How to Build a Monster Grip

Athletes involved in grappling sports are a special breed. I'm talking about the wrestlers, judo players, jiu jitsu players, MMA fighters, etc. To compete at a high level these athletes need a special blend of strength, endurance, mobility, balance, and a just touch of insanity. Additionally, an impressive trait that almost all good grapplers tend to have is ridiculous grip strength. I competed in the Copa Nova Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Fall Championships over the weekend, and after my matches my forearms were on FIRE! A big part of the game is getting a good grip on your opponent while keeping their grips off of you, so it's important to have some hands that you can rely on.

However the benefits of a stronger grip isn't limited to the grapplers. Working on grip strength can improve shoulder health, increase performance in other sports, and make activities of daily living easier. And we all know big forearms are cool.

So how do you build the vice-like grip of a grappling champion?  The solution is simple, go wrestle somebody everyday.

I'm just kidding (for most of us). But here are some tips to really challenge your grip within your lifting program.

Towels

Using towels for many of your pulling exercises will make you grip harder than normal. If you relax your grip even for a moment it could slip out of your fingers. Towels can be used for pull-ups, chin-ups, cable/band rows, inverted rows, face pulls, and shrugs.

Bottoms Up KBs

I haven't tried any bottoms up kettlebell work until recently, and it was definitely more challenging than I thought. Even with what I thought was moderate weight it was difficult to control. The bottoms up position can be used for pressing variations but also for weighted carries. Try some weighted carries with a KB in a bottoms-up rack or overhead position. If you've never tried it before your forearms might be in for a surprise.

Heavy Farmer's Walks

Load up the implements and talk a stroll. With these don't worry about using a towel or finding another way to make it specifically harder for your grip. The weight alone should do the trick. Chalk up your hands if you need to, but don't use straps (duh).

Deadlifts

Picking up heavy things is one of the best ways to build up your grip. When using a barbell, try to go double overhand as long as you can when working up in weight.

Use these tips to feel better, open the tightest of pickle jars, and build a crushing handshake you can be proud of!

Thanks To All Our Athletes

The best part of being a strength coach is watching our young athletes come in and train hard.  It takes little to no motivating from us coaches to get them to come in and smash weight; they have an awesome desire to get better.  It’s the best part of our day to see them come train and grow.  With that said I wanted to do something cool for the athletes so I decided to put together a video.  However, I lack the software and technological talent to do such things so I enlisted the help of my friend Binh.  He did an awesome job and captured exactly what I was looking for, so thanks man I appreciate the help.  And to the athletes I hope you guys like the video.  Thanks for coming in and TRAINING HARD!

Complete and Utter Randomness

Just a few random thoughts that have been running around my mind and some training videos for everyone out there. Random Thoughts:

• I’ve been struggling as of late when it comes to high school weight training either as a class or after school for sports.  It seems to be very few and far between that you have sport coaches/weight training teachers who know what they’re doing in the weight room (I’m not saying all of them).  Just talking to athletes about what they do in there blows my mind such as maxing every three weeks with terrible form, crumpling under the barbell during a squat or rounding their back and hitching a deadlift just to get the weight up.  Most of these kids can’t do a bodyweight squat correctly, why are they maxing with a barbell on their back?  I’m not trying to make people angry but it just seems ignorant when there is so much good/free information everywhere that would help these coaches and their athletes immensely.  I attribute this to one of two things, they are to prideful to admit they don’t know what they are doing or they just don’t care to find out that what they are doing is wrong and harmful.  Either way it’s unacceptable.

