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…

1. Metolius Rock Rings

If you read my blog regularly, you’ve undoubtedly heard me harp on these before – I love them to death. We use these for pull ups and all types of pulling exercises, sled drag, farmer’s walks, hanging core exercises, and general intimidation of new clients. If you can bang out a handful of 3-finger chins on these bad boys, there’s a good chance you could easily squeeze the life out of a lesser person. At $29 a pair, they are way too good to pass up.

2. Tyler Grips

Tyler Grips are a really versatile tool. Because they are cone-shaped, they can challenge the grip of athletes with different sized hands, as well as provide a drop-effect for those who simply get too tired of carrying them at their fattest end. My 12 year-olds can’t get their hands far enough around the fat end of these for them to be usable, so we just have them grab the narrower end. Everyone is able to get work done with these, and fat-bar training is awesome for gripping power. I can throw these on barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells or my blast-straps to increase the grip demand. They are 39 bucks for a set and last through a lot of abuse.

3. Two inch Manila Rope

This rope is really thick, at 2 inch diameter, and is also oddly-shaped because of the twisted strand design. We do pulling and hanging exercises on these as well, and they require a different hand position than the rock rings, bars or wood grips because the rope hangs vertically, not horizontally. It’s quite a bastard to do pull ups on the 2-incher, and as such I’ve set my gym’s new Standard of Badassery at 6 Rope Pull Ups with 80lbs of chains around the neck. It’s gonna be a long road to get there.

You can see a video of me doing 6 chins +20lbs on my youtube channel, or this post (I’m not gonna self-promote by posting the same shameless video on two articles). Cost – $2.35 per foot from Upstate Rope. Most fitness companies gouge the hell out of you on ropes, charging up to 6 bucks/foot. Upstate rope is just one nice guy from South Carolina who sells rope mostly for ornamental use – I placed my first order over the phone. He delivers fast and though his website isn’t awesome, I’ve had a great experience with his company. Don’t buy from a fitness place that’s gonna just tack on 2-3 bucks of profit by making a rope a “fitness rope.” Assholes.

4. Metolius Portable Power Grips (Potatoes)

Metolius is a rock-climbing company, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that their grip training tools are legit. The Wood Grips, or baked potatoes as we lovingly call them, are oddly shaped wood blocks that you can apparently hold four different ways. Now, neither Metolius’ website nor the Portable Power Grips’ packaging explained what the four hold variations are, and it’s really not obvious. If I were quizzed on what these mystical four grips are, based on my usage of them, I’d still likely fail.

They have a sort of flat edge and a sloping edge on one side, two interesting tapered indents and a round side. That’s four attributes, but it’s still just baffling what the carver of these blocks intended. With no legitimate help on the web, I’ll leave it a mystery. But, at $22 bucks, these are really nice and dirt cheap. Metolius and I both rig our training tools with climbing accessory cord, which makes them capable of supporting thousands of pounds before breaking. The holds would break before the cord – safety is always a bonus.

5. Rotating Fat Grips

These are a homebrew, made of 2″ PVC pipe cut and sanded, with a 1″ insert and 5mm accessory cord to string them into a handle. The insert is so that the thick outer handle can rotate freely, thus increasing grip demand. If you’re pulling with a handle that rotates, it takes even more strength to hold onto it because the grip won’t allow your forearms to help curl your arms toward it. These are very multi-purpose, as we can hang or hook them onto just about anything. Cost – less than 5 bucks.

It should be obvious that getting super-strong forearms and hands doesn’t have to cost you a lot. You could buy everything on this post for around $120 combined; that’s pretty good, and so there’s no excuse not to choke the life out of the next popped-collar frat boy you see….or play sports better; your choice.

The above video shows Daryn Miller performing floor pull ups with an open palm grip. Doing a regular pinch grip for one rep in the floor pull up is the limit of each of our strength right now, but our goal is full chin ups with the handles by May. So, for now we switched to a palm grip, which is still a huge chore. Fat grips aren’t just for guys, either – they’re for tough softball players as well.

Understand that such a load on the hands will decrease the amount of reps you’ll normally be able to do in an exercise. So, if you’re going for max strength in a back exercise, you won’t reach your true pulling max – your hands will limit you. But,we were working with enough strength to get about 75% of our normal reps for the floor pull up exercise, which is an acceptable loss – we’re not using the fat grips every single day. And, we finished our sets with a few with regular sized handles, just to make sure we had smoked both our hands and our backs. But getting your body to strengthen in concert (not just doing grip and back exercises separately all the time) is a good way to increase your usable strength and athleticism.  Plus, grip strength helps you pull that weight into you (notice the curling motion the wrist is making in the videos) which makes all your weights go up when you do switch back to smaller handles.

