Grip strength

Hi all!
As the title subtly suggests, this is about grip strength.
I have been working on Hinge rows for quite a bit now (and, strangely, am enjoying them). It is becoming clearer and clearer though that currently, mainly my grip strength is holding me back. I have been repeating week 6/4x9 for almost eight weeks now and I feel them become more doable everytime. I barely finish my last set though because it's almost impossible to hold on to the rings anymore - and when I'm finally done, it feels like I can't move my wrists and fingers for a couple of minutes because my forearm flexors have become so rigid.

Should I keep repeating the same week until my grip catches up or could I speed up the process help progress with some additional work? I was thinking about adding in hanging from stall bars for stretching purposes which might give my forearms a little more to do.

As always, any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Leo

Are you doing some H! work? it has interesting forearms release poses.

Deadhangs and just push through the cycles. also do holds at the top position tlll you reach 5x60 sec

ive found fixing my shoulder girdle by stretching and trigger pointing my chest as well as doing a lot of external rotation work and retraction work has made my grip better and able to last longer as my forearm isn't fighting any dysfunction occurring in the shoulder.  maybe give some pec stretches and a quick band external rotation work a try before the next time.  make sure the external rotation movement is slow and controlled.

Thanks for your guys' replies!

Alessandro Mainente said:

Are you doing some H! work? it has interesting forearms release poses.

I am doing H1 twice a week before my F workouts and (what a surprise) really seem to be benefitting from the wrist work. I tried the wrist stretches after today's sets and it helped with the tension.

 

GenericGymnast said:

Deadhangs and just push through the cycles. also do holds at the top position tlll you reach 5x60 sec

I am pushing through the sets alright, if I weren't I would stop sets much, much earlier. I am bordering on sacrificing good form on the last reps of set 3 and 4, though, which is why I haven't progressed from 4x9r. I already do a top position hold for time for warm up but adding them in on my Fb day seems to be a good thing to try, as well as hangs on the stall bar - I played with that today and got a tremendous stretch out of that, so I think this will go to the end of the workout.

 

ausswe said:

ive found fixing my shoulder girdle by stretching and trigger pointing my chest as well as doing a lot of external rotation work and retraction work has made my grip better and able to last longer as my forearm isn't fighting any dysfunction occurring in the shoulder.  maybe give some pec stretches and a quick band external rotation work a try before the next time.  make sure the external rotation movement is slow and controlled.

Very good point! I am already doing stretching and to a lesser extent shoulder rotation work since I am also dealing with an impingement-type shoulder issue (stretching the chest and swimming have helped a little).

So, I will add RC/PE1 static holds on Non-RC days and work towards 5x60s plus include hanging after my workouts - should I aim for 5*60s here, too?

Hi there,

I went from a two day split to a three day split and also included Hinged chin holds on Fb days not directly following a Fa day (this sounds complicated, I know ) and generally try to "hang" more. Things improved a little and I now can - as far as my back is concerned - do 5x9r Hinge Rows quite comfortably. I still get that extreme pump in especially my left forearm in sets 4 and 5, though.

I'm unsure how to proceed now - I believe I didn't "earn" advancing to 4x12 yet, but don't know if I should stay with 5x9 or just repeat block 2 entirely? Also, could my problem stem from my forearm flexors bring even tighter than I previously thought and I would benefit from stretching them in addition to the wrist stretches from H1 (I perform these "as prescribed in the course" before every workout already).

Hope what I was writing makes any sense.

Any insights will be greatly appreciated, as always.

If you can't make the jump to 4x12 you can try increasing reps in smaller increments so you're not just repeating blocks. Try 4x12 and see how you do. Sounds like you mastered 5x9 though, how have you not earned it? Anyway for me it wasn't the jump from 9 to 12 reps, but 12 to 15 that presented the biggest challenge.

I always did 5 sets and just added one rep to each set every time I was able to do 5 sets of x reps. I wasn't always able to complete 5 more reps each session but total reps built up quite fast until mastery. Now I'm using this for RC2 and it seems to be working.

Thanks for your input guys - however, I feel that "just" adding reps is not really my issue.

Today, I tested 4x12, failed after 12/12/12/8 and could barely move my left hand afterwards because my forearm was so tight.

I started doing the forearm stretches from H1 for longer times in the hope that this might help so I'll stay where I'm at right now and wait if this changes anything. I would really appreciate though if one of the coaches could give me some advice since I'm really unsure how to approach this problem.

https://www.facebook.com/nielsjoergensen.personligside/videos/815050228583717/

Niels has a wrist Mobiity video up, it may help to reduce tension. If you don't have a barbell, you can also substitute with your knee. Place your forearm on the floor and pin it with your knee, and do the same motions as shown in the video.

https://youtu.be/dhNDPD4gxpc

Rice Bucket Training may also help to strengthen your tendons/ligaments in the wrist, as well as wrist extensors. It's a great warmup for the wrists before Handstand training as well.

Good luck, hopefully this helps.

Thanks Dylan, especially for pointing out the first routine!

I've been using a rice bucket regularly in the past but not so much lately.