How'd you get started

[HAMMERHEAD]

Fellas-

I'm curious as to how everybody got started in the grip game.

What got you interested in this specialized form of strenght.

For myself, I have always been interested in strength, and watching the strongman contests.  I started surfing the Net and read about these really strong handgrippers. I always had a decent grip and I wanted to give these a try, I immediatly saw the benefit of having a stronger grip.

When I found the Ironmind web site I ordered some grippers and Brookfields's book.  This was very helpful but I wanted more.  After a long search I found the Grip Board and Tom Black's site.  Now I have the best grip knowledge at my fingertips.

-HH

[3Crusher]

I read about the Captains of Crush grippers and many other grip exercises in Dinosaur Training, took a ride to Iron Island gym to try the grippers, and became hooked right there.  That was almost 4 1/2 years ago.

[Roark]

Years ago when working out at a Nautilus facility which

also had a power rack, I tried a wrist curl. Put a bench

inside the rack, lowered the pins and managed one rep

with a world shattering 95 pounds. Bells and whistles

went off in my head and wrist curling became part of,

actually my favorite part of, training.

[OldGuy]

A friend of mine who is a Milo subscriber, purchased a #1 & #2 gripper in order to improve his grip for deadlifting. I tried them, and then also purchased a 1 and a 2 for myself. Being able to close both of them out of the bag, I realized I had a fairly strong grip. This was around 3 years ago. I also found out about the grip board, and started to train pinch grip and on thickbars.

[bender]

1).  I was strugling with thumb/grip strength in Jiu-jitsu.

 2).  My hands couldn't keep up with my skinny rock-climbing friends.

 3).  Long time passion of strength training.

 4).  Always played with sports-store grippers.

 Add those up, stir in some "Master Of Hand Strength", and you have a hoplessly commited grip fanatic.

[Rick Walker]

One day I recieved an Ironmind catalogue in the mail.  Don't know why-maybe because I was a PLUSA subscriber.  Regardless-I sat on my front porch swing looking through it and thought-those Captains of Crush things look cool.

So I bought #1-#3.  I got them and could close the #1 for 5 reps with each hand right out of the bag and was less then 1/4 from the #2.

I used to sit at the computer and do 5 sets of 5 with each hand with the #1-not using any intensity, just squeezing.

In January of 2002 I taped 24 hours of WSM and as I sat and watched them, I got interested in hand strength.  I got on Jason Keen's website and got some training tips from him for grip training.  Within 2 weeks of training in the garage with good tunes and intensity, I mashed the #2 easily and was hooked.

Still hooked today-

Rick Walker :hehe

[ruffhans]

in 1995 i read a Muscle and Fittness article about Bruse lee. it went on to say how with many other graet things he had trained his body to do, he had an awesome grip. one of his students went as far as to say that when grabbing ahold of Bruce's forarms, it was like grabbing onto a baseball bat! throughout the next couple of years i read other articles in Muscle and Fittness. one about Manfred Horbrell poping a cocacola can, and oneother about grip strength. it was in this article that Muscle and Fittness  had the COCs in that issue. i remember thinking about wanting to get them to have a vice like grip! but it wasnt untill 2002 that i began a workout program for the summer. i thought i shoud train my grip also. i rememberd the grippers from I.M so i got on the web, typed in stong grippers, and I.M came up. i orderd a catilog.  my first order was brookfields book and the trainer,#1,and #2. one month later i orderd the #3 #4. i was very happy. but noticed that brookfields book was kind of old. so i wondered if there were folks out there who also wanted a good grip.  online one dayi found this site.  thank God it is out here!!   but it wasnt long after getting into grip that i noticed something else, i soon realized that i was in a small unknown world with only a few others on this earth. the world of gripping. a world that not everyone would understand, and some would even criticize!  but they will never understand, and they dont need to!

[JoeyBurks]

The grip training started back in 89 when I was doing grip exercises with sand buckets, bb rows with a towel, etc.

Really got into grip in about 97/98 when I came across Iron Mind, Dinosaur Training and Mastery of Handstrength.

Met Kevin Fulton via Old School, started entering his comps out in Litchfeild.

I found this board pretty close to the day Solan originally started it, but can not remember when that was.

[Guest el4n]

I got more or less acclimated into grip training when I saw the cyberpump website and the link to the grippage. I had never known about grip specific training before this.

I've always wanted strong hands because as a hockey player, strong hands and wrists are a large factor in shooting speed/accuracy and stickhandeling ability. By far the best stickhandler and shooter on my team was a young man with very large wrists and forearms. I dont know for sure but im assuming he also has very strong hands. It was thinking about this and seeing the grippage that got me to say, hey, I bet this will really improve my stickhandeling and shooting as well. Now 2 months later and with much stronger hands I can verify this is true, both my shot and stickhandeling has imrproved immensly.

Like most others, I ordered a #1 and #2 from IronMind and also purchased MOHS. A month later I picked up a #3 and #4 as well from IM.  

