Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1895: Eight Hacks for an Insanely Strong Grip

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover eight ways you can dramatically improve your grip strength. 1895: Eight Hacks for an Insanely Strong Grip One of the EASIEST ways to improve your performance, vitality, and muscle growth is to simply STRENGTHEN your grip. (2:37) Why are we so WEAK?! (8:09) What does a stronger grip mean for me? (10:03)   Eight Hacks for an Insanely Strong Grip.   #1 - Don’t use wrist straps. (12:53) #2 - Do low rep training (fat bar). (19:20) #3 - Use chalk (powder or liquid). (22:46) #4 - Squeeze the bar when pressing. (24:43) #5 - Practice isometrics. (29:07) #6 - Add 1-2 sets to every workout. (31:24) #7 - Train the wrist extenders. (34:05) #8 - Don’t train to failure. (36:49) Mind Pump’s Favorite grip strength exercises. (38:14) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP15 at checkout for 15% discount** September Promotion: Skinny Guy Bundle (MAPS ANABOLIC // MAPS AESTHETIC // NO B.S. 6-PACK FORMULA // INTUITIVE NUTRITION GUIDE // OCCLUSION TRAINING GUIDE.) HALF OFF!! Also, the Fit Mom Bundle (MAPS ANYWHERE // MAPS ANABOLIC // MAPS HIIT // and INTUITIVE NUTRITION GUIDE.) HALF OFF!! **Code SEPT50 at checkout** The ONLY Forearm Workout That Matters (TRY THIS!!) | MIND PUMP How to Rip a Phonebook in Half (Awesome Party Trick!) - Mind Pump TV Strength Of Grip Declines In Young Adults Association of Grip Strength With Risk of All-Cause Mortality, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Cancer in Community-Dwelling Populations: A Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies How to Build a Strong Core with Kettlebell Farmers Walk – Mind Pump TV How to Fix Golfer's/Tennis Elbow! (Inner Elbow Pain) - Mind Pump TV MAPS O.C.R. Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about grip strength and form development. Your grip is what connects you to the world, get a strong grip, get better lifts.

Now, this episode is brought to you by some of our sponsors. One of them is paleo valleys. So they make paleo inspired products and supplements. One of my favorite supplements that they offer is their organ complex capsules. So these are freeze dried heart liver pancreas all in a capsule you take it you get all the nutrients you don't have to eat the organ meats because organ meats don't taste very good Another product that have that I like a lot of their grass fed meat sticks their juicy great

Macro profile very easy to travel with it's it's a great snack. I give them to my kids Anyway, they have much more than that. Go check them out. Go to paleovali.com, that's P-A-L-E-O-Valley.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump 15 and get 15% off your first order. Also, we have this month an incredible maps promotion. Check this out.

We created two bundles and we made them both 50% off Here's the first one. It's called the skinny guy bundles So we took a a bunch of programs and guides and put them together for people who want a bulk people who have trouble putting on muscle Here's what's included maps and a ballic map Sesthetic the no BS 6 pack formula the nutrition guide, and the occlusion training glide, all included in this bundle, and we've made it 50% off. So it's already on discount,

because it's bundled, then we took an additional 50% off. The other bundle that we have is called the Fit Mom Bundle. So this is targeting people who, again, want to build an incredible body, maybe limit it on time, want efficiency and effectiveness. Here's what's included in that bundle.

Maps anywhere, maps and a ball, maps hit and the intuitive nutrition guide. And that's also 50% off. Both bundles, the skinny guy bundle and the fit mom bundle are 50% off until the end of the month, but you have to go to mapsfitinistproducts.com to sign up and then you have to use the month, but you have to go to mapsfitinistproducts.com to sign up.

And then you have to use the code, sept 50. So SEPT, so short for September, SEPT, and the number 50 with no space for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes a show. One of the easiest ways to improve your performance, vitality, and muscle growth is to simply strengthen your grip. You know, this is an area that is often neglected in training programs.

Overlook, those things. You know, this conversation reminds me of, it was, I've maybe done to look at how many years ago it was, but I remember when we were trying to figure out like, YouTube videos to go viral, and we were like always coming with ideas. Was this another time I was right? Yeah, well, I'm gonna give you your credit guy,

hang tight, hang on, I'm just gonna throw you off. Struck you off, relax, hang on, I'll get there. So I remember we'd all like, oh this, you know, and we're always wrong, right? It's like, oh, everything's that we thought would go viral, never went viral and stuff that we would never guess. And I remember Sal one time was like,

we should do a forearm video. I remember just this stupid one time was like, we should do a forearm video. I remember just this stupid. This is what nobody cares about a forearm video. Focusing on that. And it was one of the most viral videos that you ever did. I remember being like, you gotta be kidding me. Who's searching for forearm videos? It's like that and ripping a phone book.

