Hi! Great to see other ladies that lift, seems no one in my home town does that I can find whatever time I get to either gym! Relative newbie to lifting. (Not a total newbie though) fantastic group btw been browsing for sometime! Hope someone can help me out here bit stuck with silly grip problem.

My grip is just terrible! I'm doing farmers carries/pinching a plate between my fingers and thumbs most days (just round the dining room for a couple mins) and using a hand exersise thingy, I forget what they are called but those v shaped things you squeeze while watching TV. Ive been doing this for two months!
But I cannot seem to increase my grip!!! I'm having to use straps on my dls and I feel like I'm cheating. I desperately want to increase my lift from 86kg (190ish lbs) up to a nice round 100kg by winter (non-scale goal, I hope am achievable one.) but for the life of me after a couple of reps it feels like the straps are taking most of the weight and I'm concerned that's dangerous and can cause injury.

Any ideas? Exercises for hand? Maybe fingers? I really don't want to injure my wrists as they are already achy post training some days, I'm also scared of dropping the bar if the straps slide again.

Thanks for any advice in advance! Sorry to introduce myself with an annoying probably simple question.