richcottrell Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 Fact or Fiction? The other day I found a nugget of knowledge and I thought maybe a new tread might exist here… What more can science tell us about grip? A while ago my wife and I were given this book called “Because I Said So!” by Ken Jennings. It is basically a book about “parental wisdom run amok”. I have not read it, but it would be for perfect book for the bathroom as the chapters are all of about a page or so long. Anyway the other day I opened the book while cooking dinner and the most perfect chapter for us grip folk appeared. The title of the 2 page story was “If you crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis” The final take away by this book is that it is – False -- that knuckle cracking does not cause arthritis But the real nugget was toward the end that I found more interesting… It mentions-- yet without citation--a study from 1990 that found “knuckle popping did appear to correlate with slightly lower grip strength. The seniors who cracked didn’t have any more joint pain then you’d expect, but they did need more help opening pickle jars.” So what do you all think? Personally, whenever I hit the grippers, if I do not really warm up, my knuckles in the finger joints crack with the first closes. That said, I have never paid attention to the “strength to popp ratio”. And i do crack about every joint in my body! Has anyone ever heard about this before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Ruby Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 It should have zero effect on grip strength. I crack my hands often also and haven't noticed a decrease in strength at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xvx Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 I think it would be hard to tell, as most people that do this have probably done so since they were young, and I would say that it's a hard habbit to break for most people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shartak Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 There will be no wrong or right in this issue.. However I try to avoid cracking of joints in general when working out, especially with harder grippers. The cracking of a joint under heavy loads feels - at least to me - diffrent from "normal", casual cracking which all of my other joints do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 It should have zero effect on grip strength. I crack my hands often also and haven't noticed a decrease in strength at all. ...but would you notice an increase if you stopped? I have no idea about the study. Just making commentary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1stCoC Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 I was reading the new Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and there was a experiment done relating static stretch to slow but dynamic stretch( warmup) the basic finding that the slow dynamic stretch has a higher positive correlation to increased force production. So ,in a nut shell gentle full range stretching prior to high level grip work should help. A deload stretching afterward would lower lactic acid levels as well. R.Sorin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.