I thought the ripping phone book, I mean, I was cooler. That was way cooler. I didn't go viral. So anyways, the forearm one was one that I thought for sure. Well, you know, it's interesting is you don't think about this on its face because, you know, when people are training their body, they don't typically say, like most people are motivated

because they want an aesthetic change, right? So I want to look different. Almost never do people say, I want my fore to look better or my hands to look more muscular. Nobody ever says that. It's like my butt or my shoulders or my back or my abs. Even though it's like ingrained in every single exercise you're gonna do just about. Yes, however, however, if when we do our, because we do every Sunday's, we post a meme on our Instagram page, my pump media, and it says, quack, QUH, and that's where people post their questions. And inevitably, there's at least one or two,

this is for years now, it's been happening. At least one or two or more questions revolving around the grip. Like, how can I make my grip stronger? I can't deadlift as much. You know, my grip prevents me from doing heavy rows. Should I use wrist straps? So it's this common question, this common problem. grip stronger, I can't deadlift as much. You know, my grip prevents me from doing heavy rows. Should I use wrist straps? So it's this common, questions, common problem.

I think that people encounter. So now the other side of this is there's not a lot of stuff out there, right? So there's not a lot of good information out there on how to train your grip. Very few programs have grip or forearm training programmed in the workout. So it's like, well, what do I do for my grip?

Do I just hold on to heavy weights? Like, what are the exercises? What does that look like? So there's a lot of that. And also, I mean, the reality isn't you said this, you're basically touching on this, Justin. Your hands connect you to the world. So a strong grip is like, you know,

that's the last line of defense, if you will. If your grip can't hold something or your wrist is too weak to press something, I don't care how strong your chest and shoulders are, your back is, your bicep. It doesn't matter. You're dropping it. You can't do it. It just doesn't work. So it's a very important part of the body, just like any other part of the body is, but it's an neglected part of the body. And people always trip out when they're grip it stronger, how much it improves everything else because the part gets easier.

It's part of the kinetic chain. It's also, I mean, I'm surprised you didn't bring up your, the, I was, I don't know if it was a poll or a study they did on the grip strength of like a 20 year old man today compared to like a 60 year old man, like in the 40s and 50s. No, in the 80s. Oh, the 80s. It was in the 80s. That recent. Yeah, the average college aged male today has the grip strength of a 60 year old man in the early 80s. That's how much. And the reason why these grip strength is because grip strength is actually quite reliable, it's not perfect of course, but a very reliable way to test overall body strength. So if you have a weak grip, you probably have a weak body.

If you have a strong grip, you probably have a strong body. And of course, it's not perfect. There could be issues with someone's hands, they could whatever. But for the most part, and it tells you a lot, and it's easy to test, right? It's an easy test. You just squeeze and grip something. Grip strength also, and this was, this was, I remember when the first study came out with this, people were blown away, but now they've repeated it. Grip strength is actually a pretty reliable test

to predict all cause mortality. In fact, it's better than most other single metrics. Like, you could go do blood tests and pick single metrics, and there's some that can really predict well, especially if they're bad, but a lot of them mean you're a combination of things to have a good predictor. Just grip strength alone.

We'll give you a pretty accurate reading of all cause mortality because it measures overall a lot of things. It's easy way to see if you can really summon strength, if you can recruit muscle fibers in a way or you can produce enough output, so you can recruit muscle fibers in a way where you can produce enough output so you can actually start moving heavy objects around. So it's a very simple way to make sure that you're staying on top of that.

Yeah, it also predicts though, it's also connected to, and what I mean by all cause mortality is, yes, strength, that's an obvious one, but they connect it to overall mobility. They can connect it to osteophenia osteoprosis, hormones, they can connect it to insulin sensitivity, diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia. Of course, it's one metric, so it's not perfect, but man, is it interesting that one test can tell you so much about somebody because it has to do with overall body strength

and overall body strength is very closely connected to longevity. But yeah, the grip, the grip is what they test, and incidentally, the thing that we probably, I mean, we use our whole bodies so little nowadays, but that last study you talked about Adam, I mean our hands are weak compared to what they use. Yeah, I didn't realize that it was just the 80s. So what's your, what's the prevailing theory on why such a, I mean, that's drastic in such a short period of time. Like we know like over hundreds of years,

this generation. Yeah, I know, for something like that's massive. So what is your theory that has happened in the last 20 to 40 years as dramatically? We don't use our hands. Yeah, we don't use our hands for anything that's strenuous. Especially, yeah, manual labor is gone way down

terms of technology and making things easier. We used to have a lot more jobs where you really had to use your hands and grip to use on a frequent basis. And we all know that like frequency of like that kind of like manual labor of things. Like you see the forearms that produces and the strength that produces. And you just don't see a lot of trade type jobs

where people are, you know, enrolling. Well, I mean, it was everyday life, like fixing your bike, working on your car, swinging a hammer, playing any kind of sport, right? Your hands are always involved. You know what's funny in that same study? They showed that women's grips, or college age women's grips, didn't decline.

