Fat / Thick bar device

I have seen a few people workout using thick bars, I just ordered a pair of these devices which might be of interest to others.

http://www.fatgripz.com/

There is another rival brand which is a cone shape.

http://www.tylergrip.com/

The fat gripz looked like it would suit me better, and got slightly better reviews, though some people did have both and prefered the tyler one.

In the past I have wrapped a dumbbell with a towel for overhead presses and really liked it. The fat gripz makes some outlandish claims of its benefits but I think it does have some sense in strengthening up your weakest link. In the past I had 6" long 40mm diameter PVC tubes covered in mountain bike inner tube, I had these on my chinup bar and they were very tough for chinups, partly since they were free to rotate.

Let me know how much those can bend because I have been wondering if they would go on the rings.

My only problem is that they are expensive! I made some out of PVC pipe and they work great.

trianglechoke7 said:

Let me know how much those can bend because I have been wondering if they would go on the rings.

I will let you know. I just measured a standard beer can and it was about 2.5" in diameter, these grips are meant to be 2.25" thick but I read that, as expected, on bigger bars they would be 2.5". Being so thick they might not be flexible enough to take the bend, I heard the rubber is particularly hard with no "give".

niftyvt said:

My only problem is that they are expensive! I made some out of PVC pipe and they work great.

Yes, I made some from PVC but they were free to rotate. I work as an engineer so usually would make stuff like this, and I am always looking for cheaper alternatives. But I did think they were a reasonable price, its quite a bit of rubber and on forums I saw people saying they had never seen such tough rubber before. I was thinking you could make a mould with a beer can, but the top off and wipe the inside with vaseline, then pour silicone into the can, then stick a vaseline coated 1" diameter rod into the middle of the silicone and allow it all set (the vaseline means it should slip off easy when set, but it might come off easy anyway). But I think the silicone might be too compressible -but I have read that grip expert John Brookfield saying compressibility might be a good thing.

I have never had a problem with mine rotating, the knurling bites in quite a bit. I am scared that they are going to break though because I am starting to get quite a lot of weight on the bar,185+ , and they are flexing A LOT.

trianglechoke7 said:

Let me know how much those can bend because I have been wondering if they would go on the rings.

I got them today. I was surprised that they even fitted on the rings!, but they went on and did bend a little with them. When I put my weight (~86kg) on them in a support hold they did bend more and formed a bit better. I expect over time they might get broken in and bend more. They do not make much difference to dips for me, perhaps since I use thicker bars for dips already, maybe 1.5" diameter. They have a gap on the rings and I expect they are 2.4" diameter. I would not really recommend them for the rings, I would sooner maybe wrap a towel around rings, or else make rings from thicker PVC.

I did dips on parallel bars and matched my usual reps. I did overhead dumbbell presses and matched my usual but I used to work them with dumbbells wrapped in towels before.

Pullups are where the massive difference was, especially if you did not put your hand right over the top which would be cheating, like doing pullups on rafter beams. I started out with chins and only managed 8, it was on a fairly thick bar so when the gripz went on they were ~2.6" diameter I would have expected 14-16 chins on a regular bar. I only managed 4 wide pullups (I would expect ~8-10 of them usually). On a thinner bar it was ~2.4" diameter and I got 6 normal width pullups while I would expect ~12 usually. So all my reps were roughly halved, I have a feeling I will get used to them quickly, I did some slow negative only pullups which were a killer.

Interesting. Anyone else get them as well ? A home-made variation or some other kind of wide grip bar?

The fat gripz seem to be a great product. I don't like the conical shape of the Tyler grips, but I've never used them. They sort of defeat part of the purpose of a wide grip, which is to make the whole hand and associated muscles work harder.

crashnburn said:

Interesting. Anyone else get them as well ? A home-made variation or some other kind of wide grip bar?

There was a post on the ross training site. Some guy posted up pics of one set he made. I posted the following there too.

rubadub said:

I have the fat gripz and like them a lot. I do not think they are too expensive, yes it is just rubber but it is a quite a lot of rubber, a pair of cheap grips for a bicycle are about €5 and the fat gripz cost me €35 delivered, they would also be a low production item so I would expect to pay more. I have made lots of equipment but was willing to pay for these. I had PVC tubes on my chinup bar before but they were loose which I did not like.

One idea I had for making them would be to get beer cans or big family size tins of beans, cut the lid off the can/tin and pour silicone sealant into it, then plunge a 1" diameter rod into the middle of it and let it set. The rod could be a bit of wood, or broom handle, to stop it sticking to the silicone you could cover it in cling film (or a long balloon or even a condom!). The can should be lined with cling film too, in work I have silicone paste which never sets, I think this could be rubbed on surfaces to stop the silicone sticking. If it was a beer can it could probably be cut and carefully peeled away. You might be able to find a plastic drink bottle, the bottle could be filled and the neck of the bottle might act as a support to keep it central, you might even want the outer plastic left on, if you roughen it with sandpaper it would grip better.

The silicone is probably too squishy though, I was thinking you could make some sort of matrix mixture. If you could get hard rubber pellets they would be mixed with the silicone so it would not be so squishy. I think some automotive silicones will cure much harder, or there could be other filler that could be used, like "no more gaps", stuff from a hardware store that sprays out and fills a gap. But it should be elastic like the fat gripz, maybe somebody knows of a good product.

It would take a good few days to fully cure silicone at that thickness. Once set you should be able to cut a slice in it like the real grips.

I since found an old silicone tube in work, it had broken and had completely set solid inside. I cut the outside and was able to pull out the solid core, it is far more compressible than the fat gripz though, it does have an interesting feel like jelly type handlebar grips I have used in the past, they sort of mould to your hands. I also think they would be more likely to rip/tear under high loads.

http://www.rosstraining.com/forum/viewt ... =9&t=54721

You'd probably want to use casting resin inside of a pvc pipe if you made anything at home. Pipe insulation will not hold up with heavy weight no matter how much duct tape you put in it Once thing that WOULD work is melting down plastic bottles and casting that, but you'll need around a 15 gallon trash bag full of bottles to do that. In the end, I think the fat gripz are overall the best choice in terms of time investment, ease of use, durability and ability to bear load.

However, if you work out at home I HIGHLY recommend that you make your own fat bar by either taking an olympic bar or some RMC and putting it into a PVC pipe and then filling the gap with cement and letting that harden. It'll take whatever you put on it and it will be cheap and awesome.

Just thought I'd get you guys opinion here... before I invest into one of these... (maybe before end of this year).

Grip4orce / Gripforce

http://www.grip4orce.com/grip4orce.com/Home.html

http://www.grip4orce.com/grip4orce.com/Tech.html

http://www.grip4orce.com/grip4orce.com/Workout.html

From what I have heard the Fat Gripz will do you better, but you should get whatever you think will be good for YOU.

They look a bit thinner than the fat grips, the fat grips turn my standard barbell into 2.25" diameter and my chinup bar into 2.4", the gripforce is saying 2". It also looks like you will have to "set" them more, i.e. the fatgrips have to be pulled apart a bit and then they spring back and snap onto the bar, the gripforce have to be closed around the bar with your hand -which is better would be a matter of opinions. I sometimes do rest pause chins with mine and it is nice that they just stay on the bar for me.

slizzardman said:

From what I have heard the Fat Gripz will do you better, but you should get whatever you think will be good for YOU.

If I only knew what was better for ME ... all the time.. well in this case atleast. So I ask the experts

Saw this on the rosstraining site

http://www.blackdovenest.com/2011/02/ho ... rbell.html