At The Underground Strength Gymnasium we hold regular competitions amongst the members. These are unannounced battles and they really hype up the crew at hand to step it up. Noone likes to lose and sometimes a loss exposes their weak area(s) and makes them work smarter AND harder towards filling those gaps.
Our last contest was a pull up contest. The winners received a Captains of Crush Hand Gripper.
Pull ups are like squats for the upper body. They’re amazing at developing strength and adding muscle to your back, shoulders, biceps, forearms and they strengthen the hands as well. We never use straps to aid the grip.
I can not announce my next contest because my clients visit my Blog regularly. I can assure you it will be VERY challenging and much more brutal than the simple pull up contest. The winner will have to earn his prize this time through a brutal gut busting effort.
I’ll keep you posted on this next competition, it should be in a few weeks 🙂
The prize for our first contest was the Captains of Crush Gripper, and rightfully so. I know that when the hands become stronger the rest of the body becomes stronger.
Stronger hands will improve their pull up strength, increase deadlift strength and yes, it will even improve pressing strength in movements such as the military press and bench press. When the hands can wrap tightly around a barbell, or any object, and crush it tightly, the entire body tenses and strength now becomes a full body effort, not just an isolated effort from one or a few muscle groups.
I suggest you start working your hands twice a week. Work them hard and heavy and watch the rest of your strength increase. Two of my favorite exercises are Hex Dumbbell Holds and hand over hand sled pulls with a thick rope.
If you want to learn more exercises, methods and workouts to use for explosing your grip and hand strength then check out what 11 hard core strength coaches put together in this Beast of an e book: http://GripExperts.com
Stay strong!
–Zach–
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