In fact, there was a slight increase, and this is likely due to the increase in women playing sports. So from the 80s to now, the percentage of girls that play sports has gone up. Because back then it was somewhat discouraged, it was masking whatever don't go to the gym type of deal. But with men, it went the opposite direction. So, you know, kind of interesting. So it's got to be the fact

that we just don't use our hands for anything other than texting or typing or writing. And so they're just weak, but that means that's also showing that a whole body is weak. But then to the average person who works out, and they think, well, what does this have to do with me? A stronger grip makes all your exercises more effective. Not just the pulling ones, everybody thinks, oh yeah, that makes sense for rows and for pull-ups and for deadlifts.

Obviously, you wanna have a strong grip. It shouldn't be the reason why you can't lift the weight that you can lift should not be your grip. But people don't realize that a strong grip also translates to strong press, strong forearms and strong wrists, translates to strong press. And if you don't believe me, watch high lifters who lift ungodly amounts of weights in overhead presses

and bench presses, and many of them aware, wrist support. They'll actually put braces on the wrist to support their arms so they can press more weight. Why? Because if your wrist can't support the way you can't press it. Now these are people bench pressing. Well, even if it can somewhat support it, if there's at all any sort of movement, play,

or break down there, you're gonna lose a lot of power and strength. So I mean, so that's where someone's like, oh, my wrists are fine. I can do these presses, but it's like, that any sort of instability there because your weak in that grip could make a massive difference. And so there's a massive carryover to every exercise that you do. Like, in fact, I mean, many times I'd be in these long training sessions and almost always what would tap me out is my forms. I mean, just got to a point where it's like it's such a small muscle and compare the the form extenders that small muscles in

comparison to your back and your chest and your legs and all these big movers that you're using. And then that was just so pumped and fatigued. It's like you couldn't even grab onto it, having enough weight, any more. Yeah, well, you know what's interesting is, and you can test this out yourself, you could use wrist straps when doing pulling exercises, or you could use wrist bracing devices while you press, and you can probably find that you have better technique

and better connection to the weight. That's what can happen naturally. In fact, it's even better naturally when that grip is there. So a stronger grip will make your shoulder chest back and even leg exercises. I've known people who squat even with things on the wrist to support themselves with a heavy squat. So anything that involves the hands, any exercise that involves the hands, if your hands are strong, you're going to be able to hit the target muscles more effectively. So this makes a very, very big difference with your entire body, not just in the obvious exercises like pull-ups and rows and deadlifts, makes a huge difference.

So let's talk about some of the ways that you can improve your grip strength. And a lot of these are going to have to do with things you shouldn't do, not just things you should do. And the first one is don't use wrist straps. Wrist straps are those devices that go around your wrist, then you wrap around the bar, and the theory is, hey, your grip can't hold the weight, so this will help you hold the weight and then you can train your back more effectively.

This is a terrible tool. The only people I ever think should use wrist straps are advanced bodybuilders who've already built tremendous amounts of muscle. They're doing so much volume, they're isolating muscles in particular ways, in which case they know how to use these tools in ways that help them, but for 99.9% of people who work out wrist straps are a detriment.

They're just going to keep your wrist weak and your hands weak while you strengthen everything else. Yeah, I've been sort of an evangelist for that for a while now. And it's mainly just because I know when I used to actually wear wrist straps and I would do power cleans and you could, you definitely could put up more weight. You just had more stability, more security. And there was no leak of performance that way in terms of gripping the bar and like filling any fatigue in that direction.

But I noticed just grabbing dumbbells that were heavy. I was having a hard time with that then to go and translate into what I could actually lift. And so I had to go through a long process. And a lot of people don't want to do this if they've been stuck on wrist straps because it does take a while for you to basically catch that up. Your muscles tend to have a lot more in them in terms of what they can produce. When you have a secure wrist and you have a secure grip, but putting the work in, grabbing the weights, and just holding the weights, and then working your way progressively,

we'll make a big difference in terms of then improving all of the lifts. Yeah. It's so tempting to want to use it because, I mean, you can, like if you've ever tried to really increase your deadlift, normally, at least in my experience, the thing that gives out for most people is actually the grip before like their glutes or hamstrings or their back, you know, like it's normally like they get to a weight where they just can't hang onto the bar

and then you do an over under type of deal or end or you use straps and You know, I've definitely been in this camp before where I've used straps when I when I get to super heavy weight They lift and it makes it a lot easier Just one less thing you got to think about too because with the like a movement like that that's so complex There's this this you know, oh man if I don't have to worry about grip I'm locked in and all I got to think about is the hinging process. It makes that movement a lot easier. But then for what, though?

