grip strength and hand size?

[jackangel]

do any of you with smaller hands have really strong grips? my hand measures about 7 inches from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger. the middle finger itself is just under 3 inches long. fingers aren't thick. i don't want to use this as an excuse, but i assume that having smaller hands provides some natural disadvantage when gripping an olympic bar?

i'm getting very close to the point where my mixed or overhand grip isn't strong enough to hold onto to the bar during some exercises.

are static holds good enough to get me where i need to be? or are there some other good exercises which are specific only to increasing grip stregnth as it relates to holding a bar?

thankee sai.


My hands arent too big. Theyve gotten alot thicker since I started lifting though. So they can definately be made thicker and stronger. I have held atleast 495 with a mixed grip. Not for very long though. With chalk and a mixed grip I can hold hundreds of pounds more, and not sure what my limit is.
Deadlifting built my static hold grip. I used straps basically the whole time also and still built my grip. Im still squeezing the bar just as hard with or without straps. Straps just allow the bar to stay in my hands beyond failure. Also, recently Ive been using the COC grippers alot and closed the # 2 as well. I would think that would help somewhat overall. Though my left hand is far superior to my right in crushing grip, so Im not so sure it would help with 2 handed exercises as much. I would just suggest deadlifting with chalk or straps. Have you tried chalk? If not youd be surprised how much you can hold with it, and its used in any PL competition if thats your goal, if not it shouldnt be a big issue and Id stick with the straps. Hope that helps

 

[super_rice]

i'm by no means a big dude, but the base of my palm to the tip of my middle finger is just about 7 1/8th inches, and i have no problems gripping an oly bar, doing rows, deads, pulls things like that.

for holding strength, i've found a nice way is just to combine static holds, and holds on a chinup bar with a weighted belt after a back workout. the grip will be toasted for sures. you could also try increasing the thickness of the bars your holding, that would be good. worked for me, i wrapped a towel around my 1" dia chinup bar.

when i first started doing rows, chins, i had trouble gripping the bar too, but the towel and static holds worked wonders

 

[jackangel]

thanks for the response super_rice. it's not that i have trouble gripping the bar itself. but the most i've held in my hands is 385. i might have 405 in me, for the length of time it takes to do a rack pull, and maybe a full deadlift, but my overall body's strength will soon outpace my poor grip strength, and so i need to take measures to prevent that, lest i start using straps.

but i will do some static holds, and try to thicken the handles as you suggest. i hadn't considered doing holds on a chinup bar, but i'll try that as well. i'll try to do most of this at the end of a workout where my grip hasn't been taxed greatly (i.e. chest/tris or legs) so i can hold the most weight.

thanks again.

 

[muscledog95]

I have the smallest hands I know. Ive compared my hands to all of my guy friends and their hands dworf mine. Ive compared my hands to girls lmao and most of them have hands bigger then mine. OK OK I hear the jokes coming now but ive measured so im good to go lmao. Anywayz, ive found that doing static holds reallllly help with the grip regardless of handsize. Im up to holding 105lb dumbells in each hand for 30 seconds. I know thats not much but i started out with like 60 or so lol Good luck

 

[MsBeverlyHills]

my hand measures about 7 inches from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger. the middle finger itself is just under 3 inches long. fingers aren't thick.

7 inches & not too thick...oh baby

seriously...check out COC grippers- will radically improve your grip over static holds.

 

[Debaser]

7 inches & not too thick...oh baby

seriously...check out COC grippers- will radically improve your grip over static holds.

CoC grippers train your crushing strength, static holds affects your holding strength.

You can train both, but unless you're specifically interested in crushing strength, there's no real reason to start using the CoCs. Static holds are the exercise relevant to your weight training grip.

 

[b fold the truth]

I use the CoC grippers to increase my static strength. I do timed holds with them.

I'm sure that hand size helps a lot...as well as having thinner hands/fingers too.

B True

 

[Cuthbert]

CoC grippers train your crushing strength, static holds affects your holding strength.

You're wrong. My only grip training for a while was CoC grippers, and my static strength improved tremendously.

