Grip strength / false grip

Hi all

I'm having problems with my grip. 

I am trying to attain a strict muscle up and other movements on the rings but I'm lacking in a few areas. I'd first like to address my grip strength (specifically on rings).

I am currently doing HS1 with the plan to begin F1 in January. I don't plan to do ring work from January, however, would like to build strength in regard to my grip strength as this feels very weak. 

Current position:

General ring work, i.e. ring chin ups and inverted pike pulls - My hands slip and I end up hanging onto the rings with my fingers. This ultimately doesn't work and my grip fails fast. If I try to keep the rings lower on my hand, i.e. around knuckle level, it seems very painful (as it feels as though the ring is pinching my hands) and the rings then slip to finger level. 

False Grip - I am not able to hand from the rings in a false grip. Wrists should be bent at 90 degrees but then as soon as I hold my bodyweight this fails and the angle reduces and therefore I slip off. 

Solutions:

Hand grips - This may stop the pinching from the rings and may allow me to do more movements. It seems more than my grip when doing ring pullups shifts to my fingers rather than my hand which is due to poor form (due to the pinching). 

Specific forearm / grip strengthening work - Doing some strengthening work which is carried in baseball with rice buckets - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzcbgpes3is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0At9BvISa8

 I was also thinking about some sledgehammer training which I've heard is good conditioning for grip, forearms and core. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAzQQkUlFo

Please could you guys provide your input for the best way to build up to a strong false grip and grip for the rings?

Put some tape on the rings, so you have more friction.  Get some chalk as well.

Start your false grip from the floor, with rows.  It can actually be easier to row than to hang, because there's less flexibility required.  As an aside the wrist work from H1 will help with that.

After you can do a fairly long hold an quite a few rows, it should be simple enough to move onto a dead hang and false grip pullups.

Deadlifting helped my grip the most. Along with just hanging a lot.

There is one important fact. you will gain grip strength in a specific skill if you train the specific skill. there some numerous research about the transfert you can take practicing some supplementary exercises. Btw talking about nervous learning, the brain learns how to increase strength of a muscle for a skill only if you try to emulate exactly the work of the muscle in a specific element.

the specificity becomes the most relevant factor.

Strength is about optimize a circuit . an exercise activates a circuit of neurons and muscles associated. so these muscles learn how to coordinate their work to increase strenght-specificity for a skill. 

if you train the muscle is another "situation" , that means different circuit, you will obtain some transfert at the beginning while, with the time, this carryover will be less and less.

get a towel put it around the pull up bar and just hang while holding the towel this is a killer grip exercise. i used this exercise to get better at armwrestling and trust me it worked

Thanks for the responses.

@Bipcni I will try doing some rows and hang. I will treat this as a warm up 2/3x a week. Possibly finish off the workout 1x a week with rice bucket training.

@Howens - I'm trying to steer clear of weightlifting movements. I have been doing deadlifts for years and recently (before stopping weightlifting) farmers walks. I didn't seem to improve my grip/forearm strength despite strengthening other muscle groups.

@alex - are you saying that doing the rice bucket training / sledgehammer training will improve grip in that skill but have limited cross over when it comes to ring / HS work? I agree to an extent but holding a bar with a stronger grip shouldn't be out of the question?

@Diti - I will try a towel around a pull up bar as well.

I'm trying to work some strength that I lack before going into a muscle up - starting with basics. Another concern / goal with my grip is that I'm also trying to improve the number of full ROM pull ups - i.e. bar to mid/lower chest. At the moment I'm stuck at chin to bar and can't do that many.

From other topics I have found on this forum, the suggestion is that I take Slizzman's approach to increasing pull ups. Also, to increase ROM (chest to bar) I should also throw in a few controlled negatives. 

I believe this is taking max 1 set of pull ups and dividing this by 2 (at least) and then performing this rep range for up to 10 sets. Each successful week the rep range increases by one until this is completed in all sets and then we hold here for a workout and then the following workout we increase the rep by 1 again. Rest period of 90 seconds per round. This should be done 2-3 x a week.

Example: Max 1 set pull ups 9 - therefore dividing by 2 = 4.5 (lets go with 4 to be safe).

So 10 sets x 4. If all hit, then next workout we hold. Subsequently the goal will be 10 sets x 5. If I hit 5,5,5,5,5,4,4,3,3,2 then I keep working until all sets hit 5 reps. 

This assumes I can get full ROM, as I currently can't do a chest to bar, I believe protocol means that I will need to start with slow controlled negatives?

Could anyone please confirm if my understanding is correct?

If you would like a stronger FG; train your FG!

Hold for multiple sets of extended duration (20s-30s) in both the regular and inverted hang positions.  And by FG, I mean as deep a FG as you are capable of performing.  In all likelihood at first, due to a lack of forearm flexibility, you will need to keep your elbows at least somewhat bent in order to maintain a legitimate FG.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Just adding to the decent recommendations:

Stretch your fingers and wrists. Muscle strength continues to develop as we stretch our bodies out. Remember there are muscles in the hand that contribute to your overall grip not just the forearm muscles.

I used to have problems with false-grip because my rings weren't taped and didn't use any chalk. When the rings got sweaty, holding the false-grip became impossible for me.

Then taped the rings and noticed that I could hold the false-grip without any problems for long periods of time. 