So I understand if you're in a sport that allows you to use those thrones. There's thrones. Competition's my love. Yeah, so there's some competitions that allow straps and then it's all about how heavy of a weight you can go. Then it's a little less important. You brought up the advanced body builder

who is not trying to get a massive forearm pump and is focusing on another specific area. can go, then it's a little less important. You brought up the advanced body builder who is not trying to get a massive forum pump and is focusing on another specific area. I used them when I was competing. I haven't used them since I competed. There's no point to me. And I don't really care that right now, I'm not able to. And by the way, my limiting factor, I'm deadlifting a lot right now. The limiting factor right now is my grip. You know, once I start getting above, you know, about 350 or so, it's really hard for me to get five reps without an over-under grip. But I'm sticking to just double over because I don't, there's no reason for me right now. I'm not going to get any benefit by saying,

by other than bragging on this show that, oh, I'm back up to 550 pound deadlift. It's like, who cares? You know what I'm saying? It's not gonna benefit me that much. So I think that's where you have to, you have to understand that if you're somebody who is in the gym and you're just trying to build a great physique or if you're somebody

who's just trying to be healthy or lose body fat, it's like there is not really a place for these. They're gonna do more harm than they are good. They are, by the way, when women are, and this is just for the guys out there, when they ask women what body parts on a man are found most attractive, the one that tends to shock people is hands and forearms.

Hands and forearms will stand out. And I think it's because, not necessarily, it's a attractive body part, but rather what we said earlier, that it represents overall strength. And it's an easy way. I mean, we're fully clothed. So you have a t-shirt on or a long sleeve shirt, and a woman instinctively can tell

you're physically strong by your hands and by your forearm. You reference that all the time. I don't know if I've ever read that before. Oh, I've seen it. I know arms is, I don't know hands, hands and forearms. I feel like you say that because Doug says you have beautiful soft hands. Yeah No, no, no, I just don't really say that thanks Doug. No, but it's

But no, I've read it many many times and I look I bet we're gonna eat comments on that now that I've said it But it's it's totally true. It's also like part of wisdom, right? You know, what do they say? What do they say to you is that when you were a kid like you know if you shake like your girlfriend's dad's hand Give him a firm grip firm grip, right? Cause I think it does, it shows that, right? It demonstrates that. But yeah, wrist straps take away from that and you never allow your grip to catch up.

And again, the vast majority of people, 99.9%, your grip has the capacity to lift as much as your heaviest lift, as your body can handle, it's heaviest lift. In other words, a deadlift. Forget rows, like if you can't hold onto a bar, you row or pull up, like work on your grip. But there are those occasional like deadlifters

that are pulling tremendous ridiculous amounts of weight, in which case, you know, back and legs and hips, maybe. But 99.9% of people, no, it's just, you gotta let your grip catch up, wrist wraps, all that, now I use wrist wraps for a long time working out because that's what the bodybuilders used in the magazines. And as a kid, I followed what the bodybuilders did. And I remember someone telling me this and saying,

you know, in the real world, if you can't hold on to the weight, you can't lift it. I remember thinking, oh yeah, you're totally right. This is weird. So I took off the wrist straps and it took me a year for my hands to catch up to my back. I had trained my back with wrist straps for so long, my hands were so far behind that I had to go way lighter. It took me a year to catch up. Now my hands are there. I can hold on to things that my back can lift, but it'll take a little bit of time. Also, by the way, studies show

that connections to muscles change a little bit when you use things like wrist wraps, including presses. So you can actually change recruitment patterns so your body learns how to lift more with wrist wraps, not just because it's holding the weight, but rather because it's used to the recruitment pattern. And you don't necessarily want that in the real world because you don't have wrist wraps with you everywhere. I'm going to jump around on your list because I think that this just organically flows better here. The point that we were making about heavy singles doubles and triples. This was one of the best things that I ever did. I know we've talked before. I know you've done YouTube videos on building forum,

strength and grip. One of the best things that I noticed, and remember before we all got together, I really didn't do the single double triple thing. I did low reps way back when I was a kid at the five, six rep range, but I never dropped below five, like ever. And so I started training singles, doubles, and triples. And one of the things I vividly remember, like noticing, aside from watching my strength go up more in those big lifts than I'd ever seen, was my grip. I noticed my grip strength when I'm probably just from just lifting really, really heavy weight, one to two to three times. Because, you know, you like, like I was giving the example earlier of

lifting, you know, above three fifty, when I start getting above five reps in that rep range, it's just hard for that long of a period of time to hold on to, but by doing something as tense and as heavy as 400 pounds one time pulling up like that, boy, my grip strength shot up really fast. It's because one is training more for strength endurance, and one is training for just pure strength. So when I'm doing high, when you're doing, and most people, when they don't train their grip and they're like, oh, it's fine, and they test it. Like, I need to get it stronger.

They may have okay strength endurance because they hold on to the weights quite a bit, but just like building strength and you're also in the body, that low rep stuff will build like real low, you know, that grinding strength and that comes from the low rep stuff. So, you know, doing a double with heavy weight,

builds strength differently than doing, you know, 12 reps with lighter weight. Both of them build strength, one is more strength endurance, one of them is more pure strength. That's what you notice. You'd never trained your grip with like pure strength and boy, can that increase the overall strength of your grip through the room?

