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Daniel Böhme Training Log (journey Of The 7" Long Hands)


Daniel Böhme

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Hello everyone!
My name is Daniel Böhme. I'm Norwegian and 21 years old (soon 22). I am 177 cm tall and weigh about 75 kgs for those who wonder.
I am starting a new training log about my grip training. I am not a new member here, but I have never posted before. This is about my lifetime goal of certifying on the Captains of Crush #3 gripper. My training log will consist of what I train with, how I train, my ideologies and what has worked for me. The reason why my training might interest some people is that my hands are only 7 inches long. That is right. Extremely small hands.

Something that has always bothered me when I'm reading about grip training is that I have never read about any guy with hands as small as mine. This has made things difficult for me finding out what I should do when it comes to grip training. Few tips has helped out my tiny hands to get stronger. Now I hope I can help out other people with small hands to some extent on what might help. And if people have advice for me, that would be greatly appreciated!

I can start saying that I have been doing grip training on and off for maybe around 5 years, but I started seriously training again earlier this year. I started grip training when I got my first Captains of Crush set which consisted of the Trainer, #1, #2 and #3. Later on I got the #1.5 and #2.5.
When I first tried them out I could barely close the Trainer with my right hand. I could not close it with my left hand. Right now I am about 2 millimeters from closing a choked #2.5 gripper with my right hand. With my left hand I can close a filed down choked #2 gripper. I am doing negatives with the #3 with the right hand and #2.5 with the left hand currently.
Here is a short clip of my last attempt at a choked #2.5 (http://instagram.com/p/wovqu0K52I/?modal=true).

People might ask why choked gripper closes??? One answer is that CCS closes or wide closes doesn't matter to me until the time comes when I need to work on the #3 gripper to be able to certify. The other reason is that choker work has been my bread and butter when it comes to training with grippers. I only train with chokers. Because this has been my staple for progressing on grippers and grip strength, and because it is easier to stay injury free. I have injured myself a few times before with grippers without chokers and never with using chokers. This might be better for me since I have so small hands. The wide stretch of a gripper have been counterintuitive for me when training.

I will show you how a CCS looks in my hands soon. As you can imagine it is very difficult for me.

I also train with other grip stuff besides grippers, but grippers have been my main goal. Other stuff I do inconsistently is thick bar work, plate pinching, leverage bar work, wrist roller work, wrist curls and other forearm training. I have found out what currently works for me with grippers, but I have a hard time trying to figure out what other forearm training works for me without interfering with my gripper work. I would like to become generally strong with my hands and wrists also. Would like to know what else might boost my gripper strength.

A few tips that has helped me will be provided in the next log.

I will start writing the training log when my next grip workout starts this weekend. Happy new year!

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Hello Daniel, i will follow your log. By the way your name is german. Is your father from germany?

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I have hands about same size as yours. My training is focused to mix of dynamic and static pinching, those seem to work for me. Isometric work seems to be effective also.

Good luck with your training. I will follow with interest.

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Hello Daniel, i will follow your log. By the way your name is german. Is your father from germany?

Indeed I am partly german. My grandmother on my mother side is german. There is also german blood a bit far out on my father side too, but the name Böhme comes from my father.

I have hands about same size as yours. My training is focused to mix of dynamic and static pinching, those seem to work for me. Isometric work seems to be effective also.

Good luck with your training. I will follow with interest.

Do you have any examples of what a pinching workout for you might look like? And do you feel it has carryover to crushing strength?

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Dynamic pinching: 3-5 sets of 6-15 reps, using vulcan gripper and thumb screws.

Static pinch: 3-5 lifts per hand, usually with 5-7 second time hold. Most of time i use 2 inch wooden block.

Isometric work: 3-5 sets per hand. Steady squeeze with 80-90% effort held 5-8 seconds. Done with same wooden block and with same kind of hand positioning as lifting.

Those numbers are quite arbitrary but they feel good for me and seem to work. Any of these can be done as a part of gym visit or at home. I do one of these and next time other and so on.

I originally started dynamic pinching to build thumb pad for gripper closes. Pinching done after gripper workouts worked fine. Proceeded from closing 2.5 to doing 3 reps in month.

Edited by FJM
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Trained grippers today. Didn't go as well as planned. Keep in mind that every working grippers are choked.

First I warmed my hands in hot water for some time. I do this every time before doing grip work. I find this works for warming my hands when doing grippers, but also helps with trying to stay injury free.

