5 Ways To Train Grip Strength

We use grip strength all the time, not just in the gym but in nearly every activity we do.

A lot of us ignore working on it but the potential benefits are huge. The muscles that control your grip are located in the forearms and the wrists, and it’s often pain in these areas that can cause us to fall short when we’re lifting heavy.

You might not even realise it’s what’s holding you back because they’re relatively small muscles that are hard to be aware of.

So how do you go about strengthening those areas to improve your grip strength and lift heavier? Here are five ways you can do it.

Zottman Curl

Zottman curls are one of the most effective exercises for developing grip strength because of the way they engage your forearms as you lower the weights. You perform a normal bicep curl with a dumbbell in each hand, then rotate your wrists 180 degrees and lower the weights back to the starting position, keeping the speed under control.

Dead Hang

These are simple but effective. Dead hangs engage a lot of different muscles but it's your grip that will usually give out first. Just hang from a bar, either until exhaustion or for repetitions of about 20-30 seconds.

Farmer’s Walk

The farmer’s walk is a popular strongman event, but you can do it using any kind of equipment. You just hold a heavy weight in each hand and walk for a set distance before putting it down, resting and repeating.

Grip Strengthener

If you’re serious about committing to improving your grip strength over a period of time, one of the best things to do is get yourself a grip strengthener tool. They’re specifically designed to target the muscles that will make a difference and you can build up to some pretty big volume to see solid results.

Heavy Deadlift

Anyone who’s done heavy deadlifts will know gripping the bar is a challenging part of the lift, and that’s why it’s a simple but useful way to improve your grip strength. If you like, you can try using a different grip for each set so that you target different parts of the hand, wrists and forearms.