It was dramatic. It was a made for, and because I used to, if you go further back, I was a wrist strap guy like you for a really long time, pretty much used, I used to, it was a further back, I was a wrist strap guy like you for a really long time pretty much I used to use it was a cool accessory when I was in my 20s You know, it was like cool to have wrist strap. I look serious You know saying that was like the idea when I was 20 something years old walking around the gym So and I used it for everything which was terrible idea and it got rid of them

And then I remember working my way up on the deadlift and that was something really quick And I know of course there's some novelty there, right? I never trained single double triples, so I probably saw an additional benefit, but you're right, I mean, like, how many people are training that way? I also included in there, and I know this isn't on our notes,

but I would play with the Axel Bar too, which I thought was, Oh, thicker grip. Yeah, I thought that was really beneficial too, was incorporating, and same thing, single doubles and triples with the Axel Bar, and then I go back to a regular bar, and same thing, singles, doubles, and triples with the axle bar, and then I go back to a regular bar, and it fell, I could just squeeze it.

I haven't done that long time. I haven't done that long time. The singles doubles, triples, for me, what it showed too, is just like, it really highlights any instability. So, you can kind of get away with that a bit when you do higher reps, and you can get that sort of a muscular pump like that goes with that,

but with strength training, pure strength training and that higher rest with a high load, you either can do it or you can't. And it shows you sort of where those weak points are that need to be addressed. And so like with your grip, it's like it's very visibly obvious, where that disconnect is.

Yeah, the next one is to use chalk. Powder chalk or liquid chalk, so most gyms don't allow powder chalk, so they sell liquid chalk super cheap, and most gyms are okay with it. You might get the occasional gym that won't use that as well, but I've gotten away with it at every gym

I've ever worked out at, and chalk helps because you're connected to the weight, right? When your hands are sweaty and a bar is slippery, it changes the connection. You have to worry about something, you have to worry about the bar slipping or moving in a particular way. Chalk for all lifts, not just pulling lifts,

but pressing lifts as well, curls, laterals, press downs, doesn't matter. When you have a more tight grip on the bar and chalk helps with that, because it gets rid of the slipping, you feel more connected, and it also allows you to strengthen and train your grip without having to use an aid like wrist strap.

So chalk is a huge, and there's almost no lift they don't use chalk on these days. I'm always using chalk. I just feel more connected. Jim owner's love you. No. Well, the liquid one's not that bad. No, I love getting into chalk too.

It gives you that added bit of, so it's like that friction that you can now feed off. You just feel more connected to the way. Connected and secure. Yeah, even with isolation movements. I mean, even when I'm doing movements that are light where I'm trying to target an isolated muscle, when I use chalk, it's like when you drive a sports car and you feel connected to the road versus floating on top of it, I'm connected to the way in a different way and I can actually isolate my muscles a little bit better.

So chalk is super valuable. I mean, I have to use chalk, especially when I get heavy weight. If you're not using straps, to me, and if you've deadlifted a couple of sets, your palms get sweaty, which, in the past, that was my excuse for using straps. Oh, my hands are getting, as I get into multiple reps, it literally just slips. Yeah, and it just rolls right out. So, and chalk will dry that right up.

So, have it some chalk or liquid chalk, I think, is a game changer. The next one, and this one, I remember Justin talking about this, and he made a big deal about this, but I also remember reading about this in Powerlifting magazine. I don't remember the name of the Powerlifting magazine, but I had subscribed to it when I was a kid. And I remember some of the top benches on there talking about squeezing the bar.

Like, rather than letting the bar just sit on your hands, which a lot of people do when they press, to crush the bar with your hands, and increasing the amount of, you know, neural drive or force into the bar. So, and this strengthens your grip as well. So when you're doing exercises, almost any exercise, use a firm grip on it,

even if it's something you don't necessarily need to grip on too tight, grip that bar tight, grip the the handles tight, and it'll connect you to the way it'll a little bit better, and it'll continue to train you. I used to get a little bit of pushback on that because some clients would think they're using too much energy, and it's going to take away a little bit from, and they might fatigue a bit more. But in a sense, it's got that irradiation kind of effect where now of a sudden all the rest of the joints feel secure You're you're able to actually kind of like really connect and generate more force that way

Which then contributes to the overall lift? Well, it's it's actually really interesting because it's very different than a bodybuilder's mentality Yeah, when they lift a lot of bodybuilder's mentality when they lift. A lot of bodybuilders will break the wrist and open palm. So I had a habit of doing that for a really long time where I would just let the weight rest and I wouldn't grip at all. And I'm just thinking about the chest the entire time. Now the theory or the logic behind that, why a bodybuilder does that is I'm so all I care

about is feeling the chest. I don't care if my if I get stronger and now I can bench press 50 more pounds or whatever like that. I don't care if my strength, my grip strength is better or not. I want to feel the chest the entire time. And so I actually want to relax almost the wrist and think that way. So that's the the thought process.

