New To Grippers? Read This.

[lloyd80s]

Hi All,

I've been using grippers for about 3 months and I'm making good progress, I've gone from a #1 to a #2 and I'm now getting well on my way to the #3.

I thought that I'd give anyone new to grippers some simple tips that have helped me so far and some info on buying grippers and reading about them. When I started I had no idea about setting or doglegs so here's a few tips for newbies to help along the way. Just bare in mind that we're all different so you'll need to find your own styles and preferances.

I'll just say first that you'll need to buy a gripper to suit you so check out these makes, Captains of crush, beefbuilders, HGs and Robert Barabans. All are good in their own rights but they all vary in price, quality and avalibility. I would go for the captians of crush though with a price of around £20/$22, they offer great quality and the jumps in lbs are now suited to any strengh guy. Please check out all of the above before you buy though. The link below has a good reveiw on all of the grippers-http://sfuk.tripod.com/reviews/coc_1.html

Once you have your gripper of choice please learn how to 'set' the gripper. This is the positioning of the gripper in the hand before you close it, a good set will make the differance between you closing your goal gripper or being 1cm short! There are many sites that will discuss a gripper set including this one so READ UP.

If you have a gripper go and get it, have a look at the spring and you'll see that on one side of the gripper the spring that goes into the handle is slightly strighter than the other side. The strighter spring is called dogleg. When you close your gripper always have the dogleg handle in the palm not the fingers. You'll get better leverage when closing and again, maybe get that last 3mm you've been looking for

Next thing that will help you is Chalk, when your hands sweat it makes it harder for the gripper to stay in place. A little weightlifting/climbing chalk will really dry out your hands and keep that gripper in place. You can buy the chalk online or in you local 'outdoor' store.

Right, one thing that you need to know now is that grippers will be hard on the hands. Your hands will be sore and you skin will rub and blister on you fingers. Don't worry though as you hands will look after themselves after a few weeks by developing some nice hard calluses. These will then act as a skin protector on your hands and fingers. A little pain never killed anybody.....................

Now I hope that everyone that's been gripping for a long time will back me up on this- if your hand muscles and tendons are painfull from your last workout then DON'T workout until they feel better. Skin pain is one thing but if your tendons hurt then you could do some real damage by gripping again so soon!

So how often are you going to work out with grippers?...............the honest answer is that it's totaly down to you as an individual. Some guys grip everyday and some guys grip once a week. It's down to how your hands feel, if they feel good then train if they feel bad then rest them for a couple of days. Keep in mind though that the hands only grow stronger when they are resting, a few days off may do your hands more good than you think!

The biggest tip I could give to anyone though is to read as much as you can about grippers and ask questions on sites like this one. Everyone here has their own stories to tell and tips to give on gripping so ask away. Also books like The mastery of hand strength by John Brookfield and the Captains of crush what they are and how to close them, are great for gaining knowledge.

If you're looking for a reputible training routine then it may be worth you time in looking at the KTA programme, this is an E-book that has helped many grippers close their goal gripper. I'd recommed that you try your own routines first though.

Well I hope that the tips above may help, if not then at least I tried

Good luck and remember that this aint a race, train hard and reach your goals.

[Scott Styles]

Good stuff. This should get moved to the articles or FAQ forum, maybe a mod will do it, or you can PM one of them.

[superfeemiman]

Yeah, nice article. You pretty much covered all the basic stuff.