Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How To Train Your Forearms (Best Exercises and Workouts)

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Did you know that people with stronger forearms live longer? It’s true. Grip strength is associated with lower all-cause mortality. A stronger grip is also vital for progressing on pushing and pulling exercises like the bench press, overhead press, and any type of deadlift. Of course, strong forearms look nice, too. You can have great biceps, triceps, and shoulders, but it's just not complete if your forearms aren't also up to the mark. So in this podcast, I'm going to teach you everything you know about working out your forearms. I'm going to share some of my favorite forearm exercises and some example workout programming so that you can put this information into use right away. So press play and start building some “Popeye” forearms! :) Timestamps: (0:00) - Save up to 40% during our Halloween Sale! https://buylegion.com/ (2:43) - What kind of muscle is the forearm? (3:33) - Why do we want strong flexors and extensors? (6:14) - What are the benefits of strong forearms? (7:01) - How should I train my forearms? (8:21) - What are some forearm exercises? (11:35) - How do we take those exercises and turn them into a workout program? (16:21) - Are there any forearm workout tools or equipment? Mentioned on the Show: Save up to 40% during our Halloween Sale! Go to buylegion.com and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% on any non-sale items or get double reward points!

Hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to learn about forearm training, something that I've written about, but I don't think I have spoken about here on the podcast. So I thought I would do that. Why forearm training? Well, forearms are kind of the calves of the arms, right? You can have great biceps, triceps, shoulders, but the look, let's put that in scare quotes, it's just not complete if your forearms also aren't up to the mark. And strong forearms do more than just massage your ego too. They also make your grip stronger and that's vital for progressing on pushing and pulling exercises like the bench press, overhead press, and especially any type of deadlift, any type of row.

And, you know, research actually shows that people with stronger forearms live longer too. Grip strength is associated with all cause mortality. And it would probably take a little mini episode to share why that is exactly. I'll make a mental note of that, but just a little factoid. Anyway, so in this podcast, I'm going to teach you everything you know about working out your forearms. I'm going to share some of my favorite forearm exercises, and I'm going to share some example workout programming if you want to put this information into use right away. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me do more of it, please do check out my sports nutrition company,

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year. We can never forecast these things exactly or before the sale ends and it's too late. Alrighty, so let's get into it, starting with some anatomy. So your forms are composed of many different small muscles, and each of them have slightly different jobs. I don't think we need to dig into the biomechanical minutiae for our purposes here, but we can divide these muscles into two broad categories. We have flexors and we have extensors. So what flexors do is they bend your palms towards your inner forearms and extensors do the opposite. They straighten your wrist. They bring the back of your hands closer to your outer

forearms. Now, flexors are also responsible for pronating your forearms. So that means rotating your palm downward, whereas extensors do the opposite. They supinate your forearms, so they rotate your palm upward. Now, why do we want to have strong flexors and extensors in our arms? Well, firstly, these muscles will help you lift more weight. So when you're doing exercises that demand a lot of grip strength, like a deadlift or a barbell row or a dumbbell row or a pull-up or a chin-up, you will struggle to get the full benefits of the exercise. You will struggle to perform at your maximum capacity if your forearms can't cut the mustard.

Because what happens is you have to end your sets when your forearms give out. When they become too fatigued, that's it. And anybody who has done a lot of deadlifting has experienced this. It's almost a little bit strange that once your grip starts to fail, your entire body starts to fail on the lift. And once you can no longer maintain a strong grip on the bar, that's the end of the set. And that, of course, partially defeats the purpose of the exercise. We are doing something like a deadlift to improve our grip strength, yes, but we also are really trying to train all of the muscles on the backside of our body. And we don't want our grip strength to limit our progression

on the exercise. So by improving your grip strength, you can make sure that your forearms are not a weak link. Now, if you have been listening to me for some time, you might be remembering now an episode I did on deadlift grip and what type of deadlift grip is best for you. And you might know that I use a double overhand grip with straps on my heaviest sets. And if you're wondering now why I do that, you can listen to that episode. You can find it in the feed. If you search my podcast for deadlift grip, it will come up. Or if you'd rather read, just head over to legionathletics.com, search for deadlift or deadlift grip, and you'll find the article that that episode is based on. And I explain why at a certain point, I think it's smart to use straps. You can also use a