In addition to training your FG, tape the rings / get chalk, it will definitely help...

Coach puts some evidence on the real problem of the developing of false grip. 

People do not have the necessary flexibility to elongate the forearms flexors while they are fully squeezed, the risk is that the body try to stretch other joints tissue like elbows tendons to compensate it. the result is develop a long therm tendonitis.

alex87 said:

Coach puts some evidence on the real problem of the developing of false grip. 

People do not have the necessary flexibility to elongate the forearms flexors while they are fully squeezed, the risk is that the body try to stretch other joints tissue like elbows tendons to compensate it. the result is develop a long therm tendonitis.

I have no problem with FG hang, but I still am not fully comfortable inverted. I have to train it by going to inverted FG hang with slightly bent arms and straightening them slowly to hold (for 10-20s) at the end; if I try to go directly with straight arms I lose it.

Is this fine, or should I emphasise trying to get to inverted FG hang with straight arms in the short term?

Beginning from bent and then gradually lowering to straight would be the most productive.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

Beginning from bent and then gradually lowering to straight would be the most productive.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks Coach

For my experience back lever with false grip is the most difficult position for the grip strength.

i noticed a good improvement of FG inv hang doing muscle ups on bar simulating the false grip on the rings. 

if your bar is very big you can roll forward the hands but emulate the rings grip is not possible. on the other way on a little bit tick bar you can do 2 things:

-put all the wrist on the bar

-use the rings false grip: in this second situation you need to turn the wrist sideward (the left wrist on the right, and the right wrist on the left) to grab the bar.

of course wrist there is a certain amount of elongation on the wrist extensors and it's a difficult grip to maintain as you increase the shoulders width. but it helps a lot.

alex87 said:

For my experience back lever with false grip is the most difficult position for the grip strength.

i noticed a good improvement of FG inv hang doing muscle ups on bar simulating the false grip on the rings. 

if your bar is very big you can roll forward the hands but emulate the rings grip is not possible. on the other way on a little bit tick bar you can do 2 things:

-put all the wrist on the bar

-use the rings false grip: in this second situation you need to turn the wrist sideward (the left wrist on the right, and the right wrist on the left) to grab the bar.

of course wrist there is a certain amount of elongation on the wrist extensors and it's a difficult grip to maintain as you increase the shoulders width. but it helps a lot.

Couple of nice ideas there thanks Alex. My wrists are coming along well, this is the only position I have noticed difficulty with, so I'd like to address it.

I dunno if linking to other sites is allowed but this page covers it nicely. 

http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/trainingthehands.html

Although if you want to get better at false-grip specifically, then you should train the false-grip for time. 

Also, not mentioned on the page is wide-bar dead-hang/pull-ups, a very good exercise. Another good exercises is getting a bunch of books, and holding them together without letting them fall. 

Together, all these exercises should train all of the different grip types (3 I think? Pinch grip, crushing grip, and another one that I can't remember.)

Assorted methods of grip strength training aside, I'm pretty sure OP was having problems with his false grip specifically.  I mean, regular grip strength kind of just gets trained alongside everything else.....

London Gymnast, have you considered that your false grip technique might be flawed?

Bipocni said:

Assorted methods of grip strength training aside, I'm pretty sure OP was having problems with his false grip specifically. I mean, regular grip strength kind of just gets trained alongside everything else.....

London Gymnast, have you considered that your false grip technique might be flawed?

I cant speak for the OP, but in my case its wrist flexibility. H1 fixed it in dead hang, but inverted hang has yet to get there

Coach Sommer said:

If you would like a stronger FG; train your FG!

 

Hold for multiple sets of extended duration (20s-30s) in both the regular and inverted hang positions.  And by FG, I mean as deep a FG as you are capable of performing.  In all likelihood at first, due to a lack of forearm flexibility, you will need to keep your elbows at least somewhat bent in order to maintain a legitimate FG.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks Coach, will focus on the GF then.

Thanks everyone else for the advice also.

Has any one got any advice on achieving chest to bar pull ups / wider ROM?

Cheers 

Do pullups with some weights on them for a few weeks while pulling as high as you can. 

Afterwards when you try it without weights it is a lot easier. 

If you want to try it without weights, I'm not really sure but maybe you could try isometric holds at the top.

5x3 false grip ring rows holding 5sec

managed to do a false grip on bar holding top of pull up position for 10sec

took about 4-6 months, 5days a week training, couldn't do a pull up last year.

False grip bent arm hang (dunno how to call it) where you hold the rings close up against your chest (the top part of a false grip pullup) and keeping that up for 30-45-60 seconds x3x4x5 sets was a dramatic strength builder in false grip for me.  Once I was able to hold the top part of a deep ring pullup in false grip for 60 seconds, for multiple sets, maintaining the false grip during sets of moves that required it became much much easier.

While that would build the wrist strength, it seems to me the first order of business is getting the flexibility to hang comfortably with straight arms

Jon Douglas said:

While that would build the wrist strength, it seems to me the first order of business is getting the flexibility to hang comfortably with straight arms

Indeed. False gripping with bent arms vs. straight arms is a big difference.

According to many elite level powerlifters, the biggest reason for weak grip strength in general is a weak back. If your back is weak, your brain will signal your grip to let go in order to protect your back from excessive loads.