How to put on some Popeye arms...

[Hiro Protagonist]

Hi all,

(No native English speaker, so my apologies if this question is not precise enough.)

I've been training hard lately, fighting and weight-lifting,
and my hands and my wrists hurt more than usual these days.

When I complained about it to a friend who is a free-climber, he recommended me to
take some time to train the muscles in my forearms and my hands that are used to stretch the hands. (As opposed to the muscles that are used to close the hands when gripping, which are usually training with all arm exercises.)

So, my question is, how can I do that best?

My buddies have since recommended me to try some spinach,
but somehow I think I know that won't get me that far...




Thank you in advance,

Rafe

[TheRuss]

This answer is going to be a bit disorganized, but here goes.

1) For wrist flexion, you can do wrist curls (lots of variations on those) and/or wrist rollers.

2) Whenever you work flexion, you should balance it with extension work. That means reverse wrist curls (PITA - you have to grip the dumbbell while extending your wrist) and/or reverse wrist rollers.

3) For what these guys refer to as "ulnar deviation", front and rear levering should do the trick. Start light - it's a lot harder than it looks.

4) For crush strength, there are grippers - IronMind makes the Captains of Crush line, which are quite good, or you can get the Heavy Grips set for significantly cheaper. I've got some of each. Caution: If you work your finger flexion, you need to work your finger extension as well - I haven't found a good way of doing that yet. Don't much care for the bands.

Anyways, for more reading, hit up http://www.gripfaq.com/ - they look quite comprehensive and sound.

[Emevas]

I can vouch for the captains of crush. I've trained with them for a few years, and most folks ask me what I do for my forearms, haha.

[Lonestar]

Always remember your how your body reacts to exercises.

My muscles do not grow in response to isolation exercises. I tried all of the above and it did not work.

Instead my arms respond to lifting a heavy weight. If I wanted to make my forearms grow I would do deadlifts. That's puts a huge strain on ,well everything. But it does work both the grip (try doing 5 sets or more of less than 5 reps and see how well you can hold onto the bar) and forearms. It is the simple fact of trying to lift and hold onto all of this wieght that works the grip and forearms.

Another good exercise is the hack squat. Because here too you are lifting the wieght from the ground. A friend taught me a variant where at the top of the motion you curl the bar with your wrists and hold for 3 seconds.

[TheRuss]

I tried all of the above and it did not work.

Then you did it wrong. It's that simple.

[Kentucky Fried Chokin]

I can vouch for the captains of crush. I've trained with them for a few years, and most folks ask me what I do for my forearms, haha.

The same for me.

[golgo]

Isolation exercises are a waste of time, unless your goal is body building. Muscles dont act in isolation. If you are lifting for performance, train the way your body works - multiple muscle groups working in conjunction to perform a task. Compound lifts like deadlifts (as are all olympic lifts), pull-ups, etc are great.

[TheRuss]

Isolation exercises are a waste of time, unless your goal is body building.

Great, another one.

Once I came across a question posted on a popular powerlifting website by a young Marine: how should he train to be able to do more chin-ups? I was amused when I read the arcane and non-specific advice the trooper had received: straight-arm pull-downs, reverse curls, avoiding the negative part of the chin-up every third workout... I had a radical thought: if you want to get good at chin-ups, why not try to do... a lot of chin-ups?

-Pavel Tsatsouline, "Grease The Groove For Strength"

Similarly, if you want to have a strong grip, why not try to do... a lot of gripping? Sure, deadlifts (without straps) involve gripping, and so do chin-ups. Thick-bar deadlifts, etc. doubly so. There are lots of good options - including the ones I've laid out.

[BackFistMonkey]

Your monkey , you see .... you should spank it ... alternate in order to avoid deep biological mutations and asymmetrical growth .


TEM ( I think ) has a couple threads on grip strength and hand strengthening toys in this forum . Those threads will be helpful .

hmmm so just play with the search function instead of yourself ... I am just not sure what keywords to toss in yet .

[golgo]

Great, another one.


-Pavel Tsatsouline, "Grease The Groove For Strength"

Similarly, if you want to have a strong grip, why not try to do... a lot of gripping? Sure, deadlifts (without straps) involve gripping, and so do chin-ups. Thick-bar deadlifts, etc. doubly so. There are lots of good options - including the ones I've laid out.

Except, while you are doing deadlifts and pull-ups (which develops forearms more than chinups), you are working dozens of other muscles, making your workout more efficient. Instead of doing 10-15 different lifts that have limited use when you go to the gym (such as wrist curls, bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, etc), you could be doing 4-6 different lifts, and spend about half the time and get better results (IMO).

I dont have much issue with grippers since you can do them anywhere (I used to use 'em on my daily commute to keep myself occupied).