How to Perform "Strap Holds" by Steve Weiner

[Bill Piche]

How to Perform "Strap Holds" by Steve Weiner

If you have never heard of them before, I would recommend reading an excellent article in MILO volume 4 number 2 called "Handgrippers-Closing The Gap" by John Brookfield. This is where I got the idea to try strapholds. They are not my invention, but I believe that anyone can have success utilizing them in their training. Strapholds are when you take a thin piece of leather, poke a hole in one end, loop some wire through the hole, add some weight to the wire, then use your grippers like a pair of pliers on the other end of the piece of leather to pick up the whole affair, hold it until the strap slips from between the gripper handles. If you have Brookfield's Mastery of Hand Strength, look at the picture of him doing plier lifts, to get an idea of what strapholds will look like, except you are using grippers instead of pliers. Make sure that the piece of leather you use is very thin, because you want to practice getting stronger with the gripper handles being as close together as possible. These take some getting used to, and you have to use a gripper that you can really mash and hold. The thing I like about strapholds versus cheat shuts, is that your fingers are still staying in their natural closing groove, whereas when you cheat a gripper shut with your other hand, your fingers may not be in the same position as if you closed the gripper without any assistance from your other hand. From the way you handle the BB Master, without the added spring that you use, you should be able to use this gripper for strapholds. I would use strapholds twice a week, instead of all the other gripper activity you are doing. If you do them in addition to what you are doing, you will certainly get overtrained very quickly. A sample program, which incidentally is identical to the one I used to close the gap, is done twice a week as follows: Set 1-CoC#1-7-8 reps, set 2-CoC#2-3 reps, set 3-BBMaster-2reps, set 4-CoC#3-attempted close, sets 5 through 7-strapholds with BBMaster. I changed my routine on 6/30/00 to what I just wrote, and within 5 weeks succeeded with the #3. At the time I first closed the #3 with my right hand back on 8/4/00, I was doing strapholds with the BB Master and 2.5 pounds (this did not include the weight if a standard sized loading pin) with my right hand. On 8/4/00 I was using the CoC #2 and 12.5 pounds with my left hand and was 1/16" away from closing the #3. It is very easy to overwork the strapholds, so if you find yourself going stale after a few weeks, do them once per week, and on your other gripper workout, just do 3 sets of 3 with the BB Master to keep the groove of the movement. I have since closed the #3 lefty, and have not missed an attempt on the #3 with my right hand for a couple of months. The real payoff of strapholds is that they will allow you to really mash the #3 closed, and hold it for a few seconds, which really comes in handy when you get pictures taken for MILO. By the way, for strapholds, I would recommend using a weight that you can hold for 5-10 seconds. As soon as you break 10 seconds for at least your first two sets, increase he weight. You will get very strong, very fast using these. In my last workout on Friday, I did a couple of closes with the #3 with either hand, and did the strapholds with the BB Master with either hand using 12.5 pounds (weight of pin not included)righty and 10 pounds lefty. Soon I should be able to use the #3 itself for strapholds. Be patient, stay determined, and you will succeed. I am by far from being a genetic wonder-if strapholds worked for me, they can work for anyone.

[5xfive]

Here is my "poor mans" version for those like myself that havn't yet acquired the strength (yet) to consistantly and repeatedly close even the CoC trainer.

I use a set of pliers, a tennis ball, an old military styly cloth belt, and a bucket/

Take the tennis ball, and insert it between the handles. It is better to use fixed pin, as opposed to channel lock type. Make sure that the mouth of the pliers do not close unless really squeezed. Take the bucket and fill with sand, coins, water, crushed stones, etc. Loop the belt through the handle, place 2 ends in the pliers mouth...then grip. You can do curls, or timed static holds.

To vary the resistance in the grip you can move the tennis ball, or raquet ball, within the confines of the handles.

It was a good cheap starting point for me, and a cool down, for us Seargents of Crush. LOL

n8

[steeve tremblay]

I feel that it is a very good training program to conquer the 3;; you have to climb the mountain