What Exercises Help With Gripper Setting?

[Shooter77B50]

I was wondering what exercises will help when setting and doing negatives with grippers.

I'm thinking about getting some fat gripz extreme and bench pressing on those grip training days.

What exercises do you all suggest would be best?

[macaz]

I'm not being a wise ass but the best exercise for setting is setting grippers!

Setting with the Vulcan is real good because it is hard at the set position.

With the fat grips I like to do curls and all back exercises. Im not sure how much it helps when using it on bench.

[Mephistopholes]

I'm just going to echo what is being said here, but the best "exercise" for getting better at setting grippers is: setting grippers.

And if you've got a Vulcan, and you're setting that thing, then trust me, any torsion spring gripper ou use after that will feel like it's already set when you pick it up, and like a toy when you actually do set it.

But that's not to say you need a Vulcan. It's a nice tool certainly, but you dont need it. Bottom line is, if you want to get better at setting, then work on setting. Of course, there are a number of videos (Paul Knight's, for example) that will help you perfect your technique here. Unfortunately I'm not in a place where I can easily provide a link to that...

[macaz]

lol, i see we posted at the exact same time, with almost the exact response Rich.

word.

Birds of a feather.

[Teemu I]

Power sets, which I would describe as setting a gripper you can just barely set to parallel but with good technique. Wrist strength is also important for getting a good set. Reverse bending (Wrist Developer) and regular barbell wrist curls are useful in my opinion.

[daniel reinard]

The vulcan really helps but you don't need one. I had one and traded it and am not missing it. It actually kept injuring my index (setting) finger.

The best thing to do is practice setting really tough grippers, like Teemu said. That helped me the most. You can do this every other day, just set practice.

The next best thing that helped me is bench press. It was quite noticable. I can not train grippers for months but come back stronger on the set instantly due to better benching strength. If you bench and practice setting you WILL notice immediate improvements.

[Mephistopholes]

The vulcan really helps but you don't need one. I had one and traded it and am not missing it. It actually kept injuring my index (setting) finger.

The best thing to do is practice setting really tough grippers, like Teemu said. That helped me the most. You can do this every other day, just set practice.

The next best thing that helped me is bench press. It was quite noticable. I can not train grippers for months but come back stronger on the set instantly due to better benching strength. If you bench and practice setting you WILL notice immediate improvements.

Benching? Interesting... With a normal barbell or what?

[daniel reinard]

The chest is heavily involved in a parallet or deep set. Just bench with whatever to build chest strength. If you're not getting the chest involved in the set you may have found your setting issue.

Watch Paul Knight set a big gripper. He's activating his chest and transfering that down to the setting hand.

Edited October 20, 2012 by daniel reinard

[chilliman64]

apart from working your setting, strengthen the thumb pad and build the meat up on the thumb drumstick. look at the movement of the hand when setting and mimic that movement - IMTUGs, high reps squeezing a rubber egg/ball, pinching etc turn your thumb into a nutcracker.