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).

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.