Build Power with Grippers?

[AdriaanRobert96]

So I’ve been having my daily thoughs on how I can improve on grippers and or grip in general.

Those who know me by now, they know I am an obsessive maniac when it comes to researching

So jumping on topic, I’ve had this thought in my mind that maybe if I put 100% intent into my gripper closes I’ll build more “power”.

You know, like doing a snatch or any other olympic lifts where you need speed to produce since you can’t slowly do a snatch now can you?

Back to the point and what I am asking..

I am by no means a professional when it comes to all that, and I know some parta of our bodies have more fast twitch muscle fibers than others.

Nontheless we all know that you can actually fire them fibers up, not sure about producing more fast twitch fibers but atleast “activate” them.

My thought is that maybe doing speed closes or let’s say power closes with grippers might be doing something for that.

We all say that it’s pretty obvious you should have intent with every rep, but I am not sure we really put 100% intent into having that speed on the closes.

Now I can’t say this for certain, that’s why I am here now to ask you knowledgeable people.. 

is it possible, if so what rep ranges would be good before losing that effect, how much rest, how hard of a gripper would be needed.. and would it work at all?

I am curious to see, and to end this topic here I just want to say that I’ve noticed something while trying to do some sets with just the #1 and #2…

I felt super fatigues after but at the same time I also felt more “bouncy” in my hand.. like I got some extra power.. might be bias..

So set the gripper and BAAM!! 
Split second close, faster than lightning

Of course do this safely, set the gripper and pull slightly before applying maximum force

[Ryroza]

 

[C8Myotome]

I've always trained speed closes. The guy in the above video is right though, grip muscles have a much lower innervation ratio (one motor neuron is responsible for operating less muscle fibers) than larger muscles such as in the leg, chest or back that have more "gross"/large movements (which have a higher innervation ratio, with single motor neurons responsible for operating larger amounts of muscle fibers). What he's representing with the dowel and rope is the brachial plexus coming off of the cervical spinal cord to innervate the grip muscles. The motor neurons he is referencing in the ventral horn of the spinal cord are that of the lateral corticospinal tract, a special motor tract which allows the high amount of fractionation of movement of the hand (very precise individualized movements) as opposed to most other motor tracts which do more gross postural movements for larger body parts (you can look up pictures of these to see how they run through the body).

He is on point that when all other things are constant, the way to increase force production is to increase the accelleration which is why speed (what he calls ballistic) is so important. The most aggressive vigorous closes will produce the most force (f=ma) when mass is held constant.

What he's describing with rate coding is what I've always described as tension building (when teaching people how to deadlift, which I also explain in my youtube tutorial) how to get maximal neural output for a pull, the process of tension building in the body and bar (making your entire kinetic chain rigid so that it will stiffly apply force into the bar as if a pool stick was hitting a pool ball), rather than bad deadlift technique which does not build tension and results in the body (usually thoracic spine, sometimes lumbar) caving underneath the weight of the bar (as if you were trying to shoot pool with a rope).

I actually learned this from an elite powerlifter way back, that what the process of tension building does is fires primarily your slow twitch/endurance muscle fibers while getting into the most efficient position to prepare for the lift, this way you are conserving your type 2a & type 2 b (which have much more power but much more brief & less efficient metabolic pathways so they cannot be used as long) until the moment you actually need them...so you are getting the benefit of actually using your slow twitch muscles as your basis and timing your fast twitch muscle fiber use for using them only when they are absolutely necessary at the exact correct moment in time, so you strategically recruit muscles in the order that takes advantage of using them in the order highest to lowest fatigue resistance

The process of setting a gripper and getting into a good position is basically the same thing as tension building with a deadlift. Sure there are some highly skilled strong people (and some also not) that just bend down and yank up a deadlift bar with what looks like no preparation (& in some cases there is not) but there are also people skilled that recruiting their slow twitch fibers can be done very quickly and the tension building can be done so fast that the untrained eye would not see it

 

[AdriaanRobert96]

33 minutes ago, C8Myotome said:

I've always trained speed closes. The guy in the above video is right though, grip muscles have a much lower innervation ratio (one motor neuron is responsible for operating less muscle fibers) than larger muscles such as in the leg, chest or back that have more "gross"/large movements (which have a higher innervation ratio, with single motor neurons responsible for operating larger amounts of muscle fibers). What he's representing with the dowel and rope is the brachial plexus coming off of the cervical spinal cord to innervate the grip muscles. The motor neurons he is referencing in the ventral horn of the spinal cord are that of the lateral corticospinal tract, a special motor tract which allows the high amount of fractionation of movement of the hand (very precise individualized movements) as opposed to most other motor tracts which do more gross postural movements for larger body parts (you can look up pictures of these to see how they run through the body).

He is on point that when all other things are constant, the way to increase force production is to increase the accelleration which is why speed (what he calls ballistic) is so important. The most aggressive vigorous closes will produce the most force (f=ma) when mass is held constant.

What he's describing with rate coding is what I've always described as tension building (when teaching people how to deadlift, which I also explain in my youtube tutorial) how to get maximal neural output for a pull, the process of tension building in the body and bar (making your entire kinetic chain rigid so that it will stiffly apply force into the bar as if a pool stick was hitting a pool ball), rather than bad deadlift technique which does not build tension and results in the body (usually thoracic spine, sometimes lumbar) caving underneath the weight of the bar (as if you were trying to shoot pool with a rope).

I actually learned this from an elite powerlifter way back, that what the process of tension building does is fires primarily your slow twitch/endurance muscle fibers while getting into the most efficient position to prepare for the lift, this way you are conserving your type 2a & type 2 b (which have much more power but much more brief & less efficient metabolic pathways so they cannot be used as long) until the moment you actually need them...so you are getting the benefit of actually using your slow twitch muscles as your basis and timing your fast twitch muscle fiber use for using them only when they are absolutely necessary at the exact correct moment in time, so you strategically recruit muscles in the order that takes advantage of using them in the order highest to lowest fatigue resistance

The process of setting a gripper and getting into a good position is basically the same thing as tension building with a deadlift. Sure there are some highly skilled strong people (and some also not) that just bend down and yank up a deadlift bar with what looks like no preparation (& in some cases there is not) but there are also people skilled that recruiting their slow twitch fibers can be done very quickly and the tension building can be done so fast that the untrained eye would not see it

 

Oh wow man I really really appreciate the in depth explanation!

Thanks a lot, and pairing it with the video above really made even more sense.

I’ll try to give it a go for a while and see how it goes

Many thanks to both of you @C8Myotome and @Ryroza!