NEW MEMBERS Introduce Yourself Here

[Sharky]

Hey all. I'm an 18y/o college swimmer and avid home weight trainer. I focus mostly on strength and overall athleticism with the weights. Am new to the grip world.

[jet]

Hi fellas.

I'm jet,30 years old scot,and just getting into grip training in a big way.I've trained with weights on and off for years and a couple of years ago started taking it seriously.My lifting was going really well,my weight was going up as was my strength and then in feb 07 i smashed my right forearm(lost about and inch in length from the radius).After two surgerys,a titanium plate and a bone graft i was ready to start lifting again,albeit with greatly diminished r.o.m. in my right arm and limited grip strength.

Anyway,fast forward to present.

My grip strength is still not great in my right arm,but it works for my deadlifting which is all that matters.

However,i've an hg300 that is just begging to get closed.I've been working away with a 200 and just managed to close the 250.Which felt really good.

i've also a powerball i was using for rehabbing my right forearm muscles as they were pretty wasted after about 6 months off with the break.

So,anyway,that's me.My grip strength goal at present is to close the hg300,then onwards and upwards.

[student]

Hey all. I am scot, live in florida and been into lifting for a while. Recently began grip stuff and am really enjoying it. So far I have pinched 2 35s closed the #2 coc w/ both hands and just bought some steel and bent a few 6 in 1/4in round stock. Really trying to figure the bending out as I just can't seem to get any leverage on the double overhand. Anyway hi all, like the site, been browsing a little bit now and look foreward to more pr's.

[ewokhugo]

bem vindo ao forum "Mãos Fortes"!

JA tive a oportunidade de ver um video teu na conta do Paul Knight no youtube!

Com a tua equipa de treino decerto que o progresso ocorrerá rapidamente!

Welcome "MAos Fortes"!

i had the chance to watch one of your videos at youtube!

with your team mates u will certanly make progress asap.

[noose]

Last name is Newsom. I'm 32 and living in Las Vegas, NV. I am currently working toward the #3 COC. I just closed the #2.5 six times yesterday...not sure how close that puts me to closing the #3. I would love to close the #4 within the next three or four years. I do a lot of heavy singles and some grip machine work two to three times each week.

[fortes mãos]

bem vindo ao forum "Mãos Fortes"!

JA tive a oportunidade de ver um video teu na conta do Paul Knight no youtube!

Com a tua equipa de treino decerto que o progresso ocorrerá rapidamente!

Welcome "MAos Fortes"!

i had the chance to watch one of your videos at youtube!

with your team mates u will certanly make progress asap.

Obrigado meu irmão grip

[ewokhugo]

obrigado pela simpatia:-)abraço.

quem me dere treinar com voces ...

[SouthernLord]

What's going on everybody?!

I'm Joe, and I am obviously new here. Not new to the iron game, but rather new to the grip world. I have had a trainer COC, a 1 COC, a pinch grip block, and a heavy hammer all from ironmind for the past year or so. I just dug all this stuff out of my shed and I'm ready to get serious about grip training. I've got two sessions this week on the COC's and hopefully I can find a good routine on here to take my grip to the next level.

[Adam Moyers]

Hows it goin? My name is Adam, I'm 6'2" and 209lbs. I joined in 2005 with the intent to improve my grip strength but instead lost all motivation. In April of this year I decided to change and I've lost 65 pounds so far and I finally started lifting again this week. I'm ready to take it serious and stick with it this time around. I've got a lot to learn and this is a great place to do it. I look forward to seeing more of your great feats of strength and hopefully someday be able to do them myself.

[Rocketman248]

Hey guys. My name is Nick DeBrita. I'm 25 years old, and I'm in the US Navy, stationed in Japan. I just got into the grip world a few weeks ago. A friend on the ship introduced me to it. I bought a few of the COC grippers (T, 1, 1.5, as well as IMTUG 3 and 4). When I first got them, I could barely close the Trainer. After a few weeks, I am able to close the 1 a few times. My goal is to be able to close the 2 by July. I look forward to learning as much as I can from the board.

[Hanzky]

Hi everyone,

My name is Hannu, and I'm 29. I've been training okinawan karate and other martial arts for ten years now. Right now my training is focused on karate and kobudo. Having a strong grip is a great benefit in those arts. Luckily the finnish master grippler Teemu Ilvesniemi is studying at the same university and same master program. We discussed a lot about the grip training and compared the methods he used to the ones used in traditional okinawan karate. He gave me some great tips on how to improve my grip. Right now I can close Coc 2 with my right hand and 1,5 with my left. The exercises have really been really beneficial. Right now my goal is to improve up to coc 2,5, and make the hands more evenly matched.

By the way, I have one question about the grip-training, don't know where to post it, so I'll put it here:

Does anyone of you serious grip trainer play guitar or other similar instrument? A friend of mine is also training with Coc-grippers (barely closing the 2,5 now) and he's a bit worried that the grip training might slow down his fretting hand (left). So he's been taking the training a bit easier on the left hand. So if there are guitar players in grip training, please let me know if there are any "side effects". Thanks!

