Thick grip rings?

[John Sapinoso]

anyone see a worthwhile benefit in self hacking a pair of thick grip rings?

I'm thinking maybe bend some thick rope and reinforce with epoxy or cement...or just mold the whole thing out of solid cement.

[Razz]

It's been discussed somewhere on the forum so you might wanna try and find that thread, although I think it was mostly about fat gripz and then someone mentioned the rings..

[Cole Dano]

anyone see a worthwhile benefit in self hacking a pair of thick grip rings?

I'm thinking maybe bend some thick rope and reinforce with epoxy or cement...or just mold the whole thing out of solid cement.

There are so many other options for working grip, that the effort involved with making a pair just wouldn't be worth it IMHO.

In any case, making them from cement, or epoxy is a bit iffy. I'm not sure how much you could actually trust it as it is not going to be strong against the sheering forces that would be put on it.

[Animalonfire]

Mr Brady is right, concrete is strong against compression and relatively useless everywhere else. Concrete bridges, upper floors etc are all reinforced with steel. The attractiveness is in the price.

Eagle loops and fat gripz both have threads dedicated to them.

[Blairbob]

For grip strength? Sounds dumb. Just do some proper grip work in your programming or thick rope work.

[John Sapinoso]

apparently someone did it already haha

http://stores.neptunebarbell.com/-strse ... Detail.bok

[Donar]

http://www.torqueathletic.com/ns/catego ... rod=TRQRNG

They used to have 2" rings too, but apparently not anymore.

I like their push up spikes too, however, they can easily and cheaply be homemade.

[Blairbob]

These bigger rings are more of aimed at a niche for guys with bigger hands. Originally, the rings from Rogue athletics were metal and sized at 1.25" instead of FIG size. If you have really big hands, you may find FIG sized rings just too small. However, I don't like the oversized rings because I don't have huge hands so false grip doesn't work too well. Otherwise, they are good enough but still feel funny.

A lot of CF gyms use the oversized rings.

[Coach Sommer]

... A lot of CF gyms use the oversized rings ...

This is primarily due to the fact that they simply didn't know better. A correct false grip is extremely advantageous for more advanced ring strength elements; something that the thicker rings make problematic. However unless they have aspirations of moving beyond muscle-ups, perhaps the additional thickness is of no consequence.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Joshua Naterman]

I didn't think it would matter at first, but I noticed that my homemade rings were too thick for me to do a proper false grip very well... the Xtreme rings are working much better and I am actually making progress with my false grip work now.

I don't really think that thick grip rings have any real advantage over thick single bar work, whether fixed or freely rotating, but I could see dips perhaps being nice to do though I have no idea how much better that would be than reguarl rings. I will do some testing soon since I have a bunch of PVC lying around... I'm not going to make rings, just a thick grip version of John Hinds' Jungle Gym 2. I suspect that there will be some benefit for the wrists but I do not know if it is anything over what you get out of thick grip barbell/dumbbell work. I have a feeling that the most productive exercises will be pull ups, push ups and biceps curls, and that only the biceps curls will have much of a real benefit to anyone here. I may be very wrong though!

[rubadub]

It's been discussed somewhere on the forum so you might wanna try and find that thread, although I think it was mostly about fat gripz and then someone mentioned the rings..

This was the thread I started about fat gripz

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3765

I have a feeling that the most productive exercises will be pull ups, push ups and biceps curls, and that only the biceps curls will have much of a real benefit to anyone here.

