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Wrist strength and its effect on crushing power


MarkusA93

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Hey guys, 

I joined this forum a few days ago and wanted to know if someone shares my experience. 

When I started training my grip my workout plan only involved closing the coc grippers and working my forearms extensor with rubber bands. Adding pinch grip training affected my ability to close grippers in a certain way but I believe that getting my wrists stronger is what helps me the most besides training my crushing grip of course. Now I'm training with a sledgehammer to get my wrist strength up. 

As of now I can close the coc nr 2.5 for about 10 good reps. 

What I notice in people today is that the majority got very weak thumbs, I had the same problem until I started developing  my pinching strength. And what I also believe to have noticed is that people who got a strong/"visible" flexor carpi ulnaris possess good crushing power. 

Anyone who noticed differences after incorporating wrist strengthening in their routines? 

Thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to answers/opinions! 

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Thank you for answering. In fact I also did the exercise you described but only sporadically. I am now going to do it more consistently - sounds logical to me to hit the extensors more to ensure good muscular balance. 

"Your start sounds more thought out and sound than most new to grip." 

Yeah grip strength has been fascinating for me for a long time so when I actually started my training I thought that I want to do it right/effectively. That's why I did quite a lot of research, so I pretty much knew which muscles I had to strengthen in addition to those worked by closing grippers but had to get training equipment first. I was lazy and didn't built a pinch grip device until the time I was already closing the coc #1 for like 50 reps. Strengthening my thumb helped me more than I thought it would and I probably would be a few percent stronger if I had done so from the start of my gripping journey.

I believe that if people would invest more time researching before starting to train grip there would be a lot more coc#3 and 3.5 closers. (lots of people train wrong/and injure themselves which lead to major setbacks in achieving ones grip goals but of course you know about that) 

I am grateful for your advice! 

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Synergy Forearms built my base long before I ever heard of the GB or Grip Sport - I did and still do recommend it for anyone starting out.

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Learning from my past experiences, one should pay a good detail in training all aspects of the forearm.  This helps with imbalances, prevents injury and your as only as your weak link. If one has a muscle that's weaker then the others, then it will affect you. The stronger you already have the muscles, then start doing all aspects of grip you will be stronger, have more endurance and not get hurt.  I neglected this key aspect and messed up my elbow. I trained more grip stuff, like static holds, finger training, pinch grip. Did more bodyweight exercises for wrist strength. Did that for years, while neglecting training forearms muscles like I should.  That started the KTA, and bam, dam elbows went.  Took me over a year to heal my elbow.  Learned my lesson, stronger ALL your forearm muscles are, the better and healthier your forearm will be, thus will translate into better grip gains.   Some might make fun of bodybuilders, but in terms of training all aspects of a certain muscle, its a much better way to go for longevity, epically in grip training.

I actually now have to be careful and train my forearms more then I train grip now because of it.  But hey my elbow is 100 percent again and I can train again, so only thing that matters :))))

 

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10 minutes ago, JasonL said:
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Learning from my past experiences, one should pay a good detail in training all aspects of the forearm.  This helps with imbalances, prevents injury and your as only as your weak link. If one has a muscle that's weaker then the others, then it will affect you. The stronger you already have the muscles, then start doing all aspects of grip you will be stronger, have more endurance and not get hurt.  I neglected this key aspect and messed up my elbow. I trained more grip stuff, like static holds, finger training, pinch grip. Did more bodyweight exercises for wrist strength. Did that for years, while neglecting training forearms muscles like I should.  That started the KTA, and bam, dam elbows went.  Took me over a year to heal my elbow.  Learned my lesson, stronger ALL your forearm muscles are, the better and healthier your forearm will be, thus will translate into better grip gains.   Some might make fun of bodybuilders, but in terms of training all aspects of a certain muscle, its a much better way to go for longevity, epically in grip training.

I actually now have to be careful and train my forearms more then I train grip now because of it.  But hey my elbow is 100 percent again and I can train again, so only thing that matters :))))

 

Good to hear your elbow healed up!

