Comments on: Get a Grip, a Hook Grip http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/2010/04/14/get-a-grip-a-hook-grip/ El Segundo, CA Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:33:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Cory Gillespie http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/2010/04/14/get-a-grip-a-hook-grip/comment-page-1/#comment-1211 Cory Gillespie Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:09:20 +0000 http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/?p=2361#comment-1211 Hello CF Intrepid from way up North in Canada at CF Lethbridge. My name is Cory Gillespie and I am one of the coaches at CF Lethbridge. We met Sean and Ruth at a seminar at Catalyst and have been chatting back and forth. Ruth asked me to pop some fresh info your way from time to time. You have a great site loaded with tons of info. You are lucky to have the coaches you do as they are doing an amazing job for you. CF Intrepid looks like a great place to be. Here are a few thoughts on grip strength. Grip strength is often a common problem for many athletes and training individuals. Most people with a gym background have spent countless hours using tools like straps or lifting hooks. Although these allow you to hang on to a weight easier they do nothing for developing strong wrists and an iron like grip. So you shake hands like a pansy eh? Well here are some things you can do to fix that. Fingertips Exercises: Whether it is deadlifts or pull ups try changing your grip to holding the bar in your fingertips only. Find that last joint of the fingers and use that as a hook to grip the bar. Avoid trying to curl the weight into a closed hand when it gets hard and try to keep the weight in that open hand fingertip grip position. Towel Chin Ups: Use a big fat fluffy bathroom towel to do your chin ups with. Roll the towel up and throw it over the bar. This will make it a narrow grip pull up. Or you can wrap the towel around the bar to be able to stay with the CF standard kipping pull up grip width. The fatter the towel the better. Because the towel will compress in your grip it will help with your ability to crush a weight and/or a bar. Avoid Assistance Grip until neccesary: Whenever possible avoid grips that help with being able to hang on to the weight until it becomes neccesary to switch in order to continue to move the weight. Don't confuse practicing hook and mixed grip with never using it as you will need them and you do need to get familiar and used to using them. Now this is a little tricky as both these grips will still help develop grip strength, but an over over grip will help more. In the early stages of movements like deadlifting you should use the over over grip until the weight gets to a point where you need to change it up. Cleans are cleans welcome to hook grip all the time. Farmers Walk: Grab some heavy weight with big mean thick handles and go for a run with them. Although this will help strengthen your entire body, typically in a farmers walk its your grip that goes not your body that fails. Farmers cylinders on the cheap are 5 gallon filtered water jugs add sand to bring them up to weight. Rolling Thunder & Captains of Crush: If you don't know what these are then google it up. You can purchase a Rolling Thunder or Captain of Crush from Ironmind and they are worth their weight in gold. Hello CF Intrepid from way up North in Canada at CF Lethbridge. My name is Cory Gillespie and I am one of the coaches at CF Lethbridge. We met Sean and Ruth at a seminar at Catalyst and have been chatting back and forth. Ruth asked me to pop some fresh info your way from time to time. You have a great site loaded with tons of info. You are lucky to have the coaches you do as they are doing an amazing job for you. CF Intrepid looks like a great place to be. Here are a few thoughts on grip strength.

Grip strength is often a common problem for many athletes and training individuals. Most people with a gym background have spent countless hours using tools like straps or lifting hooks. Although these allow you to hang on to a weight easier they do nothing for developing strong wrists and an iron like grip. So you shake hands like a pansy eh? Well here are some things you can do to fix that.

Fingertips Exercises: Whether it is deadlifts or pull ups try changing your grip to holding the bar in your fingertips only. Find that last joint of the fingers and use that as a hook to grip the bar. Avoid trying to curl the weight into a closed hand when it gets hard and try to keep the weight in that open hand fingertip grip position.

Towel Chin Ups: Use a big fat fluffy bathroom towel to do your chin ups with. Roll the towel up and throw it over the bar. This will make it a narrow grip pull up. Or you can wrap the towel around the bar to be able to stay with the CF standard kipping pull up grip width. The fatter the towel the better. Because the towel will compress in your grip it will help with your ability to crush a weight and/or a bar.

Avoid Assistance Grip until neccesary: Whenever possible avoid grips that help with being able to hang on to the weight until it becomes neccesary to switch in order to continue to move the weight. Don’t confuse practicing hook and mixed grip with never using it as you will need them and you do need to get familiar and used to using them. Now this is a little tricky as both these grips will still help develop grip strength, but an over over grip will help more. In the early stages of movements like deadlifting you should use the over over grip until the weight gets to a point where you need to change it up. Cleans are cleans welcome to hook grip all the time.

Farmers Walk: Grab some heavy weight with big mean thick handles and go for a run with them. Although this will help strengthen your entire body, typically in a farmers walk its your grip that goes not your body that fails. Farmers cylinders on the cheap are 5 gallon filtered water jugs add sand to bring them up to weight.

Rolling Thunder & Captains of Crush: If you don’t know what these are then google it up. You can purchase a Rolling Thunder or Captain of Crush from Ironmind and they are worth their weight in gold.

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