Setting For Negatives

[Cannon]

I have trouble setting a gripper I can't close for a negative. I've tried two-handed, braced with my free-hand thumb, braced on my leg, braced on a wall... My problem is that it just MASHES my finger bones into the gripper and it really hurts.

I can get it about 90% closed with no pain, it's just that last 10%. Am I thinking about negatives wrong? Is the goal to get it closed completely? Any suggestions?

[pdoire]

Negatives can be effective if closed to within 1/4 of fully closed. There are other exercises that can work that last little bit such as BTR, OC's and Strapholds !

[Wes]

Your hands aren't conditioned to that kind of force, you need to do negs on a lighter gripper to deaden your hands a bit. It's like getting used to a hook grip, it hurts at first, but it goes away soon.

[Rick Browne]

Sit down on a stool, bench, whatever, Put your hands between your legs just behind the knee. Cup the free hand around the gripper fingers, then squeeze the leg bracing the free hand to the gripping hand. Also squeeze the gripper at the same time. The back of the hands should be braced against the insides of the legs.

Practice a bit with a lighter gripper to get the coordination down.

[Cannon]

Sit down on a stool, bench, whatever, Put your hands between your legs just behind the knee. Cup the free hand around the gripper fingers, then squeeze the leg bracing the free hand to the gripping hand. Also squeeze the gripper at the same time. The back of the hands should be braced against the insides of the legs.

Practice a bit with a lighter gripper to get the coordination down.

THANKS pdoire and Wes!

zcor, I tried your method last night and it worked REALLY well. Thank you.

[Rick Browne]

Sit down on a stool, bench, whatever, Put your hands between your legs just behind the knee. Cup the free hand around the gripper fingers, then squeeze the leg bracing the free hand to the gripping hand. Also squeeze the gripper at the same time. The back of the hands should be braced against the insides of the legs.

Practice a bit with a lighter gripper to get the coordination down.

THANKS pdoire and Wes!

zcor, I tried your method last night and it worked REALLY well. Thank you.

No problem. The more you practice the quicker you will get. With the larger spring grippers you can squeeze both knees toward each other for extra ooomph!

Heath Sexton (Bearcat 74 on the board) was the originator of this technique. I stole it from him.

[Teemu I]

You could also use the extended handle. It saves from the trouble of setting the hard gripper and allows you to work more intensely on the negative part, which you will not be able to do if forcing the gripper closed takes too much time and effort.

But the technique described above has it's benefits.

I can close #3 and I've used #4 with extended handle for negatives, but without that handle extension I feel like I have no business doing negatives with #4, I have to use something in between. So what I'm saying here is that you'll benefit from both, you can use harder gripper for your negatives with handle extension than you would be able to use othervise and you can do negs with easier gripper anywhere with the technique described above.

In my opinion, there's one downside about using extended handle: if you use hollow pipe as I do at the moment, what you have is a thicker handle. I've noticed that it makes it harder to get my index finger properly around it. I've been thinking about drilling a hole to the end of the other handle, putting some kind of threaded piece there where you could attach the extension made out of steel bar. I think somebody on this board had done something like that, I think it would be great. Or maybe I'll just get an RB gripper that has a smooth extended handle allready.

[Timmy]

What you should do is to season your palms in. This maybe doing heavy benches, negatives on a gripper, or lift heavy objects with thin handles.