Just remember that there are always new things you can add to your routine to challenge your body in a new way and maximize your time. Getting some of your sets in with fat grips makes rowing exercises completely different, and gives you great functional training for you hands AND your back.  More to come on grip training!

**I am a strength coach and pitching instructor in the Central Illinois area. Personal training, pitching lessons, and custom training programs are among my available services. If you liked this post, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter – you will receive member-only information and/or special offers on services and products.**

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Thanks for reading! -Dan Blewett

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).

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

Training this type of strength is extremely easy, and yet produces noticeable results, especially to the untrained.  After just 3 weeks of dedicated sessions with grip training intermixed, one of my third baseman clients remarked how much harder he would hit the ball at showcases, and how much longer he could swing in the cage without fatigue.  The big major league hitters who seem to just flick the ball over the fence?  Big, powerful forearms with a crushing grip.

Training Closed Hand Strength

As I mentioned, this is easy and allows for a lot of creativity.  The root of all of this is holding something that you can get your hands completely around, such as a chin-up bar, barbell, towel, dumbbell, etc.  Then with that weight in hand, you hang or hold while you stand still or walk.  Vary your weights, sets, time, etc. to maximize your training effect.  Grip training is something that you in most cases want to do to failure… making the weight fall from your fingers.

Hangs

Towel Hangs

Pretty easy.  Grab something overhead and hold on with closed fists.  Chances are, you won’t last nearly as long as those people in movies do, and you would absolutely drop off that building before help arrived.  The grip work involved in performing chin and pull ups is an additional huge benefit of doing them (and if you know me, you know I love me some chin ups).  A weak grip is also a limiting factor for many novices with poor chin up numbers.

Farmers Walks

-Grab heavy things and walk with them.  Repeat until you’re tired or preferably, can’t.  There are many ways to vary this such as with dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, towels, etc.

Towel Farmers Walks

"Blob" Farmer's Walks

Lift Heavy Weights

Do you push yourself when doing deadlifts, bent-over rows, RDLs, etc?  If you do, then your grip has been improving as a side effect.  My forearms transformed one summer when I used  a program from school that had me deadlifting twice per week, sometimes with a straight bar and sometimes with a trap bar.  If you have strong legs and push yourself to get stronger, you might find yourself holding 450 pounds in your hands, which will get you a crushing grip in no time.

Open Hand Strength

This is, again, just what it sounds like: holding onto things while your fist isn’t completely closed.  This type of strength is most important for pitchers and those who want to improve throwing velocity, because the force is applied to the ball from the tips of the fingers.  Having a strong fist isn’t going to help as much here, because closed fist exercises build more strength in the more proximal digits of the fingers.

Fingertips Transmit Power to the Ball

Training Open Hand Strength

I keep talking about rock climbing, but it’s just a fact that those people have freaky strong fingers.  I see the parallel to throwing, and I try to adopt their training methods (within reason).  Loading the fingers should be a gradual process, as the lever arm is really lengthened, which further increases the stress on the forearm muscles.  Point being, don’t just jump into 10 minutes of 2-finger hangs from your door moulding – you’ll have tendinitis or a popped flexor in no time.

Strong fingers

Use An Open Hand Grip…

Rock Rings Open-Hand Grip

Open-hand grip dumbbell

Top of Dumbbell or "Blob" hold

Weight plate farmers walks

Squeezing the life out of a Medicine ball

Final Thoughts

As you probably realize, grip training is something that never has to get boring; it can be varied a thousand different ways.  I just want people out there to start thinking about what their goals are, and how their training is preparing them for their sport.  In baseball, I think it’s clear that grip strength is huge.  Yet, an even more narrow focus (open vs. closed) should yield maximum carryover to the field.

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.

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.

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…

Close-grip Pull up; Notice the arm position - a carbon copy of the chin up

So, if the salient difference between pull ups and chin ups is arm position (externally rotated or not) then anyone who accepts chin ups into their training program (hopefully everyone -they’re a crucial strength builder for ALL athletes) should accept close-grip pull ups as well, as long as they are done with a focus on keeping the arms tucked to the sides of the body.

