stress, but what do I care - they're not my towels!

Sunday: Chest and upper arms.

I haven't been training grip for long, but I'm making great gains.  Soon I'm gonna be strong as ####.  Anyone else want to give their weekly routine?

[Guest CalvinP]

HI Doc

I am NOT sure training to failure is a good idea. Because when that happens we must have at least 3 days off to recuperate. May be longer if you want to go back higher than the old level.

Two days ago I stimulated real life hard work, by using the #1 all day. Making sure I wouldnot be exhausted at any given moment. Few squeezes and there, go light at times...like you know: real life work place. Few hard one single too. Then the next day I digged solid lime rock for an hour. I worked on the forearm. but the fingers themselve were active-rested Today I am happy to say I close the #1 the first time. I know it is not much for now. 9 days ago I could not even come within 1/2" when I laid my eyes on it the first time. What I tried to say is I am progressing nicely with one to two days rest. I had about 4 work out on #1 since 9 days ago. Only one hard work out some easy exercises.

Bruce Lee on other hand! He'd always finished his workout as fast as he could. And he'd trained every day, but not nessecarily to exhaustion. Did you try to close #1 or 2 real fast explosively?

Now that my hand very much conditioned for the rough handles I hope I can go a bit harder. Any way congratulate for your progress too

[Tom Black]

DocDeadlift

   You bring the hammer to the gym?!  Even I'm not crazy enough to do that (OK, once).  You've got a good plan to progress with the hammer.  Once you get your hand all the way to the end, and the full torque of the hammer is felt on your hand, you will need to add weight.  I use an axe handle protector that I slide down the handle to secure Olympic sized plates.  You may have to buy some 1.25-pound plates, most gyms don't have them.  6-pounds to a 8.5-pound hammer is a really big jump, although you should be able to do this weight as a negative.  Just hold your free hand over you head and lever the hammer down.  The hammer will be fairly stable until you get about half-way down, and then you should be able to drop it gently into your free hand.

  Speaking of lifts in the gym, I sometimes lever the lat pull down bars in the over head leverage lift.  This is fairly easy.  I can almost do this in a horizontal lift from the floor, but the bend in the end of the bar gives me problems.

[Guest 68-1005097157]

    An unusual thing happened in my grip workout tonight.  I switched to doing lever work first as that is my goal right now (I realized I made a mistake in my last post when I listed COC after lever work; I had just made up my mind to do so, but up until tonight had not actually done it).  I made a moderate but respectable gain levering getting a double RH this week at the same position I got a single RH last week.  But then instead of having my gripper work suffer as it is no longer my primary exercise, I actually enjoyed a noticeable improvement getting 5 reps RH and epsilon away from 2 reps LH.  The only explanation I can come up with is that lever work got lots of blood flowing to my hands without much tiring my crushing strength.  Has anyone else noticed a similar phenomenon when changing around the order of their grip exercises?

Tom,

   

    I found your post extremely amusing - I got the idea to bring my hammer to the gym from you!  I was debating whether or not it was over the top when I saw your Steel Spiel interview where you mentioned that you had brought hammers to the gym to lever.  I figured, "If Tom Black levers in the gym, then darned if I won't lever in the gym!"  It's also very impressive you levered a lat pulldown handle.  I tried and could not even hold it out at a huge angle let alone do any real levering with it.    

[bTW, I'm sure you don't remember, but my brother and I actually met you once - in June at the York Strength Spectacular.  I was only just getting interested in grip at that point, but we were with a fellow named Allen who was really into grip who spoke with you for a while (I believe he even closed your BB Master).]

[Tom Black]

       Ha!  I haven’t brought the hammers in  many times.  When I wrote the interview I had done the 10 and 11 pound hammers, as I said, and I brought a 16-pound hammer in this last summer to lever.  I do the lat pull down handle fairly frequently because it is more convenient.  My focus is so high that I don’t even pay any attention to people looking at me anymore.  Lately I’ve been doing 5 singles of barbell snatches with 60, 70 and 80 pounds.  These are very light for me, I am working on my form, trying to get a good full squat on the snatch.  Here again, people may be looking, I’m not sure.  I do know they seem to give me a wide berth when I’m done and walking to the water fountain.  Not sure why  I would do the hammer lever in the gym more, but of course I do my main workout at home and I can’t fit it in.

  I do remember you!  I remember Allen, and was hoping he would e-mail me.  We were closing the Master without chalk, which makes it a little harder.  In your original post above you said:   “People frequently approach me on the street and ask, "Doc D, how do you train your grip?"  

That’s how I remember our meeting!  Ha!  I was a little red in the face when Allen recognized me.  For one, he was the first person to recognize me from my web site, and I was goofing around pretending to lift the Travis dumbbell.  DocD, it’s up to you to start the legend, when people ask “who bent those nails” in my pictures tell them that I was 7 feet tall and 4 feet at the shoulder.   Hmmm, maybe not such a good idea, I think being more of an average size makes the nail bending more impressive.  Did you guys get to talk to Slim?  Come to think of it, his dimensions are almost the same as my legendary proportions.

 Your comment regarding the hammer lifts reminds me of someone else on the gripboard who bent and then pounded some small finishing nails.  When his daughter asked him why he pounded them he said because “Tom Black does.”  It cracks me up that someone would emulate my craziness.  

[Guest 68-1005097157]

  I think you're right; people would be more impressed if I insisted that you were 4'7", weighed 115 pounds and had a bum leg.  We did get a chance to talk with Slim.  My primary motive was to experience his legendary handshake - it was unreal.  He wasn't trying to squeeze hard or show off, but the raw power of his hands and the extreme firmness of his grasp were amazing.  Allen, in characteristic style, spoke with Slim for around half an hour.  

  I haven't spoken with Allen since, but I heard that he's now extremely close to closing the #3 and can supposedly lever a 10 lb hammer.  He is head of a strength club at University of Maryland of which Jesse (my brother) is a member.  Meanwhile, I'm 2500 miles away at Caltech where some of the nerds probably couldn't lever a No. 2 pencil.  My main regret from that day is that I missed your impromptu bend of the rusty nail; I would have killed to see that.  

  With regard to your last comment - yah, it's true, so don't abuse it.  If you said in the interview that the only way to get real lever gains was to carry your sledge with you 24 hours a day, my thought process would probably be something like, "Hmm, on the one hand, I'll probably get kicked out of school for taking a weapon to math class thereby losing everything I've worked so hard for the last 20 years, but on the other hand, Tom Black said so ...."  

[Tom Black]

  I'm surprised that he is only doing the 10-pound hammer.  To me, the 10-pound is a toy and his crushing strength is close to mine.  This goes to show that grip feats can be very specific.   I'm also surprised you remember reading about that nail in my log.  Here's a picture of it:

 As you can see it's a very nasty looking nail.  It was tough to bend something not knowing before hand how difficult it would be.  The guy who I bent it for said that he had given it to someone who was able to bend 60-pennies, but he could not dent this one.  The picture is larger than normal, it is a standard size for a 60-penny, although it may have been nominally thicker than most.  This may have made it harder, or it could have been the steel used in the nail.  The tip also looks a little sharper than most.