favorite assistance exercise to improve grippers

[Anyonecanhappen]

Hey just thought it would be a cool post to see What everyones favorite method for increasing strength on grippers is.

 

I've found AMAZING results when I focus on inverted gripper work in like the 5-8 rep range. I do these and concentrate on mainly using my pointer and middle fingers.

What's your favorite technique or work out to improve gripper strength?

[Chez]

I do negatives with a 5-10 second hold each at the end of my normal gripper workout. Negatives are very dangerous so you have to be very careful. I do them at the end because I'm already fatigued so I don't need as much resistance and I'm very warmed up. In addition, the 5-10 hold means that I'm not using a crazy resistance that will rip my hand apart immediately which is even riskier. I also progressively increase the negatives so its not a shock for the hand. Start too light is what I always tell people. I use my robert baraban adjustable gripper with extended handle for the negatives. 

I threw these in a while back and I really believe it made a huge difference and helped me close a couple COC #4s 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Chez

[Anyonecanhappen]

Nice man I don't personally use negatives I know alot of people love them though.

Ive also been experimenting with doing some dynamic effort sets after my main work.  Similar to a Westside concept.  Ill do like 6 sets of 2 reps with a lighter gripper focusing strictly on speed. 

I'm actually interested in trying to use a westside approach for all of my grip training.  2 days per week.  One hand gripper day one general grip strength day.  Rotate max effort lifts constantly trying to PR with a variety of movements than some dynamic work and assistance work working on weak points

Edited May 22, 2018 by Anyonecanhappen

[Chez]

2 minutes ago, Anyonecanhappen said:

Nice man I don't personally use negatives I know alot of people love them though.

Ive also been experimenting with doing some dynamic effort sets after my main work.  Similar to a Westside concept.  Ill do like 6 sets of 2 reps with a lighter gripper focusing strictly on speed. 

I'm actually interested in trying to use a westside approach for all of my grip training.  2 days per week.  One hand gripper day one general grip strength day.  Rotate max effort lifts constantly trying to PR with a variety of movements than some dynamic work and assistance work working on weak points

Some people have used power lifting programs for grippers. I know of at least 2 guys. One used the cube method and one used 5/3/1 and some other programs. They both had workout logs posted on the board but I think they stopped updating them. 

[Fist of Fury]

1.Chokered torsion spring grippers, heavy single closes with hold.

2.Light Set Practice. They way you do it - You take a light gripper that you can close easily and set it in your hand and closing it entirely only with the setting hand, no finger walking with the hand you're setting it in. This will make your setting hand very strong very fast. It's best to do it with an adjustable gripper like the Vulcan or Baraban adjustable since the tension is better throughout the whole ROM.

3.Beyond The Range. Heavy single closes with hold.

Non gripper exercises, for injury prevention an dexterity...

1.Dexterity Balls.

2.Fingerwalks.

For injury prevention and general strength building...

1.Supination & Pronation.

2.Reverse Curls.

3.Some sort of finger extension.

For other grip specific exercises I never really had any big success with carry over as some people seem to have. I think 2" axle work is good I've felt some carry over from it. With thick bar it's very important to not train too hard though since it can easily make you weaker with grippers if you go too hard too often.

[Anyonecanhappen]

Ive heard other people say that also that thick bar will make you weak on grippers.  Why is that do you think just general fatigue and it being hard to recover from? I've honestly never experienced that myself maybe because I try to rotate my main general grip strength exercises pretty frequently?

[Chez]

9 minutes ago, Anyonecanhappen said:

Ive heard other people say that also that thick bar will make you weak on grippers.  Why is that do you think just general fatigue and it being hard to recover from? I've honestly never experienced that myself maybe because I try to rotate my main general grip strength exercises pretty frequently?

Thick bar and grippers stress your hands in very similar ways so doing thick bar right before grippers will zap your gripper strength and vice versa. 

 

I handle this by splitting  the two as far apart as possible in my training schedule.   

[Fist of Fury]

30 minutes ago, Anyonecanhappen said:

Ive heard other people say that also that thick bar will make you weak on grippers.  Why is that do you think just general fatigue and it being hard to recover from? I've honestly never experienced that myself maybe because I try to rotate my main general grip strength exercises pretty frequently?

