Why should you even care about grip/wrist strength? What is this everyday object? I know I said household object, but in hindsight, it's more likely that you'll find this in the garage or shed.
That object, my friend is the trusty "blunt force" screwdriver. You know you use it to tap in those weird-looking nails. AKA the sledgehammer.
I mean it's fitting that to mould a grip worth of grasping mjölnir you need a slightly less worthy hammer ........... progressive overload and all that.
Want to learn how to take your grip strength to the next level?
In my opinion, what separates those who are "gym" strong and those who possess real-world functional strength is grip strength. You hands are what you use to connect you to the object you're trying to lift
And often with standard everyday objects opposed to that nice ergonomically cut soft grips that you find on your gym machines. They don't exist sometimes there is nothing to get a purchase on.
Ask anyone who has played around with stones or sandbags there is nothing to hold nothing to grip.
When this happens your 400kg leg press and strapped up 200kg deadlift go out the window. Sure you legs are plenty strong enough, and your back can handle the weight but those little mittens you call hands just ain't up to the task.
Here is a simple grip strength test find a bar and hang from it, you can wrap your thumbs if you want you can pack your shoulders or just hang relaxed. You should be able to hang for 60's with relative ease.
Learn the movements of the wrist and how you can improve the strength of the associated muscles.
The wrist is an ellipsoidal (condyloid) type synovial joint, allowing for movement along two axes.
This means that flexion, extension, adduction and abduction can all occur at the wrist joint.
All the movements of the wrist are performed by the muscles of the forearm.
If you want a more detailed explanation of the what muscles do what rear the next italic section. If not just skip past it.
Flexion – Produced mainly by the flexor carpi ulnaris, flexor carpi radialis, with assistance from the flexor digitorum superficialis.
Extension – Produced mainly by the extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis, and extensor carpi ulnaris, with assistance from the extensor digitorum.
Adduction – Produced by the extensor carpi ulnaris and flexor carpi ulnaris
Abduction – Produced by the abductor pollicis longus, flexor carpi radialis, extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis.
The sledgehammer is a perfect tool to use to develop the muscle of the wrist. Unlike specific gym machines, the sledgehammer can be used in all planes of motion.
And because training with the hammer relies on leverage, a single hammer will provide a lot of differences in resistance.
And it's still usable as a hammer.
A neat trick is to make the sledgehammer in 1-inch increments with electrical tape or a permanent marker. This will enable you to make easy adjustments overtime in effort level.
The exercises you will need to do to work all movements are.
Clocks/Rotations, Ulnar and Radial Levers as well as basic wrist flexion and extension.
I have developed an easy to follow program with progressions for grip strength using a sledgehammer. Comes with access to our coaching software to make it nice and easy to log and complete your sessions and moulding a might grip in the process.
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