hook grip if you don't mind the thumb damage and the thumb pain. I generally do not recommend a mixed grip, which is what many people do once the weight simply gets too heavy for a double overhand grip, which happens to basically everyone. Even if you have a very strong grip, you are not going to be able to double overhand 450 pounds for sets of five or six. You're going to have to do something hook grip, pounds for sets of five or six, you're going to have to do something hook grip, strap mixed. And again, my preference is strap. And I explained why in that podcast episode slash article on deadlift gripping. Okay. Another benefit of having strong forms is they increase the stability of your wrists. And practically speaking, when you are lifting weights, what that means is your wrists. And practically speaking, when you are lifting weights, what that means is your wrists will not bend or tremble at least nearly as easily under heavy loads. And that's beneficial when you

are doing pressing exercises in particular, because it ensures that you can transfer maximum force from your body into the bar or into the dumbbell, which of course improves your performance. Strong forearms also can help reduce your risk of elbow injury. Research shows that, and that's a common injury among weight lifters. Elbow problems, shoulder problems, knee problems, back problems. And so by strengthening your forearms, you can reduce the chances of hurting your elbows. Okay, now let's talk about how to train your forearms. First and foremost, the best way to get strong forearms is just to get a strong body, to follow a well-designed

strength training program that includes a lot of heavy pressing, a lot of heavy deadlifting, rowing, curling. For most people, that's probably all they need to build strong muscular forearms. That said, some people find that that is not the case. Some people get pretty strong on some of those exercises that I mentioned and are still running into limitations in their grip strength, in their forearm strength. And some people want to just accelerate their forearm development. Some people really like that look of having beefy forearms. And in both of those cases, then it's worth including a few exercises in your training program that are aimed at improving your forearm strength. Isolation exercises basically for your

forearms. Now, despite what many fitness gurus might suggest, you do not need to do a billion different. All right, I won't be so sensational, a hundred or even dozens of different forearm exercises to get those Popeye arms. In fact, just a handful of good exercises, carefully selected exercises will get the job done. So let's talk exercises. Let's talk some of my favorite forearm exercises. One is the dead hang. Great forearm builder. Doesn't put wear and tear on your joints. Can actually improve your shoulder health just doing dead hangs every day. And it's also a good test of your forearm strength. If you are not sure if you have strong forearms or weak forearms or something in between. If you can't hang for at

least 30 seconds, you are pretty weak. Your forearms are pretty weak, but that's okay because you can just get stronger. You can make them stronger with something like the dead hang. If you can grip for at least 60 seconds, you are above average. You have strong forearms. And if you can maintain your grip for at least two minutes, that's impressive. You are basically an orangutan. Okay, next up on my list of forearm exercises is the forearm curl. Simple exercise, directly trains the forearms. It doesn't fatigue anything else in your body, really. So it's not going to interfere with anything else in your workouts. It doesn't require much equipment. You just need some dumbbells. It's comfortable, good exercise. Now we have the plate hold, which is also an effective

way to isolate your forearm muscles. And it also strengthens your forearms in a similar position to what you would use in different weightlifting exercises, which is beneficial, like a deadlift, for example, certainly deadlift variations, like a trap bar deadlift. Next, we have the one-arm dumbbell row, which is not an isolation exercise for the forearms, of course, but is a fantastic exercise for building your grip strength, building your forearm strength. Of course, it's also great for building your upper back, your lats, your biceps. One of my favorite pulling exercises. Another fantastic pulling exercise, compound exercise is the Romanian deadlift. And that should be included in any barbell forearm workout because it trains all of the same muscles as the

conventional deadlift, but it's even more challenging for your forearms because you don't set the weight down between each rep. Number six on my list is the Zottmann curl, which sounds funky, but it gives you a great biceps and forearm workout in one exercise because it emphasizes the biceps during the concentric, the contraction, the lifting phase, and then the forearms and the grip during the eccentric, the lowering or lengthening phase. Lastly is the farmer's walk, something that you don't see many people doing, but it really should be more popular than it is. And the reason is it of course trains your forearms. You got to hold the weights, but it also is great for improving your whole body strength, your whole body coordination, your ability to work, your body's ability to just

work hard and exert effort, which of course can translate into improved performance in really every major muscle group and particularly on the most taxing exercises, on your squat, on your deadlift, your bench press, your overhead press. And those are the key exercises, the key movements that you most want to improve on to keep gaining muscle and strength. Okay, now let's talk about workout programming. How might we take some of those exercises and insert them into workouts and make a program that makes sense. Well, as you know, I am a big proponent of doing a lot of compound weightlifting and doing your compound work early in your workouts and doing isolation work later in your workouts. And as we have some compound

exercises to choose from that train our forms in addition to many other muscle groups. It's pretty easy to assemble workouts that do a good job training your forms and everything else. For example, a simple push workout could be a barbell bench press followed by maybe an incline barbell bench press. And if you want to do even more push work, you could do some dumbbell bench pressing followed by maybe some triceps work. And then you could end with forearm curls, for example. If we wanted to do a pull workout, we could start with a barbell deadlift or a variation on that. It could be a trap bar deadlift or maybe even a Romanian deadlift, depending on how you want to emphasize the muscles on the backside of your body. If you really want to focus in on those