The position your hand is in at the closed position is pretty similar to holding a barbell, the carryover doesn't surprise me.

 

[Forge]

If anyone's looking for a more sporty way to increase your grip strength, I'd suggest taking up rock climbing. I belong to a local indoor gym, and not only is it hella fun but it has improved my grip strength tremendously.

 

[aerowana]

Forge, I think rock climbing doesnt really carry over to crush grip nor snatch grip. Cos rock climbing uses a pinch grip. I myself do bouldering , well I used to do rock climbing but due to difficulty of finding a consistent partner for belaying thus I switched to bouldering. And trust me, bouldering is much more tiring, try hanging upside down on the bottom of horizontal face doing circuits if those for 5 minutes... plenty of cardio and pinch grip involved. And my fingers are pretty long but thin, sounds girly? hhahaha.

 

[b fold the truth]

I'd love to rock climb. My boss used to and he said that it sucked for him at 220 pounds so it would REALLY suck for me at near 290...lol.

It would be a fun try though...

B True

 

[super_rice]

ooo, rock climbing is tough on the hands and really fun.

if i could do this all day, i'd go rcok climbing over training forearms in the gym any day (so boring)

 

[jackangel]

i was wondering about the carry over from crush/pinch grip to bar-holding. it seems like it would make a difference, given that you're strengthening the hand's/finger's ability to tighten around an object in any case, but i don't know how specificity plays a role here, from a physiological/biomechanical standpoint.

do any of you with fairly small hands (like mine) have really strong grips? for my purposes, i suppose that means holding at least 450-500 on the bar with a mixed grip. if you have personal accounts of how you went from being weak to stronger in this area, they are welcome.

 

[Debaser]

You're wrong. My only grip training for a while was CoC grippers, and my static strength improved tremendously.

The position your hand is in at the closed position is pretty similar to holding a barbell, the carryover doesn't surprise me.

I'm not saying it won't affect anything at all, but it's not going to work as well as static holds IMO.

Anyway, you're saying your static strength improved tremendously, but were you increasing your deadlift poundages during this time? If your deads were improving, so was your static grip strength as a byproduct, so you can't say that it was merely the work of the CoC grippers.

Ed Coan can't even close the #3. I guarantee that, even when I can close the 3 (probably within the year, I can already close the #2), I won't be able to hold near as much weight as he can.

 

[b fold the truth]

I'm not saying it won't affect anything at all, but it's not going to work as well as static holds IMO.

Anyway, you're saying your static strength improved tremendously, but were you increasing your deadlift poundages during this time? If your deads were improving, so was your static grip strength as a byproduct, so you can't say that it was merely the work of the CoC grippers.

Ed Coan can't even close the #3. I guarantee that, even when I can close the 3 (probably within the year, I can already close the #2), I won't be able to hold near as much weight as he can.

Getting ready for Boston I was not able to deadlift OR go intense on farmers walks...yet my static grip strength increased from using the CoC grippers.

My grip was pretty solid too...

B True

 

[jackangel]

by the way, i'd just like to point out that msbeverlyhills was so totally hitting on me in this thread, and you all know it.

 

[Cuthbert]

Anyway, you're saying your static strength improved tremendously, but were you increasing your deadlift poundages during this time?

No, all I did to improve my deadlift was box squats and speed pulls at the time.

Ed Coan can't even close the #3. I guarantee that, even when I can close the 3, I won't be able to hold near as much weight as he can.

Does Coan train these? Static holds don't do much in the way of training for grippers.

Bottom line is that I don't know anyone who can close a #3 (or a 2 for that matter) who has weak hands.

 

[Lord_Suston]

Debaser you aare looking at the mechanic of the hand wrong. crushing strength is a function of concentric contraction of the muscles in the thenar and hypothenar compartment along with the anterior aspect of the forearm. Static contraction is just that, most people know that static strength is genrally stronger than concentric strength, so if your crushing grip goes up so should your static. This is mostly true in COC gripper cause they are gripped and crushed in the same plane as a static hold of a barbell