When I warm up with grippers I do very few reps with lower grippers before going up to working grippers. Also when warming up with grippers I stop at a gripper a whole level under the gripper that I will be working on. So for example:
Starting doing a few reps with the #Trainer, wait a bit, do some reps with the #1, wait a bit, do maybe one rep with the #1.5, then wait 5 minutes before doing the working gripper which in this instance is a #2.5 gripper.

First tried closing the #2.5 choked with the right hand... Still 2 millimeters from closing it. No progress.
I wrote wrong on my first post. I can close a non-filed #2 choked with my left hand. I am trying to close a filed one now. 3 millimeters from closing a filed one.

Then did:
R: #3 negative and helping trying to hold it shut with my left hand. Did only one rep of this.
L: #2.5 negative and helping trying to hold it shut with my left hand. Did only one rep of this.

Then did some clicker reps:
R: #2 (filed) - 5 reps, 5 reps
L: #1.5 - 10 reps, 9 reps

Edited by Daniel Böhme
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I have tried doing negatives now for some weeks with no luck. I will go back to doing more volume closes with the #2 with my right hand and #1.5 with my left hand. This is what I was doing prior to try out some negatives. I made progress that way so will try out this again.

The problem is that when I do negatives with the #3 with my right hand, I can't hold it shut. I can shut it when pushing against my leg, but when I try to hold it it opens quite alot. It opens less with the #2.5 with my left hand when doing negatives, but I feel that I can't get some good quality when doing negatives this way.

Edited by Daniel Böhme
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Did a little forearm training today just to get a small pump. My fiancee's family got a puppy last week and we have babysitted him the last two nights. And when a puppy is only around 8 weeks old you know there isn't much sleep to get during the nights. Anyway...

I felt very weak today so did only some small different exercises to just get a feel in my forearms.

First did some non-choker work with my grippers.
Did a parallell set with my left hand with the #1 and got 7 reps.
Did a parallell set with my right hand with the #1.5 and got 9 reps. I felt that my tendons in my index finger had a bit of a sharp/sore feeling so I stopped with grippers here. Not an injury, but will take some time off grippers to let the tendons recover. All the negative work is too much for my tendons in the long run.

Then did two small pump sets with barbell wrist curls with only 30 kgs (haven't done these in a long time) and got 20 reps in the first set, and 15 on the second.

Then I just used my Fat Gripz on my barbell and did just a standing hold for time. Using 40 kgs for 40 seconds.

DId a quick set of reverse curls with just the barbell for 14 reps.

Then did 3 sets of 12 reps with doing some extensor work with Expand Your Hand Bands.

For 2015 I think I will try to do more thickbar work (Fat Gripz), wrist curls, wrist roller and leverage bar. My main goal is to get better at grippers, but I believe now that doing more overall grip and forearm training will boost my grip strength. Now is the time to experiment a bit on how to set up all the exercises in order to see what works and what disturbs my gripper training. First now I will try to split up the exercises in 3 different workouts. Will try out this first:
Workout A: Grippers then thickbar
Workout B: Wrist roller and leverage bar
Workout C: Grippers and wrist curls
Workout B: Wrist roller and leverage bar

We will see what happens here. I have not figured out yet what rep ranges and weight I will go for in the exercises. But time will show.

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There have been two workouts that I haven't posted.

8.1.15
1 hand wrist roller hold in flexed position:
flexor 25 kg + loading pin - 3*10 seconds
extensor 30 kg + loading pin - 3*10 seconds

Wrist roller wrist curls (2 hands):
flexor 30 kg + loading pin - 40 reps, 30 reps
extensor 30 kg + loading pin - 40 reps, 30 reps
Incredible pump in my thumb pads after this wrist roller section.

Then did some leverage bar work with a sledgehammer I have. I haven't weighed it or measured how long it is.
Sledehammer deadlifts (each hand): 10 reps, 10 reps
Leverage flexor twist hold (each hand): 20 seconds
Leverage extensor twist hold (each hand): 15 seconds
Reverse sledgehammer deadlifts (hammer facing other way) (each hand):5 reps, 5 reps

10.1.15
Because there is coming a small hurricane where I live, I only had time to do gripper work today:

CoC:
Right hand: #2 (filed and choked) - 3,3,2,3,2,2 reps
Left hand: #1.5 (parallell) - 5,4,5,4,2,3 reps

Looking forward to getting more and more reps into my gripper workouts. I will not try any higher grippers for a while now. I want to have a pretty high number of reps before trying out something more difficult.

