Bending impact on grip work

[dean_redzic]

Hey everyone.

I am chasing some rolling handle and gripper goals. But nail bending has always interested me.

Would adding in bending on top of grippers and thick bar kill my progress?

Rolling handle is the big goal currently

[Jermiah Merciconah]

I've thrown bending into my workout routine with grippers (Altho i'm only bending blue nails atm) and i haven't noticed a whole lot of negative impact thus far, Always train what you're prioritizing first, So say if you're doing grippers, Put bending after that in the session so you don't gas yourself out

[matek]

I think adding a bending workout once per week will not interfere too much with your thick bar and gripper progress. If you want to do it multiple times per week, doing in the way @Jermiah Merciconah mentioned is a good choice. But it also depends on which unbraced style you're interested in. In my opinion, as a beginner bender, reverse could impact your gripper progress the most, then double underhand, and the "safest" in this aspect is probably double overhand. 

[Fist of Fury]

11 minutes ago, matek said:

I think adding a bending workout once per week will not interfere too much with your thick bar and gripper progress. If you want to do it multiple times per week, doing in the way @Jermiah Merciconah mentioned is a good choice. But it also depends on which unbraced style you're interested in. In my opinion, as a beginner bender, reverse could impact your gripper progress the most, then double underhand, and the "safest" in this aspect is probably double overhand. 

Actually DO has the most negative impact of them all since you're bending much harder steel that way (at least you should if you know how to do it).

[Jermiah Merciconah]

7 minutes ago, Fist of Fury said:

Actually DO has the most negative impact of them all since you're bending much harder steel that way (at least you should if you know how to do it).

I'm not too sure if its like this for the other guys but i found that reverse bending smashed my grip far more than the double overhand work, Reverse bent a blue nail and my hands felt like i'd just been through an armwrestling session, whereas i didn't feel it as much Double over in the hands, Rather in the big prime movers

[Fist of Fury]

9 minutes ago, Jermiah Merciconah said:

I'm not too sure if its like this for the other guys but i found that reverse bending smashed my grip far more than the double overhand work, Reverse bent a blue nail and my hands felt like i'd just been through an armwrestling session, whereas i didn't feel it as much Double over in the hands, Rather in the big prime movers

It's pretty safe to say you don't know how to bend DO yet.

[Jermiah Merciconah]

If proper DO hits your grip as much as you say it does then i'm not interested in learning how to do it properly

[Fist of Fury]

@dean_redzic, steel bending will not do you any good for grip. If your main goal is rolling handles, that's what you should focus on. Steel bending will make you good at steel bending and the wrist strength you gain for it is very specific to steel bending. If you want stronger wrist to improve on thick bar you should work on wrist flexion exercises and throw in some sledge hammer levering as well. But it's the wrist flexion exercises that will help you the most. Also a strong thumb is very important.

[Fist of Fury]

4 minutes ago, Jermiah Merciconah said:

If proper DO hits your grip as much as you say it does then i'm not interested in learning how to do it properly

You shouldn't do it at all if you want to progress with grippers. It kill gripper strength more than thick bar does. Of course you can always do an exercise low frequency and low intensity to get better at it but that will take you a long time. Especially with bending since it's a highly isometric exercise.

[matek]

1 hour ago, Fist of Fury said:

Actually DO has the most negative impact of them all since you're bending much harder steel that way (at least you should if you know how to do it).

If it's about skin and general fatigue in the palms, this is probably true. But assuming you will give your best in all styles, I think reverse will be harder on the wrists and thumb MPC joint (I'm just mentioning this because it can really impact gripper work). Both can give you nice tendonitis in the elbows of course, maybe DU is the only exception of this.

[Slippery Pete]

6 hours ago, dean_redzic said:

Hey everyone.

I am chasing some rolling handle and gripper goals. But nail bending has always interested me.

Would adding in bending on top of grippers and thick bar kill my progress?

Rolling handle is the big goal currently

If you feel good about your current training and are excited about your goals, I would say wait with the bending.

Short term it will not do your other training any good.
When you want new goals to fight for, that's when you should pick it up.

I love steel bending. (mainly braced/horseshoe bending) That's why I bend. 
My grip is not strong, and has not gotten that much better by bending. And I'm pretty good at horseshoe, mid, short and long braced bars. Decent at unbraced bending. 
 

[Londonjoseph]

1 hour ago, Fist of Fury said:

It's pretty safe to say you don't know how to bend DO yet.

What an extremely productive response here

[Blacksmith513]

Just give it a go... Start with one session a week, just a couple nails.. Just see where it goes. 

But one thing I've learned the hard way, at least for me, having too many goals at once will slow progress across the board.. But bending a couple easier nails here and there probably wont take away that much. 

[Fist of Fury]

17 minutes ago, Londonjoseph said:

What an extremely productive response here

Just stating the obvious, I'm sure everyone who has trained DO and grippers seriously know what I mean.