• The previous thought kind of led into the idea of being average. I’ve heard people for as long as I can remember talk about how they are better than “average” or that they don’t want to be just “average”.  I always thought that thinking like that was arrogant, or that they felt they were superior.  I used to be of the mindset that in order to be above average you had to be something like an astronaut, sports superstar, movie star, bill gates, you know things along those lines.  I’m assuming I thought that way because from the time I was in elementary school to the end of high school that’s what I felt I was, just average.  Why? Because I was led to believe that’s what I was by OTHER people. It wasn’t until college when I started taking my physical education and exercise science classes that I started to realize that I wasn’t “average” and that I never want to be “average”.  I started becoming more confident in my intelligence and through weight training I became more physically confident, and most importantly I stopped listening to negative people.  This all lead to me understanding that it’s OK to NOT want to be average.  Nobody should want that.  Whatever it is that you are currently doing you shouldn’t be satisfied with being average at it.  Whether you are a student, strength coach, teacher, sport coach, attorney, grounds keeper, etc. you should STRIVE to be better so you can look back when it’s all said and done and be able to say you left your mark.  Anyways the reason why this all got sparked was because I’ve been hoping this is the message that I am instilling in the athletes I work with.  There is enough negativity in the world and I REFUSE to be a negative influence when it comes to working with these kids.

• My last thought as of late is that I want to buy a truck. Really not for any other reason than to buy a Prowler to leave in the bed of the truck just so I can always have it on hand in case the mood strikes to push it.  Weird right?

Videos:

And without further delay, here are some videos to take your mind off the incoherent rant you just read….

Here are two of our female high school volleyball athletes.  I think they are just realizing that they are really strong.  SAPT is really proud of all their progress…

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The next video is of one of my training partners and GMU’s S&C graduate assistant John Delgado.  He’s currently doing Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 and he decided to get real squirrely with this 315 deadlift for what I believe is 13 reps…

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The last video is of me getting in some work for my upcoming powerlifting competition.  My training is going really well and my squats and pulls feel really fast and smooth (bench is still feeling a bit weird and wild).  I’m about 7 weeks out from the Richmond Open and I am getting all sorts of jacked up about it.

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Breaking in a New Bench Shirt

This post is definitely a departure from SAPTstrength's usual fare (and essentially the antithesis to Stevo's Monday post). Not only are we diving headfirst into powerlifting preparation, but I'm talking about GEARED powerlifting! For the uninitiated, geared powerlifting involves using very snug fitting "shirts" and "suits" (think the tightest compression shorts or shirts you can possibly imagine and multiply that by 100) to aide in the power lifts: squat, bench, and deadlift.

So, what's the point of these aides? You can move more weight. Plain and simple. There is a huge cool-factor involved (read: ego-factor).

Up until this past summer, I had ONLY competed in geared events and I freaking loved it!

It is worth noting - and this cannot be UNDERstated - the training for geared powerlifting varies significantly from raw powerlifting. As you'll see in Sean's videos below, he has to work to simply get the bar down to his chest. He is literally having to PULL the bar down - hence why back work becomes so critical for the geared bencher. This can be very tough to imagine for someone who has never experienced a shirted bench.

Anyhow, my point here is not to convince you to be pro-gear. What I'd like to do is simply show an excellent progression to help learn the "groove" in a new bench shirt:

Sean starts his first set by touching a 3-board, the next set is to a 2-board, and the third set he is just able to touch his chest. This is a very intelligent way to learn to handle a new shirt. Some people get in them and simply pile on more and more weight until it finally touches their chest. Unfortunately, during this process they may never learn solid, safe, and effective form.

It is worth noting how well Sean is able to stay under control - you see very little, if any, breakdown in form: elbows stays tucked, chest stays up, and he is clearly actively pulling the bar down.

By the way, if you want to go to the true experts in powerlifting, you need to make your way over to EliteFTS.com and check out their training logs, the Q&A, and articles.

Squat vs. Box Squat (+ Personal Update)

I just stumbled upon a study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research in December 2010 titled: “Comparison of kinetic variables and muscle activity during a squat vs. a box squat.” Basically, what the study found is that box squatting was measured to produce both more force and more power than a traditional squat at certain working percentages!