As Chez said it stresses the same muscles. And heavy thick bar training stresses the muscles a lot more in my opinion and thus it's harder to recover from. All the best guys at thick bar are big guys. With very few exceptions.

Heavy gripper work can zap your thick bar strength as well, it depends on how you train.

[Anyonecanhappen]

Oh yea that makes sense.  I do a gripper specific workout on Monday and general grip on Thursday training them together never made sense to me

[Boulderbrew]

6 hours ago, Chez said:

I do negatives with a 5-10 second hold each at the end of my normal gripper workout

I do the same thing. I probably never officially thanked you. I used you gripper program and closed a stout 3.5 for the first time in January

when I first started doing grippers, I did heavy negatives at the beginning of my sessions and got really hurt. Doing them at the end is the way.

@acorn has a cool video somewhere of him doing plyometric style gripper workouts using a kettlebell and resistance bands...kind of hard to explain

[Chez]

10 minutes ago, Boulderbrew said:

I do the same thing. I probably never officially thanked you. I used you gripper program and closed a stout 3.5 for the first time in January

when I first started doing grippers, I did heavy negatives at the beginning of my sessions and got really hurt. Doing them at the end is the way.

@acorn has a cool video somewhere of him doing plyometric style gripper workouts using a kettlebell and resistance bands...kind of hard to explain

Thats great. I’m glad it helped. It’s also funny because I remember looking over one of your recent contest results with the NYC grip guys and we all said “Dam! Tanner is good at grippers now also so he has like no weaknesses”

Edited May 22, 2018 by Chez

[Boulderbrew]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

Tanner is good at grippers now also so he has like no weakness

Haha I don’t know about that, but Inappreciate your confidence in me. I am still pretty average at narrow pinch and hub 

[Jörg Keilbach]

13 hours ago, Anyonecanhappen said:

Nice man I don't personally use negatives I know alot of people love them though.

Ive also been experimenting with doing some dynamic effort sets after my main work.  Similar to a Westside concept.  Ill do like 6 sets of 2 reps with a lighter gripper focusing strictly on speed. 

I'm actually interested in trying to use a westside approach for all of my grip training.  2 days per week.  One hand gripper day one general grip strength day.  Rotate max effort lifts constantly trying to PR with a variety of movements than some dynamic work and assistance work working on weak points

ME-exercise for Grippers:

20mm

30mm

GHP Block

CC

Machines

 

Assistance for Grippers:

BTR Gripper

isometric holds

TTK

last two fingers on Frankenstein Gripper

set practice 

extensors

rotations

I would always do speed sets before the max effort sets. 

1. Speed Sets 6-8 x 3 @ 70 %

2. ME exercise up to max

3. 2-3 assistance exercises

I don’t know if it works for grippers but this is how I would do a Westside-Gripper day.

[Fist of Fury]

6 hours ago, Jörg Keilbach said:

ME-exercise for Grippers:

20mm

30mm

GHP Block

CC

Machines

 

Assistance for Grippers:

BTR Gripper

isometric holds

TTK

last two fingers on Frankenstein Gripper

set practice 

extensors

rotations

I would always do speed sets before the max effort sets. 

1. Speed Sets 6-8 x 3 @ 70 %

2. ME exercise up to max

3. 2-3 assistance exercises

I don’t know if it works for grippers but this is how I would do a Westside-Gripper day.

Do it!

[Anyonecanhappen]

17 hours ago, Jörg Keilbach said:

ME-exercise for Grippers:

20mm

30mm

GHP Block

CC

Machines

 

Assistance for Grippers:

BTR Gripper

isometric holds

TTK

last two fingers on Frankenstein Gripper

set practice 

extensors

rotations

I would always do speed sets before the max effort sets. 

1. Speed Sets 6-8 x 3 @ 70 %

2. ME exercise up to max

3. 2-3 assistance exercises

I don’t know if it works for grippers but this is how I would do a Westside-Gripper day.

Great info thanks man