I would say the pullups and curls, but not so much the pushups. I find the thick bar comes into play when doing pulling movements with the weight/bar is trying to escape from your hand, like pullups, deadlifts and curls. When doing pushing exercises the weight is sitting into your hand it is different as grip is not essential, it can just be resting there and could even distribute the load more so be more comfortable. I actually can do more reps with the same weight with the fat gripz on a dumbbell for an overhead press, I think it enables me to engage more muscles in my arm easier and the weight is falling into my palm.

http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstr ... ee.43.aspx

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine strength performance of 6 common resistance training exercises using free weight bars of different thickness. Eleven resistance-trained men (8.2 +/- 2.6 years of experience; age: 22.1 +/- 1.6 years; body mass: 90.5 +/- 8.9 kg) underwent 1 repetition maximum (1RM) strength testing on 6 occasions in random order for the deadlift, bent-over row, upright row, bench press, seated shoulder press, and arm curl exercises under 3 conditions using: (a) a standard Olympic bar (OL), (b) a 2-inch thick bar (5.08 cm grip span), and © a 3-inch thick bar (7.62 cm grip span). Significant (p < 0.05) interactions were observed for the "pulling" exercises. For the deadlift and bent-over row, highest 1RM values were obtained with OL, followed by the 2- and 3-inch bar. Significant 1RM performance decrements for the 2- and 3-inch bars were ~28.3 and 55.0%, respectively, for the deadlift; decrements for the 2- and 3-inch bars were ~8.9 and 37.3%, respectively, for the bent-over row. For the upright row and arm curl, similar 1RMs were obtained for OL and the 2-inch bar. However, a significant performance reduction was observed using the 3-inch bar (~26.1% for the upright row and 17.6% for the arm curl). The reductions in 1RM loads correlated significantly to hand size and maximal isometric grip strength (r = -0.55 to -0.73). No differences were observed between bars for the bench press or shoulder press. In conclusion, the use of 2- and 3-inch thick bars may result in initial weight reductions primarily for pulling exercises presumably due to greater reliance on maximal grip strength and larger hand size.

I have seen this next study criticized for only doing the bench

http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstr ... lar.2.aspx

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of two different bar diameters on neuromuscular activation and strength. The bar diameters used reflected a standard Olympic bar (28 mm (1.1 inch); THIN) and a larger fat bar (51 mm [2 inch]; THICK). Eighteen healthy men (age 25.0 ± 1 years) were assessed for their maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) during a unilateral isometric bench press exercise with the 2 bar types at 2 different joint angles (angle 1 and angle 2; elbow joint at ∼45 and 90°, respectively). Additionally, on a separate day, subjects performed three 10-second isometric repetitions at an intensity of 80% MVC using the 2 different bars at angle 1 and angle 2. Electromyographic recordings were collected in the pectoralis major and the muscles of the forearm flexor region at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz during the second day of testing. Analysis of variance was used to examine differences in MVC between bars and also examine between bar differences in electromyographic activity for each muscle group at each joint angle. A significance level of 0.05 was used for all tests. MVC was not different between bar types, although there was a main effect of joint angle on MVC such that it was greater at angle 2. There was a main effect of bar at both angles for the forearm muscles and at angle 1 for the pectoralis such that electromyographic activity was greater with THIN. Our data do not support the hypothesis that bar diameter influences performance during an isometric bench press exercise. However, higher electromyographic activity with THIN suggests greater neuromuscular activation with a standard Olympic bar as opposed to a larger diameter fat bar. Although our data do not support the use of a fat bar for increasing neuromuscular activation, these findings should be confirmed in other resistance training exercises.

So I think it would only make a difference to pulling exercises and not much to dips. If you think about it you probably would have no problem doing dips on 2 flat tables side by side, which in effect are bars of infinite diameter!

[Joshua Naterman]

That's somewhat true. I can certainly say that for me, fat bar bench is harder. It's not a LOT harder, and the difficulty probably does come from neuromuscular inhibition starting at the hands down through the forearms. Of course, they did not say what grip width was being used, as that could be a confound, but I would not be surprised at these results being replicated. I personally found that my work sets were with 235 instead of 250 or so with the thick bar for the same reps, around 8, with a 3" thick barbell. However, I was doing close grip bench (14" between hands). That is usually weaker than other benching grips in terms of how much you can lift.