I’m sure many people assume the box’s only value is to ensure depth, but those of us who are familiar with old articles from Westside Barbell or EliteFTS know better:

• A pause on the box – with or without relaxation – takes away the stretch-shortening cycle and forces the athlete to generate all that speed and power from the bottom position. No relying on stored energy, this pays huge dividends when you finally get the opportunity to use a “bounce” out of the hole.
• The same pause that removes the stretch-shortening cycle is also the responsible factor for why box squatting or dynamic effort box squatting can be considered valuable supplemental deadlift work, too. Why? In the deadlift you start from the bottom with virtually no stored energy.
• A bigger squat and a bigger deadlift?!? Sign me up!

Below I’ve put in a repost of mine from last May. Maybe the big gains were due to the BOX? Eh, it was still the dynamic effort work, I’m certain. But, I've now found real science backing up that decision to use a box:

Dynamic Effort Training to Fuel Huge Strength Gains (from May 2011)

I had something wonderful happen last week: the George Mason Throwers – who just came off the season – retested in the squat and everyone PR’d. I’m not talking 5lb PR’s, we had HUGE PR’s of 55lb and even 60lb (that’s a 365lb squat moving up to 425lb and a 455lb squat moving up to 510lb)! The lowest PR was 20lb. This progress occurred over about 16-weeks. By the way, I called the depth on each attempt myself, anyone who knows me personally knows I’m a stickler for proper squat depth.

I will be (and that day I was) the first to admit how shocked I was at our new numbers. You see, we were retesting so everyone could be sure they are working off the correct percentages for their summer training program. Coming off the season, I figured everyone would be down around their old max (if we’re lucky) or even below… that’s how it works, right? Maybe not…In hindsight, my approach to this team (much like the sprinters and jumpers I wrote about last week) has been extremely conservative. So what was the catalyst for all these great PR’s? Dynamic Effort Squats (or Speed Squats as they’re sometimes called) are the key to their success.

What are they? Dynamic Effort squatting is a squat that is performed using relatively low percentages and performed as fast as possible through the concentric portion.

Why did we use them?The Throws’ coach communicated to me at some point in December or January that the group, generally speaking, needed to learn to accelerate through to the “block” portion of the throw. I suggested Speed Squats.

How do you use them? Don’t mess with success: There is a pretty tried and true method to speed squat success and you can work off of these parameters for YEARS. If you are new to speed squatting try this wave over a three-week period: Week 1 10x2@50% - Week 2 10x2@55% - Week 3 8x2@60% - stay strict with a maximum of 60 seconds rest between sets.

Can Olympic lifts take the place of Dynamic Effort Squats? Theoretically, yes. In practice, absolutely not! The problem with the Olympic lifts and their variations is the complexity of the movement – it is, after all, its own sport. You are better off taking a simple movement that an athlete is familiar with and squeezing out every drop of progress (which will last through 4-5 years of a college career, I promise).

It blows my mind how relatively unknown Dynamic Effort lifting remains to many coaches. But, then again, the only reason I know the ins and outs of the method is via my colleagues over the years. Okay, I NEVER do this, so since you’re probably already sitting down – stay there! I don’t want anyone injured… Below are a full 4 waves of lower body lifting I wrote for the throwers this past semester. You’ll see that we did a lot of speed squatting and very little heavy accessory work. Really take a close look at the last few weeks. Oh, and a note about Wave 3, the team’s CNS was trashed so I took the DE squats out to let the team recoup. Finally, in addition to this mandatory team session lower body training day, we had an additional Saturday lift that was to be completed on their own. It consisted of very basic movements to “clean up” what we couldn’t get to during the two days they see me.

Wave 1: Weeks 1-3

A1 High Pull

6x3@65%

5x2@75%

4x1@85%+

A2 Rocking Ankle Mob

2x10

2x10

2x10

Banded DE Box Squat

10x2@40-50%

9x2@45-55%

8x2@50-60%

B1 Band Pistol Sq

2x5

3x5

3x6

B2 Pallof Press

2x6

2x7

2x8

C1 DB Swing

2x12

3x10

3x12

C2 Plate Pinch

2x:15

2x:20

3x:15

Wave 2: Weeks 4-6

DE Box Squat

10x2@50%

9x2@55%

8x2@60%

A1 Oblique Deadlift

6x3

6x2

4x1

A2 Body Saw

3x10

3x10

3x10

B1 Bulgarian Split Sq

2x5

3x5

3x6

B2 St. Arm Walkout

2x6

2x7

2x8

C1 OH Plate Squat

3x6

3x8

4x6

C2 Plate Pinch Driver

2x10

3x8

3x10

Week 7: Deload Week – light DB and bodyweight work… step away from the barbell!Wave 3: Weeks 8-10 – Taper Begins