Yeah neglecting certain muscle groups causing muscle imbalances can be very detrimental for your health. I also experienced it. For me the problem were my shoulders and chest muscles. Too much benching and military pressing without properly strengthening the antagonist muscles led to a pretty bad muscular imbalance causing bad posture. Once I started training those antagonist muscles my posture luckily  got better pretty fast. At least I then knew how important a certain balance is. 

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1 hour ago, climber511 said:

Synergy Forearms built my base long before I ever heard of the GB or Grip Sport - I did and still do recommend it for anyone starting out.

I will look into it. Thanks! 

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I can tell you that having strong wrists will help you in every aspect of grip, not just crush. My wrists were very strong to begin with and I have excelled in grip very fast as a result. The first time I touched a sledgehammer I was able to face lever an 11 pounder for 5 solid reps. My crush strength isn’t too shabby either if I must say so myself. So yes! Train dem dare wrists! And @Tommy J. is 100% on point for the extension wrist curls. I would also add in reverse barbell curls. Good luck.

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Synergy

Wrist Curls

Reverse Wrist Curls

Wrist Curls behind the back

Reverse Curls

Lever Work all direction

Everything is done HIT style to failure

Best beginners (and beyond) program out there - especially with limited equipment

Look it up for all the details you need to know

But if all you have is one exercise - do finger curls (palms away) in a power rack - when you get to double BW on them give me a call about how easy a #3 is to close

Edited by climber511
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You know. Ive done none of whats mentioned and my grippers were/are decent. 

 

imagine if I actually did this🤔 

Might of been coc3 cert, mm5 by now. Smdh

Edited by KapMan
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1 hour ago, Joseph Sullivan said:

I can tell you that having strong wrists will help you in every aspect of grip, not just crush. My wrists were very strong to begin with and I have excelled in grip very fast as a result. The first time I touched a sledgehammer I was able to face lever an 11 pounder for 5 solid reps. My crush strength isn’t too shabby either if I must say so myself. So yes! Train dem dare wrists! And @Tommy J. is 100% on point for the extension wrist curls. I would also add in reverse barbell curls. Good luck.

I certainly will train them, now even harder than before. My wrist strength is above average for sure but that doesn't mean much I'm afraid. Especially my left wrist is relatively weak. It's also my left wrist that tends to hurt when benching heavy. Probably weak extensors? Weak wrist in general? What I realise is that I'm noticeably weaker at forward levering on my left wrist but almost but my wrists are almost equal in strength when it comes to reverse levering. 

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45 minutes ago, KapMan said:

You know. Ive done none of whats mentioned and my grippers were/are decent. 

 

imagine if I actually did this🤔 

Might of been coc3 cert, mm5 by now. Smdh

My crushing grip was also decent even before doing additional work for my forearms. But I knew that I had to do something about my relatively weak wrists if I wanted to close heavier grippers meaning coc 3 and above. Especially my left wrist is stopping me from training heavy and/or high volume. 

Maybe you should start doing some of what's mentioned. If you chose to do it please keep me updated if you notice a difference. I believe that I received some pretty good training advice right here. 😁👍 

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1 hour ago, MarkusA93 said:

 

Maybe you should start doing some of what's mentioned. If you chose to do it please keep me updated if you notice a difference. I believe that I received some pretty good training advice right here. 😁👍 

I dont have the access to equipment i need for the full range if exercises, but i got a loadable hammer so ill be doing more especially since i want to bend bigger bars and do better at thick bar. 

 

And you did recieve good advice. Wrist and thumbs my friend, wrist and thumbs. Keys to complete domination 

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Building wrist strength is massively important in grip but I think a lot of people stick to doing just wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, and reverse barbell curls.

Radial/ulnar deviation and wrist pronation/supination is just as important to build strong wrists and also offsets any potential muscular imbalance which could lead to injury or hinder one’s progress.

You can use a sledgehammer to train both radial/ulnar deviation and wrist pronation/supination.

For radial/ulnar deviation I use the IM twist yo’ wrist and for pronation/supination I use a dumbbell bar with a weight plate on only one side.

