NEW MEMBERS Introduce Yourself Here

[vegasdsm]

new here... been training off/on since i was 17... been at it hard for just under a year with an oblique tear on st. patty's day (put me out for 100 days)..

just picked up my CoC #1 and #2 as well as a power web from elitefts...

i closed the #1 first try (actually second as i had to learn how to set it) with both hands.. the #2 is difficult... im about 1cm away from close on my right hand and about 2.5cm (inch) on my left.....

been doing some powerlifting training with sin city barbell (from vegas, originally chicago) and one of my goals is to improve my grip (can only dead lift 435 w/out wrist straps, 530 with)....

cheers, and great board!! i've been lurking for about 3 months now...

[RKlein]

Sounds like you train at the Gold's gym on Flamingo. i train their also. let me know if you ever want to train grip.

[vegasdsm]

Sounds like you train at the Gold's gym on Flamingo. i train their also. let me know if you ever want to train grip.

ya... i train there 4x/week and am @ 24 hour fitness the other 2 or 3 days for GPP/cardio/core work....

i'll be there later today (as a matter of fact)..

i just hooked up w/the guys from sincity barbell.. .been training w/them for ~2 weeks now....

still getting used to training west-side style as i used to be on a 6 day split....

as i learn it more, i'll be able to incorporate my grip work properly.....

last time i trained my grip we did deads the next day and it wasnt fun (grip was failing all over the place)

Edited October 10, 2007 by vegasdsm

[drdude]

Im TC, aka apk_fan

I rock climb and the first thing you learn in doing such is grip strength is the most important kind of strength and no matter how good technique is you still need grip strength

Edited October 11, 2007 by apkfan

[The Rock]

Hi,

My name is Jim and I am from Holland, Europe. I am 21 years old, 6 foot 4" and 246lbs. I've been training in the gym since I was 15, mainly doing natural bodybuilding, but also some powerlifting. I tore my right pectorial muscle about 10 months a go, and I am still on the road to full recovery. I am working out again, but I am not as strong as I was before. Before I tore my pec, I had a benchpress of 385lbs (175kg). I tore my pec while benching 330lbs for reps. Other lifts are: Squat 484lbs and deadlift 462lbs. Kind of strange numbers, but I train with kilo's, not pounds, so I have to convert the numbers. My squat and deadlift should be highter, but I was working hard on them before my injury. Benchpress has always been one of my strong points. All my lifts are raw. No suit, no belt etc.

Yesterday I ordered the CoC grippers. I've ordered the trainer, No. 1, No. 2, No. 2.5 and the No. 3, and also the expand-your-hand bands. Because I live in Holland, I have ordered them all at once, because the shipping rates are very high to my country ($52). I plan on starting to train my grip very serious, because in the years I have been training, I've not given my grip and forearms the attention that they needed. There is not a lot of equipment in my train to train my grip, other than to do static holds and wrist curls perhaps. We have no thick bar or anything like that. The gyms here in Holland are very different than the gyms in the USA. They are mostly very small, with very little equipment. But I'm trying to make the most of it.

I'm looking forward to learn a lot about hand-strenght and grip-development here, and I hope that I can share some of my knowledge as well.

Have a good one

Edited October 11, 2007 by The Rock

[Leo77]

Hi everyone,

Sorry, I see this sticky later than my first post here.

I'm Linh, from Vietnam, 30 years old, 5 foot 7, 145lbs. About sports, firstly I'm a runner, I run 10k and 400. After a long time of running, I realized muscles that running haven't touched are forearms and obviously gripping. I found this board a couple of years ago, but only now I have grippers and begin to train gripping. My best attempt is closing Trainer. Hope everything will get better. I'm becoming addicted to gripping.

May The Force Be With You

[gripn00b]

Hi.

I'm totally embarrassed to post on this thread. I'm no where near any of you guys.

A few years back I had a non-paralytic spinal injury that severely limited my mobility.

I gained about 150 pounds of pure fat in the mean time (Very large frame, 6'3, 28 years old). The weight gain further aggravated the injury, which in turn diminished my mobility to an even greater degree.

A month ago, I said f**k it. No sense wallowing in self-pity feeling sorry for myself. Time to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

A few years of substantial immobility basically drew my working strength down to nothing. I wanted to start with training, but I have absolutely zero background. After experimenting with different things, I realized that if I was going to start on a substantive weight training regimen and do it right, it all started out with my grip strength.

I started with a blue gripmaster. I chose gripmaster as I play guitar and the ability to work on finger muscle autonomy appealed to me.

Moved up to a blue/left hand, red/right hand.

Now, I use a red gripmaster in my left and a black in my right.