Neutral grip pull up - also a great choice

Mix up your overhead pulling exercises to challenge your grip strength.  A chin up grip will work the biceps and forearm flexors of the arms more, while a close or neutral grip pull up will help beef up the forearm extensors, including the brachioradialis.  The verdict: use chin ups and pull ups, but keep those arms out of external rotation.

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

The first thing you’ll notice about using these is that you can’t do very many of them.  Join the club.  I can bang out 10 perfect, dead hang chins on a bar, but only about 8 of these on the deep edge or sloper.  I can do 6 right now on the medium edge, and about 4 on the 3 finger edge.  All about the fingers…

Gripping the "sloper" hold

Gripping the 3-finger pocket

Yeah, try pulling up your bodyweight on the tips of only 6 fingers.  Not easy and not for beginners, or people with current injuries.

But Rock Rings are a really great training tool if you’re healthy and into grip strength. My forearms get blasted from doing 4 sets of these, and it makes regular chins a breeze in comparison.  It’s a nice little grip drop set to go to failure on the rock rings, then jump up to the straight bar and finish out until your lats are done.

Finger strength is one of those things that is crucially important to a pitcher and there just aren’t that many ways of building it.  I’ve gotten into climbing for the finger strength (and fun). But if you don’t climb, try to swing the 30 bucks for a set – I love and definitely recommend them.  Check out the video for some more possible uses…

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.

5 Fingertip Planks

I found that fingertip pushups were too difficult for me to start with (I feared every one of my fingers was going to snap off), so I started with sets of fingertip holds in the pushup (plank) position.  I started with 2 or 3 sets of 10-15 seconds and worked up to 3 sets of 30+ seconds.

Fingertip Planks - All 5 fingers

Fingertip Arm Shuffles

After I could comfortably hold the 5 finger plank for long periods of time comfortably, I progressed to arm shuffles, which gives brief moments of being on only one hand while switching positions, thus increasing the load on the fingertips.  I couldn’t get a good video up, but performing shuffles is easy.  All you do is start in the plank position, and move one hand closer in, then the other.  Then you return each hand to it’s starting position one at a time.  So it will be right in, left in, right out, left out.  Kind of like the hokey pokey.

3 Fingertip Planks

After I was pretty comfortable with arm shuffles, I was ready to try fingertip planks with just my thumb, index and middle finger.  One can eventually go to just 2 fingers as strength increases, though I don’t think I would recommend that.

3 Fingertip Plank

Hand Grippers

There are tons of handheld grippers on the market, and chances are you have used one of those cheap plastic ones found at the local sporting goods store.  Strongmen love Captains of Crush grippers, as they take a lot of strength to close.  I don’t like them because they aren’t adjustable.  The gripper of choice for me is the Super Gripper, which I got at Iron Woody Fitness.  It’s finely adjustable and a pretty neat device, though bulky.  

Super Gripper

I also like this gel-like gripper that a friend gave me, which gives more of an isometric palm-gripped workout.  It’s different, very portable, and nice to squeeze while sitting around or in the car.

Gel Gripper

The Gripper Antagonists

Humans are kind of like lobsters.  We all know that lobsters have tremendous pinching force, but are rendered helpless by a rubber band.  Why? Because the muscles that open the claw are never subjected to the same forces as those that close.  The same is true of us, where we squeeze things but never open our hands under tension.  When strengthening the grip it is important the work the antagonist muscles (the ones that open the hand) as well.  This is easily done with a rubber band around the fingers, or a Thera-Band as I like to use (pictured).

Start with band draped over fingers

Finish by spreading fingers against band

The Thera-Band is nice because you can adjust the tension not only by using different thickness bands, but also by pulling the band tighter against the fingers with the other hand.

Gyros

If you haven’t seen the Dynaflex gyros, they are pretty neat devices.  They rotate at up to 18,000 rpms in your hand and you just have to keep them going and hold on.  They definitely strengthen your hands and give a nice little pump to your whole forearm.  It’s not enough in itself, but I use it as a supplement and its also kind of fun to do. Only problem is that some people have difficulty getting and keeping the gyro going.  I can start it with a thumb flick and keep it going easily, but a lot of my well-coordinated friends just can’t seem to master it.  Its one of those things that you may or may not figure out.  You can hold it like a baseball (pictured) or any way you like.  Holding it on the fingertips is a serious challenge.

Dynaflex Gyro

There’s More

These are just a few exercises to get started on.  There are a ton of other grip exercises, many of which are more easily done in a gym.  The next installment will cover some of the more strength-training oriented movements, and ways of adapting regular exercises to gain additional grip strength benefits.