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6 hours ago, KapMan said:

I dont have the access to equipment i need for the full range if exercises, but i got a loadable hammer so ill be doing more especially since i want to bend bigger bars and do better at thick bar. 

 

And you did recieve good advice. Wrist and thumbs my friend, wrist and thumbs. Keys to complete domination 

Yeah wrist and thumbs. That's probably the key. I love training with grippers but it isn't enough for building the strongest hands possible.

Just an example: about 8 months ago I was able to close the coc#1 for at least 40 reps. I thought that I already had good grip but then I shook hands with an old man who obviously worked a physically demanding job most of if not all of his life. I'm almost sure that he couldn't close a gripper like I could but his thumb pad and the area between thumb and index finger was unbelievably thick and despite having shooked quite a lot of strong hands it was only then that realise what had to be done.

After that handshake I thought to myself "you gotta train that damn thumbs and wrists" (yeah that old guy got pretty big wrists too, but they didn't seem naturally big if you know what I mean. I know that wrist size is genetic but even 1 month into training wrists I can say that my wrist or at least the muscles around that that area got noticeably bigger making my wrist look "fuller". I even believe that my wrist circumference increased by 0.5 cm from doing grip training for a little bit over a year now. (measurements taken  about one year and just a few days ago) 

Guys you're awesome. Thank you very much for your thoughts and advises. I really appreciate it! 

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6 hours ago, MarkusA93 said:

Yeah wrist and thumbs. That's probably the key. I love training with grippers but it isn't enough for building the strongest hands possible.

Just an example: about 8 months ago I was able to close the coc#1 for at least 40 reps. I thought that I already had good grip but then I shook hands with an old man who obviously worked a physically demanding job most of if not all of his life. I'm almost sure that he couldn't close a gripper like I could but his thumb pad and the area between thumb and index finger was unbelievably thick and despite having shooked quite a lot of strong hands it was only then that realise what had to be done.

After that handshake I thought to myself "you gotta train that damn thumbs and wrists" (yeah that old guy got pretty big wrists too, but they didn't seem naturally big if you know what I mean. I know that wrist size is genetic but even 1 month into training wrists I can say that my wrist or at least the muscles around that that area got noticeably bigger making my wrist look "fuller". I even believe that my wrist circumference increased by 0.5 cm from doing grip training for a little bit over a year now. (measurements taken  about one year and just a few days ago) 

Guys you're awesome. Thank you very much for your thoughts and advises. I really appreciate it! 

A lot of old men’s wrist and finger thickness is from arthritic changes in the joints, not from strength or training.

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2 minutes ago, Joseph Sullivan said:

A lot of old men’s wrist and finger thickness is from arthritic changes in the joints, not from strength or training.

Might be the case for many but there have been at least 4 or 5 men in my family (one of them was my grandpa) who developed big hands and wrists from doing manual labour without any athritic changes in the joints. If my wrists got bigger from doing a little bit of grip work for about a year I can only imagine how 30-40 years of hard manual work affect wrist and finger thickness. The fingers of my right hand are noticeably thicker than my left hand (just from being right handed) and I'm not suffering from arthritis. 

Of course I know that arthritis could be the cause of wrist and finger thickness since my mother in law suffers from it.

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44 minutes ago, MarkusA93 said:

Might be the case for many but there have been at least 4 or 5 men in my family (one of them was my grandpa) who developed big hands and wrists from doing manual labour without any athritic changes in the joints. If my wrists got bigger from doing a little bit of grip work for about a year I can only imagine how 30-40 years of hard manual work affect wrist and finger thickness. The fingers of my right hand are noticeably thicker than my left hand (just from being right handed) and I'm not suffering from arthritis. 

Of course I know that arthritis could be the cause of wrist and finger thickness since my mother in law suffers from it.

Most of the old Patients I treat for therapy in the nursing home have huge wrists  and joints. Quite a strong grip on them to from their hypertonicity.