I have a COC "Sport" on order.

Anyway, I'll go back to shutting up and listening.

Edited October 18, 2007 by GRIPn00b

[Guest Bonzi]

welcome, GRIPn00b.

if you are needing encouragement and training tips, you have come to the

right place. these guys are world class, literally.

[Autolupus]

Hullo GRIPn00b and welcome to the board.

[Mr. Efficiency]

My name is Jaland Worley. I'm no stranger to powerlifting & bodybuilding, but I am new to specifically strengthening my grip. I've recently started to do all of my training with kettlebells and bodyweight exercises, pistols, etc., and I am very excited about pushing my grip strength to and past the limit!

[dima700]

Hi everyone. My name is Dima. I'm 5'7" and weigh 176 pounds. I started grip training about 3 months ago. I first ordered the set of HGs from HG 100 to HG 350. I could close HG 100 but couldn't close the HG 150. It took about 2 or 3 weeks to get the HG 150 closed for the first time. About a month ago I ordered COC grippers and closed #1 on my first try and could rep it for about 3 full reps. I tried closing the #1.5 with a credit card close and came about 1 or 2 millimeters away from closing it. Then I had to take a week and a half off from grippers because my hands hurt a lot from playing with grippers every day.

During that time I just did wrist curls. After taking the break I tried the #1.5 again and couldn't close it further than 6 or 7 millimeters away from it. I was very disappointed that my progress went backwards. Now I'm trying to make progress again and I hope to close the #1.5 in 3 months. My goals are to close the #2 for my birthday which is on May 5 or by the end of the summer of 2008 and to close #3 before 2010

I can currently rep #1 about 7 times with a credit card close. I also do reverse wrist curls with 30 pounds and I lift weights. I'm really happy to be a small part of Gripboard community and I hope that I might contribute something useful in the future.

[Alawadhi]

Welcome

[southpaw83]

hey everyone, i'm 23, 6'6" 237. I'm a baseball player trying to develop better grip strength. Currently I can close the #2 for 5 reps. I started using COC trainers around June and since then progressed to #2. Hope to hear from you all soon.

peace

[stevenr]

Hi to all on grip board,

like many posting here I have long had an interest, well fascination with grip strength peripheral to my training with weights, however, having v-small hands have always felt that I would struggle in this area. Despite that my fascination with the history and shear practicality of hand and lower-arm strength as oppossed to the 'show' muscles just won't go away! I post on BB.com but there is little interest or help over there to grip training so I went looking and found here.

Im 39 and lift weights for general core strength, especially in moves that again are practical (i.e. that translate to moving your own body) such as weighted dips and chins, deadlifts etc. I recently got some CoC grippers for the first time and fairly quickly closed the No 1 and 1.5, but really want to progress to shut the No 2 (as I feel that until then I cant really consider myself to have anything other than a fairly average grip). I am trying to put together a routine based around covering crushing & pinch grip strenth and wrist and forearm but would really appreciate some feedback/advice. I train weights x2 a week (high intensity style abbreviated routine) and aim to train grip x2 weekly on seperate days. My recovery ability has always been pretty poor (thus the low frequency format). For grip the selection of exercises I was looking at are as follows with some questions in brackets ():

1. CoC grippers - currrent priority (am working with singles - ?is this best? opinion seems to vary considerably? If not, what form of progression do people advise to progress with the grippers?)

2. Rolling Thunder - to further develop crushing/holding grip (but struggle due to small hand span) - difficult to work after grippers and buggers gripper work if done before! Would people advise focusing just on grippers for now or alternate days between grippers and Rolling Thunder?) - just started with this, currently on a dissapointing 50kg's for sets of 5. Really want to hit 75kg to feel half descent. Is this a realistic goal?

3. Plate pinches

4. Lever bar work - to develop wrist strength

For forearms I also love wrist rollwer and want to get a thick-handled version. I rarely due wrist curls as I have found this to be of little use for me personally in either forearm or hand strength. Have others found this?

Thanks for any advice...and sorry for the long first post!

Any comments to

[Guest Bonzi]

stevenr, you have just entered the gripsphere. Beware, if you ask a grip(or just about anything strength) question, then

you probably will have to sort through at least 3 or 4 WORLD Class responders. By WORLD Class, I mean holders of

WORLD records, literally.

Boy, have you come to the right place.

BTW, welcome.

[superfeemiman]

stevenr, you have just entered the gripsphere. Beware, if you ask a grip(or just about anything strength) question, then

you probably will have to sort through at least 3 or 4 WORLD Class responders. By WORLD Class, I mean holders of

WORLD records, literally.