And I trained that way for a really long time, but ironically my best bench, when I got to this place where I started really gripping the bar and my forearm string, when my deadlift went up, my bench press went up. So I watched my barbell bench press go up when my deadlift went up. And a lot of that had to do with just being able

to hold on to the bar. And I get the value in taking things out of the equation so you can feel and isolate a muscle. I get that. And there's a role, you know, there's some value there in getting a muscle to be able to activate the way you want so that you can build it. However, the biggest muscle builders aren't those exercises. They're the ones where you're typically moving the most weight.

So I would use those with clients to teach them how to feel the muscle, get to the point where they can feel and squeeze it, and then we get to the point where we can go heavy, irradiate the whole body, and now we're generating a tremendous amount of force, and we're building a lot of muscle. So there's value in what bodybuilders say,

however, I think the average person, or at least with media, it gets communicated like this is how you should train. It's not. It's just another classic example of something that we address on the show all the time, which is the nuances. It's not as simple as the body builder has it wrong, and the power lifter has it right.

It's that they're going to intend going in. That's right. They both have different intents. They both have value to overall training and your pursuit, your pursuit to strength and muscle hypertrophy and longevity. And it's like understanding where each camp is coming from and then how do I apply this to improve my place? And so my biggest takeaway and that being that I've been in the like bodybuilder camp and then also cared about getting stronger is that they both had tremendous value for me.

I mean, the ability for me to connect to muscles and training that way for so long has obviously benefited me in shaping and sculpting of a Zeeck. But then boy has learning to generate as much force and power and having forearm strength and fire that CNS has totally compounded my abilities to build more muscle because I understand the strength importance of grip strength, CNS and all that stuff. And squeezing the bar, I mean, you could test this out next time you work out, do your normal workout and with your heaviest sets, just squeeze the bar,

squeeze the bar and see how you feel and the weight actually will move, it'll move up a little faster. You'll actually generate more strength. Well, that brings right to the next point, which is the practicing the isometrics. Yes. I mean, that's what you're basically teaching is the entire body to communicate together before you do a movement like that.

Squeezing the bar would be a type of an isometric. Yeah, so there's different kinds of strength when it comes to muscle contractions and they all, there's overlap, right? But they can be pretty specific. So you have the ability of a muscle to contract you have the ability of a muscle to lower or lengthen with tension. So in other words, I can curl away or I could slowly lower away those are both different types of contractions and then I can just hold away, which is isometric most of the, many I should say, of the demands on the grip involve isometric strength.

Now we need to have squeezing and crushing grip. We need to have the kind of grip that allows us to lower something with control, when we're carrying things, when we're grabbing things, when we're working with things. But usually when we work out, the grip tends to serve and the hand and the wrist, I should say, tends to serve as an isometric stabilizer. Most exercises require me to hold and stabilize. So isometric exercises have a lot of carryover. And isometric's are holding on to a heavy weight, hanging from a bar, instead of doing

a reverse, risk curl, holding away and instead of doing a reverse, reverse, risk curl, holding away and supporting it in this position, so that my risk gets strong in this position or in this position, right? So the isometrics have a lot of carry over for the rest of your lifts because your lifts tend to require that kind of strength. So it's like strength and endurance.

So yeah, it just carries over well, because with grip, you are doing, like, so you're doing compound lifts and but you have to hold on to the bar the whole time. Basically, like gripped and glued to it so you need that endurance to be able to sustain the same amount of force to hold on and grip throughout the duration of the exercise and this is just a common practice for me is the grab either, I mean dead lifts are obviously like kind of an example of that, but like holding it the bar, an extended amount of time at the

top. For me, I like to grab kettlebells and just hold them and I'll literally do it until fatigue for reps. So that's just something I constantly do just to make sure I'm addressing my grip, strengthen endurance. Now, how would you guys specifically program these types of isometrics for the average person? So I imagine I'm running one of our programs and I'm consistent with the days. And then I also listen to this episode and I'm like, oh, I really want to focus more on

that. Oh, I don't do any isometric type of work for my forms or my grip strength. Where does that belong in your opinion and how frequent is it that I do this? Oh, so that's actually one of the next points is literally at the end of your workout, every workout, just add one, you can add one or two sets of grip or forum exercises and they can both be isometrics.

So just at the end of your workout, when you're done and the reason why you want to typically do it at the end, unless grip is really a focus for you, but the reason why you want to do it at the end is you don't want to fatigue your grip before you do other exercise. Before you do your dead lifts. Because of what we said earlier,

it's connected to every exercise that you do. Yeah, it's the example that would be like your forearm, fatiguing your core or your back before you go do squats. Yeah, it just, it just, it doesn't make any sense for the most part. It'll really hamper the rest of your workout. But when you're done, one or two sets of form

or grip exercises, and they can both be isometric. So like hanging from a bar would be an example or holding onto heavy dumbbells. And you know, you can do, you can do it to fatigue or you can do what I do, which is I tend to stop a short of fatigue, and I'll say, okay, oh, 30 seconds is up.