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13.1.15

Wrist roller wrist curls (2 hands):
flexor 32.5 kg + loading pin - 50 reps, 35 reps
extensor 32.5 kg + loading pin - 35 reps, 33 reps

Sledehammer deadlifts (each hand): 10 reps, 10 reps
Leverage flexor twist hold (each hand) in seconds: 12,10,12
Leverage extensor twist hold (each hand) in seconds: 30

Here is what today's setup looked like: http://instagram.com/p/xzaJziK597/?modal=true

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15.1.15
CoC:
Right hand: #2 (choked and filed) - 4,4,4,3,3,2 Total of 20 reps.
Left hand: #1.5 (parallell) - 7,7,6,4,5,1 Total of 30 reps.

Standing barbell wrist curls 40 kg - 35,27 reps

Expand your hand bands (yellow) - 20,20,20

Feeling that doing more volume on the grippers are much better than the negatives. The total number of reps also increases very rapidly even though I haven't had a real break from grip work in a long time. This looks very promising. I even felt that I had more in the tank! My hands and forearms are already feeling a lot better from all the different exercises.
I want to at least be able to do a few sets of 10 reps with the #2 before trying out on the #2.5 again. My left hand strength has for some reason sky-rocketed during these last workouts.
One thing that I have noticed is that my set when using grippers (both hands) have become a lot better since doing more volume. I have developed a better base in my hands (thickness and callouses) and I also feel a lot more confident about gripper work now. And that is just from switching from doing negatives to doing more high rep volume. I did this kind of training before doing negatives and it worked well. I have had some success by doing negatives in the past, but I lose my high rep endurance strength by negatives. Have anyone else felt that?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been very busy lately so haven't been able to log until now.

18.1.15

Wrist roller wrist curls (2 hands):
flexor 35 kg + loading pin - 50 reps, 41 reps (easy repping!)
extensor 35 kg + loading pin - 40 reps, 31 reps (for some reason these felt really heavy that day)

Sledehammer deadlifts (each hand) - 10 reps, 10 reps, 2 reps (getting a lot stronger everytime I do these)
Leverage hammer full rotations - 10 reps, 10 reps (I was pretty burned out after wrist roller so I just wanted a stretch and a pump here, although I did not go too easy on these)

22.1.15
CoC:
Right hand: #2 (choked and filed) - 6,5,3,3,4,4 Total of 25 reps. (felt like I went a bit too hard on the first sets so I started losing strength a bit quick)
Left hand: #1.5 (parallell) - 10,8,8,7,4,4 Total of 41 reps. (left hand getting stronger fast!)
I usually wait 5 minutes between every set when doing grippers.

Fat Gripz barbell rack hold 50 kgs for time - 40 sec, 28 sec, 25 sec (I know I suck big time at thick bar work. The most I have ever done with Fat Gripz is one rep deadlift with 70 kgs.)
I will start doing deadlifts with Fat Gripz soon as I feel these help a lot more than just holds. I have had a little lower back injury since end of October which has made me not being able to do a lot of back exercises. I am getting a lot better though.

Expand your hand bands (yellow) - 30 reps, 30 reps, 20 reps

Any tips on getting stronger with thick bar is of great help!

Edited by Daniel Böhme
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26.1.15

Wrist roller wrist curls (2 hands):
flexor 37,5 kg + loading pin - 50 reps, 45 reps
extensor 37,5 kg + loading pin - 42 reps, 32 reps
My forearms were totally shot after this wrist roller session as I went to maximum failure on the wrist roller. So I needed a few hours pause until I did my sledgehammer work.

Sledehammer deadlifts (each hand) - 10 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps (I felt very weak and weren't able to do much here)

31.1.15

Today I finally did it! I finally closed my choked CoC #2.5 for the first time ever!!!

CoC:
Right hand: #2.5 (choked) - 1 successful rep!
#2 (choked and filed) - 5,4,3
#1.5 (parallell) - 17
Left hand: #2 (choked and filed) - Missed it by 2 millimeters...
#1.5 (parallell) - 10,8,7
#1 (parallell) - 12

Standing barbell wrist curls 50 kg: 29,17 (I could do more reps, but it started to hurt a bit inside my fingers when doing these the last set. No injuries, but have to be careful not to overdo things.)

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