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

Closed Hand Grip on Dumbbell

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

Closed Hand Hangs from Towel

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

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.

Unless you can hang for multiple minutes, you need more grip work

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.

Using a towel for farmers walks

Lift Heavy Weights

Suitcase Deadlift - Very Tough!

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…

...On Hangs

...When holding dumbbells or doing farmer's walks

...By pinch-holding the head of dumbbells

...When carrying weight plates

....While squeezing the life out of a medicine ball

Final Thoughts

As you probably realize, grip training is something that never has to get boring, as 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.

There is more to talk about as far as forearm strength in hitting is concerned, which I will touch on in the upcoming weeks.

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)

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

gripping the impossible

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…