I think I do 10 more seconds, but I'll let go. Now, because it's isometric, do you recommend that someone could do this every single workout, so everyone can train in the gym? Oh, yeah, or it doesn't have to be just isometric. You can do full range of motion. Just one or two sets, every workout.

And in my experience, that's all you need for most people because your grip is already involved in so much of your workout. That adding that extra one or two sets at the end. So if you work out four days a week, you're doing four to eight sets a week with a little extra grip work, but man, does that carry over?

Now, what you don't wanna do is listen to this and go crazy and over-training the shit at your hands and forearms because contrary to, I guess, popular mythology around grip grip training you can over-training your grip a lot of people Like no you can't if you can you can over-training grip. I believe me. I've done it. No it tends to It's a much better approach to be a frequently added low amount of volume type of training with with grip training because it's Again, it contributes to everything

You're gonna be doing in terms of holding weight so In order to build strength obviously you're gonna do it in doses where like I'll do the same thing We're all just add one or two exercises every day At the end of the workout or even if I'm just you know doing my daily rituals of anything I'm gray up into something and just holding it for a while. Yeah, which brings us to another point. And this one's often neglected, which is to train the wrist extenders,

not just the flexors. So when you're talking about the forearm, everybody thinks of the muscles that, you know, that flex the wrist. Over the top. But there's also the muscles that extend here, right? That pull the wrist back. And you need to have balance on your wrist and your forearm. There's also muscles that bend lateral. You can't just train one and then

keep the rest weak because that creates instability and can cause problems and wrist issues. And this is a very neglected part of the body. So wrist extenders. So I always, I like to throw in a set, because I mean, how many times am I training this particular muscle here? I like to put in a set of like reverse curls or reversed wrist curls, or even just holding, you know, my arm at the end of a bench with a weight for a little bit into fatigue the top of my forms. And I notice when my wrist extenders are stronger, my grip is so much stronger because of the balance and stability.

I mean, I want to touch more on even the, what you started to lightly talk about, which is very common when you see somebody with a golfer or tennis elbow. Many times it's the extenders that are weak because their flexors are so strong. They pull a lot of weight deadlift or they curl really good weight, but they spend no time doing doing the extenders. This was an issue for me. And it was as simple as that. Like I kept kept trouble. I remember working on this a while. This was just a couple of years ago. And I was looking at all shoulder stuff and wrist mobility. I'm like, I'm messing with all the things that I'm like, God, it's still bothering me. And I was heavy dead lifting at that time. And

what I realized was that God, when was the last time that I had really focused on my extenders? And they were so weak in comparison. And so when I started doing that, it completely alleviated the elbow pain. So this is a common area that I think people neglect and a lot of times you see it express itself in the elbow. Yeah. Now, by the way, the elbow pain, the reason why you feel the elbow pain is because these muscles, you know, like the brachioid radialis here, I mean, it covers the top of the elbow here on the top.

And on the bottom part of the elbow, these are wrist flexors. So it's the attachment of these forearm muscles. And people think elbow, they tend to think tricep or bicep. But I mean, eight at a 10 times, it's the forearm and grip muscles that are inflamed in week and keeping those strong. And this is a very pain on either side of the elbow. Painful. Super common. Super common. And in a lot of times it's overworked one side and underworked on the other side. So keeping, keeping mouth kind of like similar to like shin splints. Yes, the tibialis as we can. Yes.

And the tibialis as we can just by simply working the tibialis, you get rid of these shin splints. I think it's really similar when you see people that are suffering from the elbow pain as they have got one side is Overworked or super dominant and the other side is super weak. Yes, and last point here is typically don't train to failure Just like we recommend for most body parts now. There's some value and failure training if you know how to do it right But for most people Train to failures is too much intensity and it results more in this kind of my body wants to heal More than it can adapt.

So if you're training, if you're throwing one or two sets of some kind of grip or forearm training at the end of every workout, don't do it to failure. So what does that look like? Well, if I hang from a bar rather than hanging until I fall, I hang until I feel like I have about seven to ten seconds left and then I let go. And then that's a set. You'll find that your strength gains will come faster that way versus the, I'm gonna train the crap at them to fatigue at the end of every workout. That tends to result in overtraining.

I like that one and I like it. That's actually a such a great one to slowly progressively over the time. So I actually like doing hang. You talk about at the end of a workout, you do a hang and the first time you do it, you do it till like you said, till you talk about, at the end of a workout, you do a hang, and the first time you do it, you do it till, like you said, till like, oh, I'm almost gonna get out,

don't see fall literally, but it's like, oh, it's getting so pumped. And then you just keep track of your time. And then every time you do that, the next, every day that you incorporate that, you just try and hang for a few more seconds. A few more, and before you know it, you go from adding five seconds to 10 seconds,

to 15, then 20, then 30, you're adding out. Then before you know it, you go from adding five seconds to 10 seconds to 15, then 20, then 30, you're adding out. Then before you know it, you're adding 45 seconds to a minute to your hang, you could get nowhere near that just a couple of weeks before. Yeah, it'll get there pretty quick. Absolutely, so let's talk about some of our favorite

exercises for grip strength. Farmer walks has to be up there for me. Constantly do those all the time. Yes, heavy farmer walks. I'll do, you know, if I go real heavy, I'll use a trap bar. And I've gone up to as heavy as 450 pounds and I'll walk for maybe 20 paces.