Boy, have you come to the right place.

BTW, welcome.

I suppose this is one of the best things about grip being a small sport. Knowing that the record holder may answer your question about a grip feat is really cool.

[underwjr]

Hey I Josh Underwood im 21 and have just started with my CoC grippers and got hooked!!! Ive grown up on a farm and have used my hands HARD since i was 12. Im right handed so there is an imbalance in my arms but I am recovering from ulnar nerve surgery on my right and have seized the opt to get my left up to shape. So far i can close the #1 for 10 reps and get the #2 about 1/4 of an inch from being closed. Im looking forward to all the info i can get from everyone.

[DINOSORE]

Hi to all .. I am 41 and have been away from judo for about 10 years. Gonna try a comeback! I had a decent grip way back when, but now realize that it could have been an AWESOME grip had I found you grip nutz before now!! I am looking forward to getting advice and starting out correctly. I am going to follow David's beginner exercises ASAP (thank you for the quick response to my questions David!) One other thing .. I am going to order a Powerball. Is it TOO EARLY to use one now?

Thanks!

Jeff Marshall

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

[fiddlertom]

Hello;

I got into grip work about twelve years ago. I didn't train consistently nor hard enough to do anything that impressive, but enough to be better than most gym people. That's not hard.

I am a high school teacher and had a large paper up with different types of records, from reps to holds to oddball feats. Unfortunately the paper disappeared one summer. About three or four years ago I got away from exercising and took my Coc's and blocks home from the classroom. Seeing this site made me want to get back into it.

One of the oddball feats a student came up with was to hold a pencil by the metal eraser part with a Trainer or #1 for time. I see a similar challenge in another thread. I'll go there and talk about it.

Glad to be here,

Tom

Edited October 29, 2007 by fiddlertom

[beniger]

Hi my name is Ben and I'm into bodybuilding. I've been weight training for 11 years. I'm 6'4", 235lbs, 28 years old. I want to increase my grip strength for back training, i.e. Deadlifts and weighted chins. My grip tends to give out before my back/traps. I purchased a few of the COC grippers a couple years ago, but lost interest when I couldn't quite close the 2.

My current grip training is using the Hammer Strength Gripper machine, heavy Farmer's Walks, and general wrist curls. I look forward to learning here.

[speedracer]

Hello everyone,

My name is Brad Ardrey, I am into strongman, I am 26 years old, 6'2", 260lbs. I am looking to inprove my crush strength, along with my pinch grip strength. I also am very interested in bending. Thanks in advance for everyones help on the board.

[sash]

Hi there, I'm Bruce, am 30 years old and live in Australia. I've been working out on and off for many years, but got into grip training a few years back after reading about it on the bb.com forums. I've got a no.1 and no.2 CoC gripper and am miles away from being able to close the no.2 but have closed the no.1 previously. I'm a bit of an armwrestling fan also, so i'll be lurking on that forum a bit, that's the reason i joined actually - to find out a bit about John Breznk - was a good surprise to see he actually has posted there too!

I'm 5'11" 150lbs and my goal is to improve my health and cardiovascular fitness while getting stronger and staying injury free, it's good to be on board and looking forward to reading up on all the knowledge.

[John Dougherty]

I'm John Dougherty and I live in the Chicago, IL suburbs. I'm a 50+ guy with a wife and a Collie. I started up serious grip training about 6 months ago as part of my effort to regain and develop the strength that being 50+ will take away if you're not diligent!

Life gets full of distractions as we rack up the mileage and it can get very easy to let your physical condition deteriorate. I decided that I wasn't about to take the "off ramp" into decrepitude, so now I am fighting to get in and stay in shape. Grip training is great fun and it supports all our physical activities from work to sport.

When my nasty pre-surgical back permits, I enjoy doing kettlebell work and barbell deadlifts. I use C of C "Trainer" and #1 grippers, the Ivanko SuperGripper. I just cut up a 35 and a 50lb dumbbell so I can have some blobs to play with.

I'm very happy to be here and I look forward to learning more about this type of training.

Fan of: John Brookfield, DieselCrew.com, FunctionalHandStrength.com, oldtimestrongman.com and Pavel Tsatsouline's training with KettleBells (dragondoor.com), just to name a few.

[unequipped]

Hi, strength-friends,

my name is Walter from Cologne (Germany).

After 30 years benching, I started some weeks ago with grip-training.

Walter

www.unequipped-benchpress.de

[mojoflo00@aol.com]

Hi may names Mark 20yo 5'7" 165lb been wieghlifting about 3 years and just recently started bending. It without a doubt the best exercise ive ever done and im excitied to continue bending and to learn new things