hamstrings, maybe it'd be an RDL. We could do a couple sets of that. We could then do some one-arm dumbbell rows. Again, a great pull exercise. And in those two exercises, we've also really blasted our forearms, then maybe followed by a vertical pull, like a lat pull down. And if we're still hungry for more, a horizontal pull like the seated cable row. So in that workout, we have racked up a lot of volume for all of the muscles on the backside of our body and our forearms. Maybe you want to do an upper body workout. How might that look? Well, you could start with some pressing, maybe a seated dumbbell press, a shoulder focused press. Then you could do the Zotman curl that I mentioned, followed by some side raises. It could be dumbbell, it could be cable, it could be machine, followed by some rear raises, again, a dumbbell cable machine. And then you could end with some

plate holds. A lower body workout, well, that could start with a squat. It could be the barbell back squat. It could be the barbell front squat. It could be a belt squat. It could be the safety bar squat. Plenty of great squat variations, followed by a leg press, followed by a Romanian deadlift. If you didn't already do that, if your lower back is up to it, fantastic. Hamstring exercise, just difficult. And then you could do some calves if you want, followed by some farmer's walks at the end. So maybe like three sets of farmer walks, 30 to 60 seconds, resting a couple of minutes in between each set. And finally, something else you can do that is extremely easy and that I

would recommend doing even if you have strong forearms and you are basically training like how I just outlined. And that is daily dead hangs, or at least every day you are in the gym, do three or four sets of dead hangs. Start with 30 seconds and just work your way up as your grip gets stronger. I've been doing this for months now, not because I wanted to improve my grip strength, but because I wanted to help out my shoulders and my right shoulder in particular, because I am or was prone to getting a little bit of biceps tendonitis. I would feel it in the bicipital groove in my right shoulder and just a few weeks of dead hangs, doing them five to seven days per week. I'm not in the gym seven days per week, but I would do these hangs five to seven days per week. Just three weeks of that completely resolved the little bit of biceps tendonitis that I was running into. It went from maybe a six out of 10 in terms of pain or discomfort when pressing in particular to basically a one or two. And now it's between a zero and a one. Sometimes I feel

absolutely nothing heavy pressing. And sometimes I feel a little bit when I'm warming up, maybe a little bit on my heavy sets, and then it just kind of goes away. Direct result of the regular dead hangs. And so what I do is when I am doing my normal workouts and I am resting in between sets of exercises that don't require my grip strength, I just go and hang. And I'm up to probably a minute to a minute and a half now per set. And I also added a little bit of swinging. So I swing a little bit back and forth just to get an even deeper stretch. And it has, again, helped my shoulder a lot. And it's recommended for people who have healthy shoulders too. It can help keep your shoulders healthy and pain-free. Okay. So one other thing I should comment on, because some people are probably

wondering, forearm workout tools, special equipment for training your forearms, like weights that shake, plates that vibrate, fat grips to put on bars, wrist rollers, hand exercisers, and so forth. Skip the shake weights, skip the vibrating plates. However, fat grips certainly can help you improve your grip strength. Those are extra thick rubber grips that you put on the barbell. I guess you can use them with dumbbells too. Most people, at least I've seen, use them on barbell exercises. Some time ago, I used them for a bit just to give them a go. And I found that I actually liked them on my pressing exercises because it encouraged me to squeeze as hard as I possibly can. And that's a good way to just improve your performance on basically any

exercise, squeeze the bar, the machine, the dumbbell really, really hard. And the fat grips were nice for that. However, I did not like any sort of pulling exercise with them because it just limited my performance on the exercise. I couldn't lift enough weight to do what I needed to do with the fat grips on. So what you could do with pulling exercises is use them on your warmup sets and then take them off on your working sets. That's what I ended up doing at least. Now, as far as a wrist roller goes, that's good. That works. You don't have to do that as a special isolation exercise. You could just stick to what I've shared with you in this episode and you'll do fine. But some people do like the wrist roller and it certainly does

challenge the forms. So valid piece of equipment there, as well as hand exercisers like the Captain's Crush series. I used to play around with those as well. And I liked the Captain's Crush products the most. And they range from weak to very strong. So they range from about 60 pounds of resistance to 365 pounds of resistance. I would love to meet somebody who could crush the 365 pound captains of crush. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful.

And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email. Mike at muscle for life dot com muscle for life dot com. And let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.