Wrist Rollers Diameters

[Tom of Iowa2]

Which is easier thinner or Thicker??(on a wrist roll)

We had one that was 1 3/4 in.pipe,and we replaced the rope with Nylon strapping(as once suggested by Old Guy).......

Josh Built one over the w/e,uses thin Aircraft cable instead of rope or nylon strapping and it is a 2 3/8 pipe?...matches up with the ROLLING THUNDER(which is the idea)it is the biggest Knarliest thing I've ever seen.

SO? what is- in the opinion of more experienced grippers-easier?The thinner one or the thicker one?

I had Holly(gym owner) take some photos of this device with a large amount of weight being wrist rolled up by Josh(not me,though I did get over 180 to the top first try with the thick one).I guess it's not appropriate to mention the poundage he used?(new rules?) but it seemed pretty good and we got some pics which we will mail in when we burn this entire roll of film.

The most I've ever seen was a photo of a guy doing 275lbs on what appeared to be a 2 incher in MiLO magazine.Is there some sort of a record...frankly Josh doesn't care but I'm sort of a Trivia person.

Have you heard of anything heavier than 275?I would guess so?

Again we'll mail in photos of these lifts with poundage listed.Iwould like to get some shots of him Plate curling tomorrow.First try at it....

BTW:We did mail in some Rolling Thunder,narrow pinch block,finger rolls,sledge and Heavy Hammer II leverage bar with poundages listed.Hope we can get these up soon?

Thank YOU

[Guest Harlan Jacobs]

For me personaly, The larger Dia is harder. I had a 1" and it was easy compared to me 2 5/16 " that I have now.

[OldGuy]

I have made this argument before about wristrollers. To me smaller is harder. You have less surface to grip and less leverage to wind with. This is why I switched to the smaller diameter. Winding up huge weights was getting easy with a 2 '' diameter. I also switched to no knurling to make it even harder. The way to compare is to setup a thin 1'' to 1 3/8'' roller with so much weight and wind it up. Then set up a 2" roller the same way and compare the difficulty. I found that for every 2 pounds I could wind with the thinner roller, I could wind 3 with the thicker.

[amaury]

Hi Tom,

if your goal is only to work the wrists muscles then you must consider the ratio : (weight you use on your wrist roller)/(diameter of you wrist roller). The higher the ratio the better.

So a good empirical way to determine which diameter is the best to work your WRISTS muscles is to try different wrist-rollers diameters and calculate the ratio above. Then pick the wrist-roller with the higher ratio.

The one with the lowest ratio is the one for which you're the most limited by your hand strength and not WRIST strength so you must not use it to work your wrists for optimal results.

Hope my English is intelligible

[The Gripster]

I think it depends on how you will use it. If it is fixed and all you have to do is roll then I think smaller is harder. If you are holding the bar out in front of you, then I think if you have small hands then thicker is harder because it puts alot of stress on thumbs.

[OldGuy]

Here is my wristroller setup mounted at shoulder height across the power rack and hooked onto a loading pin.

[Tom of Iowa2]

Hmmmmmm??

We'll just keep testing it out I guess.There are several different answers?Perhaps more thoughts or experiences out there.Please..if you have an experience I'd like to hear

more...

Old Guy?Perhaps the bigger diameter wrist rollers are easier for you as your Hands are so big/long.They are (as i remember)quite long..but as i remember not much wider than mine?No biggy..just a thought.

Thats a real nice wrist roller.

You once mentioned that you start losing skin as 200lbs......I did not reach that poundage(hit 180) but Josh surpassed the 200 mark.(we will be mailing in pictures soon)The amount of weight really isn't an issue -yet- but we did not have any skin 'loss'problems?This was curious to me.

(NOTE:We also didn't have any blood seeping under our thumbs as a gentleman in MILO magazine described as happening with the heavy poundages?????no thumb discomfort at all?)Has anyone on this forum started seeping blood?Just wondering.

However, we may have inadvertantly come up with something?The new 2 3/8 Roller is galvanzed steel.Not the knurling of some grippers(our 'little' 1 3/4 does not have knurling either)yet galvanized has some subtle bite... not that super smooth polished steel which as you crank it up just sort of adheres to your hands?-well we didn't have skin problems with the 1 3/4" smooth steel either but at the top of the wrist roll exercise the skin sort of feels 'hot'?it DOES feel different on the galvanized pipe

Maybe we'll make a 1 incer too just to have more variety.

(then we'll have 1",1 3/4" and 2 3/8"..good variety)

Amaury,

Thanks.I think what we want to do is just crank up as much weight as we can and now we want to do it with the same diameter as the Rolling Thunder...just to get used to the 'feel'.We want hands we want forearms we want it all

Thanks Harlan...i like the smaller one(1 3/4) too..Josh does better on the big one....amaury's formula may be the answer hand size and and hand strength etc......

[OldGuy]

Tom my reasoning for using a smaller non knurled bar is that I have to grip it very hard to stop it from slipping. With a thicker bar there would be more handle in contact with the hands. I was trying to make it a very tough wrist grip and forearm movement.

[Tom of Iowa2]

Ok.

We'll make a little(1-inch) one too.Diversification- the key to any good portfolio.Big-little-medium-smooth-galvanized....no knurling though and no chalk

I just noticed i could do more weight with the little(1 3/4") one than I could do with the big one?-Josh-didn't like the little one-and interestingly moved more weight with the larger one-than HE could do on the small one....the opposite of me....

[Guest Harlan Jacobs]

I made mine out of PVC pipe. Works great.