P.S. ruffhans - MOHS will be a great book no matter how many years go by  

[Jonathan McMillan]

A few years back I got talking to another staff member at the hospital I work in.  At the time I was almost ready to give up my bodybuilding training (gawd it was pathetic stuff I use to do), he got me to start working on deadlifts and every year he hounds me so that I'm also working on my squats now as well.  He told me about Milo (isn't a subscriber himself, and thick bar training).  It's only been the last 3 years that my training has been half decent and now I want to focus on grip training after reading MoHS, Dinosaur training a million times

Jon@han

[Tou]

When Cyberpump's editor (we all know who he is) related his appreciation of David Horne's Iron Grip magazine, the first edition. There was a link to the grip board (the old green version). I got hooked the first time.

[Adam Black]

As a child I used to fall asleep at night to the noise of my father cranking out hunderds of reps with a store bought gripper. I guess I got into hand strength to emulate and compete with him. I heard of the COC's when I read Dinosaur Training by Brooks Kubik. I ordered my grippers the next day and have been getting stronger since.

[Guest Jeff0]

My grip was starting to limit my deadlifting, so I searched for 'ironmind grippers' on google.com on advice from guys on a gun board.  I found 'em, but I also found the cyberpump gallery and this site.

I had been getting discouraged about powerlifting due watching national-level meets featuring guys wrapped in 6 layers of denim that barely held in their gyno.

Grip feats offer an outlet for my competitiveness with goals achievable without steroids or 'cheat clothing.'  I may never total 2600, but -- close the #3?  pinch 45's?  500 dl on a 2 3/8" bar?  clean the inch?  

Oh yeah!  :hehe

[Patrik_F]

I was at a fitness-exhibition in Stockholm when I first encoutered the CoC grippers. The B&K magazine had grippers that you could try to close. If you could close the #2 you would get a free magazine and if you did the #3 you would get a 1 year subscription. I tried and tried over and over again but failed on the #2. I was maybe 1/4 inch away at best but I thought I was really close. I got hooked on them grippers, they looked like real quality and nothing like other grippers I had tried before.

After a couple of months I managed to order a #2, to my surprise I was not closer to close it than I was at the exhibition. In those months I thought my grip had improved since I trained heavy deadlifts and did timed holds at the end of the workout.

For many months I improved nothing with that gripper. The reason was because I didnt know how to train on it and I didnt really believe in training with it. I saw it more like a test than an exercise. I even started to think my hands were to small, because I didnt feel very comfortable with it.

Then I ordered some books from Ironmind, including MOHS. Now I tried some pinch-gripping and thick bars and all of a sudden I closed the #2. This happend this summer. At that moment I wasnt sure I would ever close the #3. Now I have a little more than 1/4 inch left on the #3. I am SO determined to get the #3. Now I KNOW I will get it.

[Sybersnott]

I was sitting at home watching T.V. a few years ago repping a weak store bought gripper about a million times, when I said to myself, "There's got to be more to it than this!".  I remembered an ad in a magazine touting the grippers, and I called Ironmind and they sent me a catalog.  From that catalog, I decided to order all the grippers.  I could close the Trainer and the #1 right out of the bag.  It took me three weeks more to close the #2, and another two years before I could shut that darned #3!!  I was on the internet, and while poking around, came across the GripBoard.  The rest is history!

[AnimalCage]

My Dad handed me and my older, muscle-bound brother a trainer and said close this.  We both did.  Then he handed us a #1 and said "So try this one."  We both did for almost twenty reps.  He was shocked.  Then he handed us a #2 and said "I bet you can't close this."  My brother barely got 1, I got 3.

The moral of this story is that any feat of strength in which I can beat my older, muscle-bound brother is worth pursuing!

[Jett]

The thing that got me started on grip training happened a couple years ago. I made the mistake of challenging my math teacher to an arm wresling match. I was kindof strong, pretty strong for a person who didnt work out, but this guys strength amazed me, he kept asking me if I wanted to use 2 arms, I kept declining and he finally just ended it like it was nothing. 2 things happened after that. I asked him what he did and he said that he was a gymnastics coach, that got me started in doing gymnastics, but the next thing that happened was a year later. I went to another school, and about half way through about I was sitting on my computer, thinking about how strong he was at arm wrestling, so I looked up tips on arm wrestling, and of course I came across this place!

And here I am currently, and Im back in my old school now, but of course, everytime I ask him for a rematch he declines, one reason is the fact that Im way way stronger than I was then, and he took a pretty long break in his training. Kind of dissapointing, but I have him to thank for a lot of joy in my life, through grip training and gymnastics! :hehe

[Guest mg6680]

A friend of mine and his girlfriend (their site:  http://www.juliehavelka.com  ) have been into the strongman/grip thing since the 80's.  He let me try the #3 about 4 or 5 years ago.  I ordered the IM catalog immediately.  I trained on the 1 and 2 for a year or so then gave up.  I found the grip board this summer and the rest is history.