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46 minutes ago, Joseph Sullivan said:

Most of the old Patients I treat for therapy in the nursing home have huge wrists  and joints. Quite a strong grip on them to from their hypertonicity.

Interesting observation. I haven't yet thought about the connection between hypertonicity and grip. 

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Biomechanically, the wrist doesn't contribute to crush grip at all. But wrist training strengthens the muscles in the forearm that do, still, for maximal crush grip gains, you have to focus on a specific goal, be it just regular crush strength (adjustable grippers, crush machines) or torsion spring grippers. A "weak" wrist will not hold you back from achieving huge crush strength, but there isn't a reason to ignore your wrists, besides an injury.  

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56 minutes ago, MarkusA93 said:

Interesting observation. I haven't yet thought about the connection between hypertonicity and grip. 

Yes, the ones that with dementia and Parkinson’s particularly have grips and hands like concrete, in my experience.

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7 hours ago, Aleksandar Milosevic said:

A "weak" wrist will not hold you back from achieving huge crush strength, but there isn't a reason to ignore your wrists, besides an injury.  

Sorry, I would disagree. A weak wrist can and will hold you back from achieving huge crush strength. My left wrist which still is a bit weaker than my right did hold me back from training heavier because of pain in my wrist (due to weakness). Now that I focused on strengthening my left wrist Im doing much better and can train more often which lead to my grip getting stronger very fast. I'm absolutely sure that the development of my crushing grip in my left hand would have stalled if I hadn't improved my wrist strength 

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I also disagree Aleksanders statement! The wrist is the link between the hand and the forearm. If that link in the chain is weak, your potential will not be maximized. The stronger the wrists, the more transference of strength there will be able to be utilized between the hand and the forearm. The wrist is the key to bigger grip strength no matter what the discipline.

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I never train my wrist directly, since they are both injured. When I train my crush it advances with zero issues whatsoever. Same thing with my thick bar training. Maybe I'm misunderstood, but there's no movement in the wrist in crush training, and if there is, it's a mistake. I have people in my gym that have a lot stronger wrists than I do, but my hands are a lot stronger than theirs. It's just specificity, but a strong wrist is never a weakness, in anything. So that's why I say that wrist strength has no direct contribution in crushing strength displaying, and some in the development (but with less specific carryover). 

Markus, what you describe is a whole another thing, you had an injury (it is an injury that you rehabilitated trough training) that held your training back, and when you solved it, you were able to train with higher frequency. That doesn't prove anything besides that an injury lowers your training frequency. 

I'm not trying to create an argument, but we need to understand that the wrist cannot contribute to the crushing movement directly.

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28 minutes ago, Aleksandar Milosevic said:

I never train my wrist directly, since they are both injured. When I train my crush it advances with zero issues whatsoever. Same thing with my thick bar training. Maybe I'm misunderstood, but there's no movement in the wrist in crush training, and if there is, it's a mistake. I have people in my gym that have a lot stronger wrists than I do, but my hands are a lot stronger than theirs. It's just specificity, but a strong wrist is never a weakness, in anything. So that's why I say that wrist strength has no direct contribution in crushing strength displaying, and some in the development (but with less specific carryover). 

Markus, what you describe is a whole another thing, you had an injury (it is an injury that you rehabilitated trough training) that held your training back, and when you solved it, you were able to train with higher frequency. That doesn't prove anything besides that an injury lowers your training frequency. 

I'm not trying to create an argument, but we need to understand that the wrist cannot contribute to the crushing movement directly.

Just imagine how much more progress you would make if you actually trained your wrists. 😉

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Trust me Joe, I'd like to, I'm inspired by your sledge videos and I'm gonna buy one and start doing some volume. The problem is that my wrists swell from inside the next day after movements that load my wrist. I'm not saying that my wrist is weak, it's not, but I am in pain for almost 3 years now and it's driving me insane. I can't box, nor wrestle, I haven't put my palms flat on the floor in years because of it (everything is done on fists)... If I go to the doctor, they will probably operate on it, and that might make it even worse in the long run. I also tried training trough the pain, but it makes it a lot worse.  

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