Weak hands...
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AZChristy
Posts: 30 Member
My hands and wrists always give out before the rest of me. It's really affecting my deadlifts, rows, etc. but my weights are not high enough to justify straps. What are some good exercises to strengthen my wrists and hands?
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My hands and wrists always give out before the rest of me. It's really affecting my deadlifts, rows, etc. but my weights are not high enough to justify straps. What are some good exercises to strengthen my wrists and hands?
In other words, you have a weak grip right? You may either be lifting more than you can handle, or you may indeed have weak wrists and small hands. Either how, exercises that involve heavy use of wrists normally should be able to help you build stronger grip. If you have a small hand then that is another problem.
David Robson has a good article on improving grip strength.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson78.htm0 -
wrist curls helped me tremendously. i keep my forarms together, palms up with my hands/wrist hanging off the end of a bench gripping a bb. Just rip out reps until your forarms wanna blow up.
They sell grip strengthening devices for cheap at sporting goods stores, might want to look into one of those0 -
At the end of a session just go to a pullup bar and hang off it for as long as you possibly can. Try and make it a little bit longer each time.
Alternatively, shrugs or calf raises with a barbell will also work.0 -
wrist curls helped me tremendously. i keep my forarms together, palms up with my hands/wrist hanging off the end of a bench gripping a bb. Just rip out reps until your forarms wanna blow up.
They sell grip strengthening devices for cheap at sporting goods stores, might want to look into one of those
Yea those grip plastic things that came with the cheap cement weight sets help haha.0 -
At the end of a session just go to a pullup bar and hang off it for as long as you possibly can. Try and make it a little bit longer each time.
Alternatively, shrugs or calf raises with a barbell will also work.
I never thought about that dude. You mean doing negatives?0 -
At the end of a session just go to a pullup bar and hang off it for as long as you possibly can. Try and make it a little bit longer each time.
Alternatively, shrugs or calf raises with a barbell will also work.
I never thought about that dude. You mean doing negatives?
I don't know what level the OP is at strength wise but if a pullup is a goal at some point then negatives are a great idea as well as what I call anti shrugs. (dead hang from bar and squeeze lats to go up just a few inches, hardest part is at the bottom). And these exercises will also help the grip strength a lot.0 -
At the end of a session just go to a pullup bar and hang off it for as long as you possibly can. Try and make it a little bit longer each time.
Alternatively, shrugs or calf raises with a barbell will also work.
I never thought about that dude. You mean doing negatives?
Negatives are the best kept dirty secrets lol. They work for pretty much anything except for some compound exercises. Negatives with bench are awesome. Negatives for pulls up are my favorites. I go down slow extremely slow.
Back to the wrists issue here with OP. Literally every exercise works out the wrists. Bench works them out, curling overworks them out, and wrist curls is more direct to push more blood in that area. Hammer curls etc work out the wrist too. If you think about it, the wrist is the most overworked body part in the gym LOL.
I don't know what level the OP is at strength wise but if a pullup is a goal at some point then negatives are a great idea as well as what I call anti shrugs. (dead hang from bar and squeeze lats to go up just a few inches, hardest part is at the bottom). And these exercises will also help the grip strength a lot.0 -
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Wrap a towel around a pull up bar and hang from the towel as long as you can. If you're doing deadlifts an alternating hand grip helps out too.0
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Get some heavy dumbbells and do farmer's walks or farmer's holds for time.
Do dead hangs from the pullup bar.
If they're holding back your deads, look into the hook grip or going over/under. I can pull in the mid to upper 3's overhanded, but I prefer to go over/under for anything in the 4s.0 -
Thanks guys. I've been doing wrist curls and barbell shrugs and calf raises for awhile. Definitely trying farmers walk and hanging from the pullup bar too. It's mostly affecting my deadlift, rows, clean and press. I guess I just need to be patient.0
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I'm not really anti straps to honest, I think that have their use.
If you have no intention of competing then your grip strength is not essential, and takes a long time to build up.
Take rows for example, I do my t bar rows with staps as it take the biceps and forearm out of the exercise and gives you more work through the back, and it is a back exercise after all not a grip exercise.
Work on your grip but don't dismiss straps altogether.
Chalk will help with the deads, but there is no harm in pulling some heavy reps with straps every now and then.0 -
Agreed on the straps. I hadn't used them before but when I started going for some higher rep heavy stuff they did help with being able to concentrate on the actual lift not my hands giving out. I'd leave these for as long as possible though. And I never use them for any 1rm attempts as it just takes too much stuffing around to setup.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk7QeYngWuo