[jdchmiel]

fascinating question, never thought about it. I hope someone has some answers for you. you might want to pose that question in a new thread of its own in order to ger more exposure.. I dont think too many people read the newbie post here thread on a regular basis...

[jimcaster]

hows it going im jim. im 18, 6'1 190 and i play brazilian jiujitsu and submission wrestling. i've done some specific grip training before (sledgehammer levers, pinches, rice digging) but i want to try and get a solid routine and take my grip to a completely different level. i saw this forum and it looks like theres alot of people on here that know what theyre talking about so im excited to see what i can learn.

[VahnCruz]

Hey I'm Shane and have been doing grip stuff since the end of high school. I am 21 and first started in a talent show as "the strongest little man" where I tore phone books into quarters for the crowd and bent forks and spoons into cool shapes. The crowd loved it when I rolled up a frying pan and then finished by arm wrestling whoever wanted to.

And since I have been addicted. I have since added to my routine thumb only pushups.

But I want to bulk up and get stronger. ( I look at bruce lee's 2 finger one armed push up and say, yes I want to do that.)

All my grip training is with sledgehammers, bricks and sandbags and various plumbing tools.

weight-175lbs (but very lean, I look too skinny)

height-6ft

I hope I can learn a lot from here. So any help would be appreciated!

[CubanMoses]

Hey guys

My name is Eddie. I used to play baseball until about a year and a half ago, I was released from a pro organization. I took up bjj a few months after this happened, and have slowly been getting back into weights. I bought a power rack, barbell weights, and some grip toys. I basically want to develop the ability to rip people's gi due to my grip. It may never happen but it's a nice dream to have. So far there have have been a lot of helpful people on here and good information. I look forward to learning a lot and maybe contributing on later on down the road once I'm knowledgeable.

[stuke73]

Hi

My name is Stu, I'm 35 and from the UK. I've been lifting for 20+ years, started with powerlifting (only a couple of comps but a lot of heavy training) at 14yrs old, trained with members of the British Squad for a few years but I was always more into the training.

I'm about 154 pounds, slim build but some muscle on it and pretty lean. Still pretty strong but I'm more wary of my joints nowadays - I mean I've always trained strict but things start to niggle a bit as you get older and I just feel more into a bit lighter training and less rest. Having said that, I still have my share of heavy workouts, can still do chinups with 30kg round my waist at any time and around 40-50 kg for a single (ull reps too).

Anyway, I used to be on this board a few years ago, used to have a couple of CoC grippers (1 and 2) but veered off grip training. Now, after having gotten into watching Ninja Warrior (some great forearms on there and the grip strength required must be awesome), I'm inspried again. Got some more grippers arriving for Christmas, but at the moment I'm just incorporating some grip exercises into my workouts to get me 'acclimatised' and then will make a concerted effort to design a good routine and work my grip/forearms hard and consistantly.

Sorry about the length of that post!

[linus]

I'm Linus; I'm 43, 5'11", 245lbs. I'm working in my Masters in Sociology right now, and I'm new to grip training; been playing with CoC grippers since this past summer and doing some sledgehammer work. I can close the #2 a few times with each hand now, and I'm planning on adding some other grip training to my regimen. I want to start bending too - after Christmas, when I can afford some stock...

Edited December 11, 2008 by Reverend Linus

[Zaqwer]

Hey, my name is Jonas, im a 23 year old swedish guy who have gotten addicted to gripper training.

I bought my first gripper, a CoC #1, 4,5 months ago. No previous grip training and very little strenght training in general. Closed it with my right hand after 2-3 weeks and moved up to the 1,5 wich took a bit longer to master but i got there. Been training in various ways 2-3 times a week with them ever since and today i for the first time closed my CoC #2.

Goals for the future: Work up the reps with my right hand on the #2 and slowly start progressing towards the #2,5 wich i soon will buy, proabably together with the #3 to have an far away goal to motivate me. My left hand is slacking behind but recently closed the #1,5 for the first time.

[Ianpk]

Hey guys. My name is Ian. I live in Hawaii. I do parkour and weightlifting out here and currently train with Hawaii Parkour. I've been into grip training for awhile, especially after I saw Beast Skills. I wanna work to get some of those moves

[kcb]

My name's K.C. and just recently have I developed an interest in grip training. I started BJJ about 10 months ago and noticed the guys with the strongest grip tended to feel overall stronger than me. They could control me easier, along with just being more technically sound obviously. My interest in grippers started when I noticed my right forearm was about 1 inch bigger in circumference than my left which I hear is normal, but I'm a little OCD about symmetry and stuff like that. I rushed out to the nearest Wal Mart and bought a crappy plastic gripper thingy and currently just do sets of 100 with my left hand.

