Several years ago I read an article of an elderly man who trained his grip and forearm muscles just to see how far he can go in developing his grip strength. Ironmind sells these wonderful professional quality hand grip gripping tools. Ironmind specializes in top quality strength equipment.

The elderly gentleman trained his grip to the point of closing the number No. 4 gripper @365 lbs. His routine consisted of training with the grippers using 5 sets of 5 reps, wrist roller rolling, and finger push-ups and also using the eagle loops for chinning as well as a plate loaded grip machine. For the forearms he would use the wrist roller and also perform wrist curls and reverse wrist curls with anywhere from 50 to 150 pounds. To say that he had a powerful grip was an understatement. He managed to achieve an incredible grip force by closing the captains of crush number4 gripper.

One day, this gentleman, goes to run some errands. After he finished running his errands, he walks up to his car. When he walks up to his car, he is immediately accosted by a thirty something year old man. The younger man (street punk jackass) attacks this 80 years old elderly man thinking that this was an easy target. As the punk attacks and pummels the elderly man the punk demands that he fork over the car keys and open up the trunk. The elderly gentleman keeps his cool and with a blinding flash grabs the punk’s nut sack with his crushing grip. As the elderly man grabs the punk’s scrodem, he begins to twist and at the same time crush the balls of this lowlife punk. The punk opens his mouth to yell but nothing comes out. The eyes of this punk roll to the back of his head while the elderly man continues to hold onto his victim’s nut sack continuing to twist and crush the testicles of the younger man. After about 15 minutes of this, the shoppers and people who were there call the police. When the police arrived they saw this old man holding onto the testicles of his assailant; the elderly man’s assailant was completely unconscious. Because the elderly man’s adrenaline was through the roof, the police had to help the elderly man with slowly opening the hand that was holding onto his attackers tentacles. The elderly man said, once he calmed down, that he gives thanks to God for having trained his grip strength because that is what saved his life. What happened to the punk who attacked the elderly man, I do not know, but I think that now he can sing soprano while putting daisies in his hair, tip toeing through the two lips like some freak of a eunuch. The punks new name is Daisy May Tinkle Pants.

(Note: A eunuch is a man who (by the common definition of the term) may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences.) Serves the punk right for messing with an elderly man who tore his balls off.

Now, I tell you this story to lead into why as weight lifters and bodybuilders as well as combat athletes, we need to train our grip strength and forearms. If you notice in many strongman competitions, the grip is everything. If your grip gives out while working the slater stones you can say good bye to placing, or in power-lifting; if your grip gives out while performing a record breaking dead-lift, well, not good. It has been proven by the old school bodybuilders and weightlifters that usually during a set of barbell bent over rows or a set of dumbbell rows your grip will go out first before your back muscles fatigue. If your weakest link to your arm and back strength is your grip then we must remedy the problem and fix it. I see many guys in the gym using straps for everything. They use straps for their rowing exercises, chinning, and lat pull downs. When you use these aids you are actually weakening your grip. There are many trends in bodybuilding today, which are not training your neck, forearms or your grip. The old school bodybuilders not only included neck work into their programs they also included forearm work with their arm work. A perfect example that comes to mind is Mr. Olympia Larry Scott. In his book, “Loaded Guns” Larry Scott devotes a full chapter to arm training, which included a big share to training the forearms. Larry states that if your forearms are strong big biceps will follow. Why is that? Because you need closing grip strength and forearm power to hold onto a heavy barbell to perform the curling exercise, which translates to bigger biceps. Everyone reading this post should be performing or plan on performing grip and forearm work. Here is a list of exercises. With this list you should pick two gripping exercises and finish the grip work with three sets of wrist curls and three sets of reverse wrist curls.

List of Exercises

1) Hand Grip exercise with Captains of crush grippers

2) Plate loaded Hand grip machine.

3) Finger push-ups.

4) Plate pinching.

5) Eagle loop chinning, or rowing.

6) Expand-Your-Hand Bands, which work the essentric position of your hand muscles.

7) Wrist roller rolling.

8) Barbell or dumbbell wrist curls & Reverse curls.

9) Training with fat bars or using on the regular bars the Fat Gripz handles.

Here is a basic gripping routine. This routine should be done on day when you train arms or back and should be done after you train arms or back.

1) Hand gripper captains of crush gripper using the 5X5 system

2) Plate loaded hand grip machine 5×5 system

3) Reverse Wrist curls 3×10

4) Wrist curls 3×10

Note: Make sure that you perform your wrist curls with your hands hanging from the end of a bench the way the old school bodybuilders did them.

This simple routine for grip and forearm training is very effective and result producing. Give this program a try or pick and choose from the example I provided you with here and train your grip and forearms two to three times weekly. You will soon see that you too will be able to twist the nuts off of some hood rat street punk.

Until next time,

Be Safe.

God Bless.

I.A.A.M.