“Low” Bar Squat (1/4 Squat depth)

4x3@75%

3x2@80%

3x1@85%+

A1 Oblique Deadlift

4x3

3x2

skip

A2 Partner Plank

4x:15

3x:20

2x:10

B1 SL DB RDL

3x6

2x8

2x5

B2 MB Side Throw

3x6

3x7

2x5

C1 OH Plate Squat

2x10

3x8

3x6

C2 Hex Hold

2xFAIL!

2xFAIL!

2xFAIL!

Wave 4: Weeks 11-13 – Taper Continues to Conference

DE Box Squat

5x2@50%

4x2@55%

n/a

 “Low” Bar Squat

3x1

3x1

n/a

A1 SL ¼ Squat

2x5

2x5

2x5

A2 MB OH Throw

2x5

2x5

2x5

DB OH Squat

2x6

2x5

3x6

Lastly, here's a personal update from the weekend: Arabella "successfully completed" her first 1K race - I believe it was with a blazing fast time of 17:25. She made it on her own for a little less than half the race and I carried her the rest of the way.

In all honestly, the "Fun" Run was anything but fun. 1. It was super cold outside which wouldn't have been so much of a problem if they had started the race on time, not made everyone stand there for an extra 25 minutes. 2. Number 1 led to a fairly uncomfortable and cranky Arabella (finely tuned athletes can not be kept waiting!). 3. There was ice all over the place! Arabella slipped several times as she pushed for a PR.

1k_Arabella

The Goblin Gallop was well run, as always, and they certainly didn't have control over the weather. Regardless, I think this will be a wonderful memory for my family in the future!

1k_Victory

A good way to improve your deadlift lockout…tear your calluses…and old skool video footage to prove it!!!

Today, from the vault I share with you deadlifting against bands.  Staring myself, and two of my old training partners, with musical contributions by the great Earl Simmons aka DMX, the most prominent members of all the Ruff Ryders.

Applications for, and what I like about, pulling against bands:

-Great for improving lockout, or “crushing the walnut” as we say at SAPT.  In retrospect, I’d program these in more of a speed, or dynamic, fashion as opposed to max effort (as seen in the video).  I feel training the speed in which the hip extension occurs will ultimately have a greater carryover.

-You can really overload lockout without having to perform the movement in a shortened ROM (i.e. rack pull).  Additionally, the overload at the top absolutely slams your grip, and promotes the adaptations necessary to handle your 9^th max effort attempt of the day (in the case of a powerlifting competition which we were training for at the time).

-They are a great way to rip the calluses right-off your hand!  You’ll notice at the 1:12 mark I do a dainty little skip at the end of my set; ya, that’s where I partially tear the callus, and then at the 1:45 mark is where I finish it off.  Great, thanks for sharing, Chris.

***Note, a great way to keep your calluses at bay is while in the shower gently shave over them with your standard razor.  This removes most of the dead skin while not removing the callus all together.  Thanks, Todd Hamer!***

 What I don’t like about pulling against bands:

 -Kind-of a pain to set-up.

 -They put the bar in a fixed plane which may be detrimental for some trying to find their groove.

-From a programming standpoint I feel that they are more of an advanced progression and therefore aren't appliciable to most.

 -They’ll rip the calluses right-off your hand!

Yes, it should be noted that the lifting form exhibited in the video, by one individual in particular (crappy, fragmented footage used to protect the innocent), should not be used as reference for a “how to” deadlift manual.  Might I suggest you focus on the swarthy young-man in the green t-shirt…

Good times…hard to believe it’s been three years…

Chris AKA Romo