Gripping Results

[Dude]

For those that have advanced on the grippers what have you found to work the best for you? Strictly focusing on the grippers? Doing other work and the grippers sparsely. Or equal amounts of both?

I've seen a lot of posts and articles about people being unable to make gains with the grippers, focusing more on other exercises, and then making huge leaps on the grippers. Just wanted to see some of your opinions on the board.

[Sonny]

I've been wishy washy with my opinions in the past but really, nothing has helped my crush more than strict, focused gripper work only!

[Muscle Turtle]

For me in the beginning it was building up my over all hand strength, now as I have progressed more, doing gripper specific work has helped me make smaller vital gains in closing the next goal gripper.

[underdawg]

My fastest gains with the grippers came by focusing on them solely, problem was I sucked at everything else. Now that I have put them on the back burner the gains continue to come, and my strength in other areas has gone way up also.

[pdoire]

I have always been a gripper addict...so I specialize. I have used KTA and am in the tail end of the High Rep program..both have produced good results for me.

[Dave Lemanczyk]

Through time I have seen gains from addressing my own personal lower arm weaknesses. Wherever I happened to be weak in the lower arm at any given point in time recieved the most attention through a variance of exercises.

I did not get crazy into the grippers only training methods that I have seen all over the place. I would add the grippers into my training. For example, some training days I would perform one set of a single crush and hold for maximum time. Other days I could do 15 crushes in 15 minutes...etc. The point is that I woudl add them into my training without focusing on them. I would still maintain and develop crushing strength.

Open hand training is another facet of grip strength that I believe that be developed during any other form of grip training. I personally started open hand training with a softball with a eye-hook right through the middle. My hand naturally fit around the ball and it was comfortable for me. Comfortable does not mean that I did not perform deadlift & hold for maximum time, bent over rows, reverse curls, shrugs etc... I was able to develop this open hand strength and it carried over into the beginning of blob training. I don't think I would have been able to start successful blob training without my softball training before it.

I feel the crush and the pinch and can be trained as one. Can you train the squat and the deadlift?

Understand that I do completely respect Rick Walker who authored KTA and I do not write this to compete with any of it or steer anyone away from a proven form of grip training. It has worked for a number of people and I repect that. I also give repsect to anyone training hard to achieve a goal. This is just how I acheived some of mine.

[madss]

I use to be grippers only but switch to everything for around gains and grippers don't seem to be lacking.

[Zakath]

None of the above, heavy grippers work every day + vbar,one hand lift, bending and pinch once to twice a week.

At least that's what works for me, and I want to give Mikael Siversson some credit for my gripping routine

[TealGunner]

My grip training has suffered recently with a lack of volume, but I have been doing little things consistently. I have noticed my overall strength has slipped some, but I am still much stronger grip-wise than I was before I started. I have been tearing sheets of paper smaller and smaller and just started climbing my new 1.5" manila rope so variety is good. My small block weight is getting easier to toss and I'm doing negatives with 2 25 lb plates. I'm also still using the shopping cart levering I posted about a few weeks ago.

So, in other words, if you want all around grip improvement, do different things. If you want to close the #3, work on grippers.