Posts Tagged ‘grip strength’
October 3, 2011 | 
Author Grip strength is probably the most underrated athletic attribute. Soccer and other sports in which the hands aren’t used ,and faking injuries is a major part of their competition, probably don’t need a whole lot of gripping power. But, athletes of combat and implemental sports (those in which an implement, like a baseball bat or tennis racquet is used) can benefit a great deal by having stronger hands.
We have tons of innovative grip tools in my gym. Anything that is either heavy, oddly shaped or thick can be used as an effective grip strengthening tool. While there are many great options out there, here are my Top 5… Read the rest of this entry »
I spent a number of hours recently making different rolling grips for our weightroom, all of which would challenge the hands and forearms in a different way. Our favorite tool is the 3inch grips, which are incredibly difficult. All it took was some PVC, climbing accessory cord and some vinyl tubing to make a pretty neat tool.
I think I invented this one, but who knows if this hasn’t been done before. Genius aside, I really liked how this works. It trains your forearm in resisting a moving weight by activating the muscles that are responsible for radial and ulnar deviation. Ulnar deviation is the last movement of the forearm as a baseball bat flies through the zone, and the motion of the curveball also utilizes this plane of forearm motion. You can also hold the barbell off-center, which makes it much, much more difficult.
This exercise requires a partner, a barbell and some grip strength. Choose a weight that you can hold without the added motion for 20-40 seconds, and do sets until your grip gets crushed (3-5 sets will do it, depending on the weight and your strength).
Grip strength is critically important, and I have been harping on it for some time. EVERYONE can use increased grip strength, and the implications it has on throwing harder, swinging harder and preventing injury are huge. Grip, or hand strength can be classified in many different ways, but today we are going to focus on just open and closed hand strength, the differences between them and their implications for pitchers and hitters.
Closed Hand Strength
This is just what it sounds like, holding things with a closed fist. This is the most important type of strength for a hitter to have, as gripping the bat is done with closed fists. This isn’t meant to be groundbreaking info, but I want you to see the carryover from the weight room to the field for both pitchers and hitters.
Closed Hands Gripping a Bat
If you haven’t already realized, I love grip training and my favorite piece of equipment is my rock rings. These versatile rock climbing holds feature four different grips to challenge one’s open hand strength. They make for some super hard chin and pull ups, but can be tied to basically anything…like dumbbells!
Rock ring connected to dumbbell by carabiner
The Three-Finger pocket in use
Pictured here is Adam Baxley, a freshman catcher at Frostburg U. What we did with him was a 4 hold drop set – he started with the most difficult grip (3 finger shallow pocket) then when he couldn’t hold anymore, picked the weights back up with the next easiest grip, ending with the big sloper hold. This way we were able to get his hands under tension longer, which resulted in a really tough grip exercise (he’ll attest to that).
Hand and finger strength is really under-appreciated and under-trained in the baseball community. This blows my mind, as the last thing a thrown ball is in contact with is the (drumroll please) fingertips! Sure, doing wrist curls, holding heavy things, etc. etc. develops grip and forearm strength, but it’s just not the exact type of strength I see as most important- fingertip strength. If you haven’t been to your local rock climbing wall recently, you’ll realize how lacking your finger strength is – even if you have monster forearms and a great closed hand grip.
I’m hitting the rock climbing gym 2-3 times a week right now. Do I expect it to help me throw harder? Yes. I do. Can’t imagine how it wouldn’t.
At UMBC under our strength coach Fred Cantor, we did A LOT of farmers walks. They’re fun, challenging and are a great way to build strong forearms and hands.
What is a farmer’s walk? Grab something really heavy and walk with it. Easy enough.
One way that I was taught to make this exercise more holistic is to only hold weight in one hand at a time. That way, your body has to strongly engage the lateral core muscles to counteract the weight pulling you over.
gripping the rolled-up towel
There are a million ways to vary this exercise, and what I have for you below is just one of them: a blob hold in one hand with a heavy towel hold in the other. This way, one hand works on finger strength with a light weight while the other works on brute strength while holding a heavy dumbbell with a towel. And, since one side is heavier than the other, the core is strongly activated. The towel hold ain’t easy; just ask Kevin Loftis, one of my high school pitchers who did more than a quarter mile today with them.
blob hold on top of dumbbell
So, now that you’ve got your grips, just get out there and walk! Go for time, length, or just total fatigue. Your pick.
The chin up v. pull up debate has been mulled over by the baseball community for quite some time now. We all know that performing either or both of these exercises is the key to developing strong, wide back. Yet, some say pull-ups are harmful for throwing athletes, and it’s hard to know what to believe.
First off, the difference: a chin-up is done with a supinated (palms facing) grip, as opposed to the pronated (palms away) pull-up grip.
The baseball fitness community seems to be accepting of chin-ups just fine; the issue is with pull-ups, which are supposedly the cause of too much rotator cuff stress, hypertrophy, and tightness.
Why are pull-ups associated with such negatives for throwing athletes, whereas chin-ups are not?
The noteworthy difference between the two, as far as rotator cuff stress is concerned, is in the arm placement. On pull-ups, especially with wide grips, the arms are externally rotated, which causes more recruitment (and stress) of the rotator cuff. I agree with avoiding wide pull ups because of the high amount of rotator cuff strain.
A wide pull up - note the externally rotated arms
Chin up; note the arms are tucked close to the body, keeping the focus on the back
Because of the supinated grip on chin-ups, the arms track closer to the body, resulting in far less rotator cuff recruitment. The arms simply cannot flare outward as easily on chin-ups, until the grip gets extremely wide. Yet, the arms can stay tucked on close-grip and neutral grip pull-ups as well… Read the rest of this entry »
One of my favorite pieces of specialty equipment are my Metolius Rock Rings, which are a free-hanging climbing holds. These also happen to be a companion of one of my favorite exercises of late, the chin-up.
The only thing I really dislike about chin-ups (aside from everyone in the gym doing them half-assed) is that they feel stressful on the elbow, due in part because of the way the arm articulates as the body ascends. The hands tend to want to pronate on the ascent, which is rendered impossible by holding a straight bar. Is this catastrophic? No, but I prefer individual, free holds for each arm to allow my joints to move comfortably in whatever path they choose.
The Rock Ring
These are made for climbers to functionally train for their sport. What do climbers have that everyone else does not? Crazy strong backs, forearms and fingers. We could all use a little more of that…
These hanging holds have 4 features(descending from the top, increasing in difficulty):
-a sloper (type of open palm hold)
-4 finger deep edge
-4 finger shallow edge
-3 finger 3/4 inch pocket (very, very tough to do chins with)
Metolius Rock Ring
In all of the baseball training manuals hand strengthening seems to be ignored. Some of the games greatest hitters would always comment on how having strong hands made them good at their craft, but what about pitchers? And what about that part of the body that actually delivers the baseball? Sure, everyone knows a strong shoulder is required to throw hard, but the hand and the fingertips are the ones who have the last say in what the ball does. That being said, I want my hands and fingers strong.
Easy In-Home Strengthening
In this post we will go into some of the immediate and easy things one can do at home to start developing stronger hands and fingers. Grip strength can be developed in a tremendous amount of ways, but we will just focus on a few today that worked for me and will get you started in the right direction. Read the rest of this entry »