Grippers for youngsters

[Rick Walker]

I am going to be training some young wrestlers soon and I want to get them working on their grip at a young age.

What are some good grippers to start with?  I know they cant close the COCs yet, so what is a good starting gripper.  Or, should I just do plier lifting and double hammer squeez??

Thanks-

Rick Walker :hehe

[RiotGrip]

Target, sells some nice heavy tension grippers for a low price, they have contoured handles and they are reasonably challenging for someone in the 9-12 y/o age range.  You can give them a squeeze before you purchase them to see if there at the level you are looking for.  Hope this helps

[Roark]

If your budget allows, perhaps a gripping machine,

plate loadable, would cover the need?

Also, the Ivanko Supergripper has many adjustments,

though apparently, not immediate adjustments.

You could buy several and have the springs set at

different levels.

[Bill Piche]

Get the Ivanko.

My 10 year old son can two-finger K-mart type grippers.

[Guest Youngguy]

Most definitely start out with wrist curls. This will help a little. Then hit those cheap plastic grippers that you can find at any sporting good store. Have them rep those out to a hundred. Then start them on the coc trainer. Get them to do 20-30 on that. Then do the same thing with the #1 (20-30). Then have them strength train with #2 and #3. This is my suggestion, and what I did except I skipped the trainer, and hit the #1.

[Guest kINGPIN]

Rick, not sure how young you mean but in the same way I don't think kids should powerlift, you should'nt let kids go low reps with the grippers.

[Bill Piche]

As far as lifting in general IMO...

Have them get their technique impeccable.  Most adults have crappy form.  Form and technique...

Their will be plenty of time to add weight.

[Guest baldy]

Rick, I did some wrestling before I started specific grip training. Assuming you mean freesyle/collegiate/folkstyle wrestling, think about what positions they will be in. You will know from your own wrestling compared to your grip training a lot better than someone who has never wrestled. I would think that pinching and thick handles is the way to go as far as the movements. Maybe timed holds with moderate weights. I don't ever remember my grip giving out due to lack of limit strength, it would break when I ran out of gas. If you want them to work crushing (don't know why they would need it, but it wouldn't hurt), the Ivanko Supergripper is great. Everything I ever did (in non-submission wrestling) required open hand strength. You need to be able to get and maintain wrist control, head and arm control, etc. That is open hand all day long. A strong wrist is also helpful, to help control the head and to help maintain control on takedowns by curling in. I don't know if it is advisable to have young kids doing wrist curls (I don't know anything about training children), maybe a light wrist roller for reps or something. The pinches and thick handle work will allow the wrestler to latch onto a wrist, arm, or neck with greater power and coordination.

Like I said, if you are the coach you know better than non wrestlers what needs to be done. Mimic the situation.

[Guest]

I've got some wrestling experiance as well.  I can agree fully that thick handle work will be far more benificial than crushing.  Pinching would be second in my opinion.  Grabbing legs or arms is like grabbing a thick bar.

You also have to think about HOW thick?  Maybe measure their wrists and average the circumference.  Then you can get a bar with just a little over that much.  Keep in mind that their hands will probably be quite small.

What age group?

Michael Falkov

P.S.  I just noticed younguy's title, thats freakin hilarious!!

[Sybersnott]

Just as a test - see if they can close a Trainer.  This could be used as sort of a "challenge".... see who can get to close the Trainer, but use the above forementioned posts as a guide for grip training.  Grip means a lot in wrestling, and you are starting them off right!  

[Rick Walker]

Holy Crow!-I didnt know there was so many responses to this until I scrolled down and saw them!  Thanks to all for responding.

A little background:  I train athletes (mostly highschool right now) at my garage gym.  I am 1 semester from my BS in exercise science and I will be NSCA certified CSCS on April 20th.  THis is what I want to do-have a training facility for athletes to help increase strength, speed, agility, functional strength, power, etc.  

The athletes are usually in atleast 8th grade when I get them-(I currently have a basketball player that I got last March that is 17, 5'10" and can do a 360 dunk 2 hands.  When I got him, he could dunk one handed on occasion.  He has a full ride to a D2 college.  It is amazing what good, deep squats and power cleans can do for your vertical!)

I train all sorts of athletes powerlifters, basketball, football, soccer, wrestling and so on.  I do have one youth (5th grade) girl who is an incredible basketball player already.  She is 5'8" and has bigger hands then me.  She also wears a size 11 womens shoe.  SHE IS BIG!  Of course, I train her intelligently, realizing that heavy weights are not good and I keep her at atleast 6-8 rms.  Right now she is basically learning the movements with minimal weight.

None of my athletes can close the COC trainer.

I do know that I have a really good friend that wrestle on a full ride for Clarion University in Pa (Chris Albright).  He was an outstanding wrestler (still is).  He weighs around 160 pounds so I outweigh him by a good 70 pounds.  But, when we wrestle he has a terrible time with me because I have a much stronger grip.  He wraps his arms and I have no problem applying pressure to realease the holds.  He is the one who suggested I do major grip work with my "combat" athletes and he said that if he would have focused more on his grip he might have went farther with his career.

I then read Dino Training and saw that Kubik agrees.

Thick bar training-a great idea.  Arms and legs are a lot like thick bars!

THanks again-

Rick Walker

 :hehe

[Guest baldy]

Rick, what kind of grip does he hold his bodylock with? That also will be an issue.

If someone uses a hook grip (as in Greco), then one hand deadlifts or timed holds with a standard bar (1" - 1.25") would be beneficial. Also the idea in the rock climber's thread about hanging from a standard pullup bar one-handed with weights in the other hand would be good. If gripping his own arm (which I think is allowed in college, though not in HS) then the thick bar is the way to go for sure. If he uses a palm to palm grip (this is what I preferred when I could get it for bodylocking, gut wrenches, etc), then thick bar is still the way to go, and throw in some pinching for good measure.

You cannot go wrong with thick bar work and pinching for building a wrestlers grip. Most positions you find your hands in require this kind of open hand strength.

For someone who isn't a serious weight trainer, you could also encourage them to do rows with their thick bars or plate pinches to build strength into arm drags, etc. That way they will be primarily working grip but still getting some overall body strength benefits.

Just as an aside, have you ever seen any of the conditioning work Dan Gable makes his guys go through? Not talking about direct grip work, just the running / steps / technique drills / etc. Pretty rough stuff.