And man, does my grip get strong? And it hurts my hands and yeah, the whole thing, but it toughens everything up to a tremendous degree. So that's gotta be one of my favorites. Yeah, I like to the pinch grip. So you take the plates and then you just grab them and then hold them in that direction too. And I mean, I do the same like to pinch grip. So you take the plates and then you just grab them and then hold them in that direction too. And I mean, I do the same thing between pinch grip

and then also with just because the kettlebells have kind of a fatter grip to them, holding the heaviest kettlebells I can find for time is another great one for an isometric hold. I'm gonna say the reverse curls, just because again, I think that's just a neglected area that I think that's an area that you should end up, of course, you're directly hitting that right there.

So I like that as an exercise. Although the farmer carries, I think we probably might all agree is my favorite. And a lot of why I think that's so amazing is because you're lighten the entire body up and it's rooted in your grip, right? First, because it's hanging on the way, but then it's connecting you from your toes,

all the way up to your neck and shoulders. So you could start a workout with farmer walks, and it's got a different effect than if you in the workout with farmer walks. I love to start them because it just, I mean, the other day, I didn't get turned up. Yeah, and then I feel really strong going into all my lifts. And you can reinforce your posture position too

with farmer walks, so maybe you're not doing quiet as much load, but you're really like getting in that retracted upright position and reinforcing good posture. You know, this is kind of off topic a little bit. It's talking about the farmer's walks, but for different reasons. I find it a really cool hack

when I don't wanna work out. Like it just do that. Yeah, because it totally like to your point turns me all on, then now also, and I wanna lift. Like I'm like, oh, I feel like the thar jig, and I'm not in the mood to go train up for a big workout. So I'm like, you know what?

I'm gonna go over there, go grab them hundred pound dumbbells, or go grab a trap bar, you know it, and just I'm gonna walk, you know, 40, 40, 50 yard real quick back and forth a couple times. And it just turns my whole now all of a sudden I want to lift. So it's a cool little hack to kind of get me in the mood to lift. I think it's interesting. Yeah. Another one that I learned, I just one's more advanced, but I learned this one from judo

players. I did judo as a kid, some judo too. And you would grip and use the key quite a bit and let me tell you if you have a week grip and those sports you're dead i don't care strong the rest of your body is you're done because said a crush grip of the just crush stamina like like you go with a good judo or jiu-jitsu guy and they their hands are

three times as strong as their size shows it's just incredible stamina strength but anyway one thing that they did is they would do, they would use really thick towels, like strong stable towels. They'd hang them over a bar and grip the towel and do pull-ups, or you put it in a cable and do rows. Or you would do curls with them. So with a towel, because it mimicked the key.

But let me tell you, you grab a towel versus a bar. It is totally different on the hands. And it works the grip like nothing else. It's more advanced. So if you have trouble doing pull ups, don't throw a towel around the bar and try to do pull ups. You're gonna hurt yourself.

Oh, you feel every little muscle in your hands. It's not affected from that. No, it's totally different. Yeah, I just grabbed a ball. And then there's, we included this one in our OCR program. So we have a program called Maps OCR for people preparing to race an obstacle course racing. And one of the weak links in obstacle course racing, which we would constantly hear from competitors was their grip,

it would just give out, right? And there was one movement that where you take a bucket and you fill it with dry rice, put your hand in the bucket and you open and close your hands in that rice. And this, you know, I did some research to see where this come from. And by the way, this really works the hands and it works the fingers independently. It's really awesome. It's great for people with wrist and hand pain as well, but you could see old kung fu practices would do this.

And they would do it with sand, then pebbles, then rocks, in terms of progressing resistance. You know, I'm glad you brought that up because I know we just did a whole episode on giving away a lot of the information as far as like how you could go about programming this yourself but that program really was geared towards that. I mean that what we looked at like what we saw is one of the. The big, the big, the big, the big, the big, the big, the big, the big, the big, the big

thing. So if you're listening right now and you're like oh this is a major focus for you that's why you clicked on this to listen to it. We actually programmed maps OCR specifically for that to come up. So if you wanna see how we run, and all the things we're talking about is pretty much incorporated in that routine.

So I think that's a great program to follow. This is something that you're looking to get better at. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at MindPump.

Justin, Adam is on Instagram at MindPump.com and you can find me on Twitter at MindPump.com. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having SAU adamant Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump

to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time this is MindPump. Next time, this is Mindbunk.