Obviously I know shit about grip training. That's why I'm here.

My goals are to learn about grip training and culture. I've read a little bit and seen a lot of names that are unfamiliar. A short term goal of mine is to buy the #1 CoC and close it. As of right now I really have no plans to get from point A to point B, but that's where this forum comes in and I'm excited to learn what I can about this new hobby that will also be beneficial for my BJJ development.

I read something about posting some personal stats, so here you go:

Age: 24

Height: 6'4''

Weight: 215lbs

Am. Boxing Record: 2-1, 1KO, 1 loss by dec.

BJJ Record: 5-7

Am. MMA Record: 0-3, 3 losses by sub (all fights prior to the commencement of my BJJ training, obviously)

I'm one of those life-long martial artist types. I started real young in Karate at the age of 5 and bounced around between different Karate and TKD schools until I was 15 and started Muay Thai. I turned 20, got bored with college, joined the Air Force and was stationed in Biloxi, MS all 4 years of my enlistment. I was able to train with some really good people like Rich Clementi, Alan Belcher, Tim Credeur, and Helio Soneca. It was definitely a cool phase in my life. Now I live in St. Louis with my beautiful wife and strictly train BJJ under a Rickson Gracie 4th degree black belt to obviously plug the gaping hole in my fight game. I hope to start fighting again in the near future.

[Victor Chetta]

Hello, my name's Victor and I'm 31 years old, I joined the Gripboard a few months ago but this is my first post. I've been lifting weights now for two years continously (I used to lift when I was in my late teens and early twenties as well but quit back in 1999 before started again at the start of 2006).

My training is based on Stuart McRobert's books such as Beyond Brawn and also Hardgainer magazine and I lift twice a week mainly using the basic multi joint exercises such as the deadlifts and the bench press etc, I started wanting to increase my grip strength through reading the above publications.

I had been doing timed thick bar dumbell holds for up to 1 minute once a week for two sets, when I reached one minute on the first set I would increase the weight at the next workout by 1/4 of akilo (1/2 a pound). I wasn't making much progress on these timed holds after a while so I bought an Ivanko Super Gripper which I train on twice aweek for one or two sets to failure at between 15 and 20 reps, when I reach 20 reps with both hands I increase the resistance next workout, i've made good progress on this.

I also do a set of wrist curls and a set of reverse wrist curls which i've been making steady progress on.

I bought a COC # 2 back in early 1998 which has been gathering dust in a drawer most of the time since then, I've never come any where closing it which something I'd like to remedy (the progress I've made on the super gripper and the timed holds don't seem to have helped much), i'll probably be buying a #1 COC and the trainer before too long to help with that as obviouisly the best way to get good on the COCs is too actually use them,after afew moths of getting used to them I'll probably get the KTA program but for the next few months I'll probably stick with Super Gripper.

I also do one or two sets on the telegraph key once aweek for 12-20 reps to failure to icrease my thumb strength.

Aside from my grip work I can currently deadlift 158kg (about 346lbs) for ten reps and bench press 107.5 kg(236lbs) for 8 reps, by the end of 2009 I hope to get up to 180kg(396lbs) for 8 in the deadlift and about 250lbs for 8 in the bench press.

Once i start using the COCs my initial goal would be to close the number 2 and eventually the number 3, although closing just the # 2 seems very impressive to me at the moment!

[MalachiMcMullen]

Jeebus! Haven't visited this thread in awhile but dang! We've been getting some high-quality members here recently! I haven't read a post out of the last 20+ new member posts where that person isn't stronger than I was when I first got here(that was a little over a year ago ).

[jdoherty]

Hey all, I have been a member of the grip board for a little while. I have been training on and off for the last 10 months. I was introduced to training grip through Paul Knight (brother-in-law). I hope to be able to close the #2 next year and overall have much stronger hands. I will keep a post on how my training is coming along on my profile. Hope to have some videos up soon as well.

James Doherty

[dropkick]

Hey guys. My name is Ian. I live in Hawaii. I do parkour and weightlifting out here and currently train with Hawaii Parkour. I've been into grip training for awhile, especially after I saw Beast Skills. I wanna work to get some of those moves

hey, another person from hawaii, that makes three! are you from oahu?

[Quinc]

Hey all, I'm 25 6' 225 and from Chico Ca. Got my first gripper (100lb) in 5th grade for 75 cents at a yard sale and i have been hooked ever since. I train / diet for bodybuilding. I joined the gripboard to learn from all of the brillant minds and strong arms here and hope to better my technique and learn new exercises.

Goal; Hub pinch a 100lb plate.

Close #3

Enter a grip contest.

So far;

hub 65lb RH 55lb LH

hub curl 25lb x2

150lb gripper x 50+

IM #2 gripper 4LH 9RH

Deadlift 275x4 with Thick bar.

hang from pull up bar 1.45 minutes

Thank you everyone for the great message board! I look forward to reading and learning. =)