[Fist of Fury]

54 minutes ago, matek said:

If it's about skin and general fatigue in the palms, this is probably true. But assuming you will give your best in all styles, I think reverse will be harder on the wrists and thumb MPC joint (I'm just mentioning this because it can really impact gripper work). Both can give you nice tendonitis in the elbows of course, maybe DU is the only exception of this.

How often do you bend DO? 

Exactly, pretty much never....

[Londonjoseph]

5 minutes ago, Fist of Fury said:

Just stating the obvious, I'm sure everyone who has trained DO and grippers seriously know what I mean.

I would say my double overhand is pretty great. I just think there are more polite ways to get your point across. 

[stranger]

About a year or so ago I was doing a lot of gripper and bending in the same workouts. I made some good progress by doing the grippers first then on my last 2-3 sets with grippers I'd start my bending warm ups. 

For me , I feel like if you're doing grippers they should almost always be first in a workout. When I started to do thick bar I'd do grippers, bending then thick bar. 

You could just do them of separate days but I feel like grippers or grip work in general give you a nice warm up for bending and don't usually hinder it too much. (Depending on if you rip any skin while doing grip work)  

[Fist of Fury]

9 minutes ago, stranger said:

About a year or so ago I was doing a lot of gripper and bending in the same workouts. I made some good progress by doing the grippers first then on my last 2-3 sets with grippers I'd start my bending warm ups. 

For me , I feel like if you're doing grippers they should almost always be first in a workout. When I started to do thick bar I'd do grippers, bending then thick bar. 

You could just do them of separate days but I feel like grippers or grip work in general give you a nice warm up for bending and don't usually hinder it too much. (Depending on if you rip any skin while doing grip work)  

I did the same in 2017. 

Gripper - Reverse bending - Thick bar

Did fairly well, was able to gain on both grippers and thick bar and a little bit on bending. however I was a complete beginner in bending. My best bend was a 1/4x6" grade 5 bolt.

With Do bending though, it has never worked well together with anything, except for bench press. Using bench as a warmup worked out good with DO bending.

[Fist of Fury]

23 minutes ago, Londonjoseph said:

I would say my double overhand is pretty great. I just think there are more polite ways to get your point across. 

I'm not trying to be polite. I couldn't care less if you think I'm polite or not.

[Londonjoseph]

1 minute ago, Fist of Fury said:

I'm not trying to be polite. I couldn't care less if you think I'm polite or not.

I think that's quite apparent. Can't say I'm surprised.

[matek]

49 minutes ago, Fist of Fury said:

How often do you bend DO? 

Exactly, pretty much never....

I gave two specific examples why I think reverse would hurt gripper progress more than DO. Your only argument was because you bend harder steel that way.

Now your second argument is; because I have limited experience, you must know better. Without further explanation, or elaboration.

Moreover, I explicitly said in my first post "as a beginner bender". So I wasn't referring to a situation, when your bones and joints are already used to the reverse abuse or when your DO technique is perfect. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by matek

[Fist of Fury]

12 minutes ago, matek said:

I gave two specific examples why I think reverse would hurt gripper progress more than DO. Your only argument was because you bend harder steel that way.

Now your second argument is; because I have limited experience, you must know better. Without further explanation, or elaboration.

Moreover, I explicitly said in my first post "as a beginner bender". So I wasn't referring to a situation, when your bones and joints are already used to the reverse abuse or when your DO technique is perfect. 

Yes your comment shows you have no clue, you're just guessing.

You don't get skin tears in the same place when DO bending as when you close grippers. So that will not have any affect on your gripper training.

It's a very common assumtion people (who don't know much about DO bending) make that it's not as taxing on the hands (grip/wrists). When in fact it's the hardest form of un braced bending. You're bending bars that are much harder than other styles and it takes a huge toll on your hands, fingers, wrists, biceps, elbows, triceps, shoulders, chest, back etc. 

Reason I'm not really feel like "arguing" is because I don't feel the need to. 

[Fist of Fury]

25 minutes ago, Londonjoseph said:

I think that's quite apparent. Can't say I'm surprised.

Why should I be polite?

I really dislike when people trying to argue about stuff they don't know much, or anything about.

[Fist of Fury]

2 hours ago, matek said:

If it's about skin and general fatigue in the palms, this is probably true. But assuming you will give your best in all styles, I think reverse will be harder on the wrists and thumb MPC joint (I'm just mentioning this because it can really impact gripper work). Both can give you nice tendonitis in the elbows of course, maybe DU is the only exception of this.

Also the second point is not really correct either.

In reverse bedning you're not doing the same thing with both hands, so depending on how you train it will not have the same affect on your gripper training. In DO and DU you're doing the same thing with both hands. So it will affect both sides in the same way.

Bending, regardless of style is going to have affect on your gripper strength. But for me it has less affect with reverse because I use my left as anchor hand and I close grippers with my right.

[Londonjoseph]

9 minutes ago, Fist of Fury said:

Why should I be polite?

I really dislike when people trying to argue about stuff they don't know much, or anything about.

I think you are mistaken here, nobody was arguing, only offering suggestions. Just seems like you have some sort of complex to me.