The original Gripper Guide focused on the beginnings of gripper training. In that post I used CoC grippers as my standard gripper (hence the table is based on CoC resistances only) and laid out some suggestions for picking resistances and how to train. The reason I use CoC is simple. They were among the first to take grippers to the next level and they have a very good product. This part of my guide is centered around the very first thing you will do in your grip training. Buying a gripper! I've also got some other training tidbits and advice thrown into the mix.

Casual Grip Training

For those that are not interested in peak crushing grip but have grown tired of the weak and easy department store grippers, this section is for you. Grippers may be an accessory as opposed to a necessity to you but you can still use the information here to find what you need. The key to casual grip training is to have a gripper, or grippers, that will challenge you but can be readily closed. You're not doing maximal work so you'll want something you can perform low rep sets (~4) now and higher rep sets (~10) down the road.

Even if you're only interested in a single gripper, you still want a quality gripper that won't season or weaken on you. That will compromise your progression. The cost of a gripper is anywhere from $10-50 dollars. I'm not suggesting you buy a $50 gripper but something of good quality in the $20 range will do. The good ones last a long time and are very consistent so why not pay an extra couple of bucks for quality and consistency? Between this article and my original Gripper Guide, even a casual grip trainer can find what they need.

Gripper Brands

Trying to find a brand of gripper can be a daunting task. There are many brands to choose from and unless you're into grip training it is hard to evaluate them. All of the heavy resistance grippers I've seen have a rating associated with them. While I'll be talking about ratings later on it's important to know two things before buying grippers: 1) What is my starting level? and 2) What are my short and long term goals? If the brand you are considering doesn't have resistances that satisfy these two questions, you should pick another brand.

Along the same lines, you can learn a lot by what products a company offers. For instance if you notice a particular company has 40 different grippers you should ask why you need so many grippers when other companies get by with less than 12. Gimmicks are prevalent when it comes to the fitness industry and grip training is no exception.

Examples of gimmicks:

* Grippers that have an extended handle for negatives…probably not the best way to spend your money.
* Chrome plated grippers. You're going to cover them with chalk, not put them on the hood of your car. Chrome is not a perfect alloy either, it can flake off and if it does you've got an unsightly gripper handle.
* Thicker handles. The only advantage to a thicker handle, in my opinion, is that the closing gap is smaller (proportional to the increase in handle size) but that also happens to be it's greatest weakness. Thicker handles have a more difficult starting position (hand is "more open") but I see no advantage to increasing the difficulty of a no-set close (setting defeats the purpose of having an open hand) at the expense of closing distance. Static holds are another story, but with a thick handled gripper you're moving into the realm of open hand supporting grip. Something that a gripper was not designed to train. Why not put that money towards a thick handle (i.e. Rolling Thunder or thick bar) instead?

While spotting gimmicks you should also be on the lookout for desirable traits. Like anything else you have to weigh the pros and cons.

Examples of desirable traits:

* Grip texture/knurling. The grips or texture of the handles is important. You don't want something so coarse that its going to rip your skin to shreds but at the same time you don't want a powder coated finish. IronMind's CoC gripper seems to be the middle road approach, while Heavy Grips and Beef Builders (and Mash Monster) represent a finer and coarser knurling, respectively.
* High level of quality control. It sounds dated but there are a lot of things that aren't built like they are in North America.
* Price. Dirt cheap grippers may not be the way to go and a 'top shelf' priced gripper may be equally as bad in terms of cost effectiveness.

When it comes time to build your gripper arsenal, try to pick a brand. Consistency makes progression easier and can save money on shipping costs. If you stick with the same brand you can also expect a similar performance over time. A set of cheap grippers will most likely become easier with time, while a set of good grippers will be the same from day 1 and onward. Mixing a cheap gripper in with good grippers may give you the illusion of progress as the cheap gripper becomes weaker while the stronger gripper remains the same. This is especially prevalent when your cheap gripper is in the mid-high range of resistance within your set. The nature of gripper training is patience, consistency, and a bit of creativity (and oh yeah, lots of chalk). You want to progress because your hands are stronger, not because your gripper is weaker.

If you do mix brands, it's best to keep the cheaper or lower quality grippers in the lowest range of resistance within your set. Use them for warmup and close each brand separately. Meaning if you have 3 from Brand A and 3 from Brand B, all 3 from Brand A should be closed before you move to Brand B. Purchase resistances accordingly.

Here's a barbell analogy to illustrate: You're goal is to deadlift 400lbs but everyday someone is filing off a bit of weight. One day you finally do it. Just because the marking on the barbell plates add up to 400lbs doesn't make it so.

Remember, the internet is a very useful tool. Doing a quick search of a gripper brand can lead you to customer reviews, FAQ's from the manufacturer, as well as vendors.

Left Handed Gripper

Recently I came across an ad for a "left handed" gripper. I covered the left handedness myth in a previous post titled Myths and Misconceptions: Torsion Springs, The Dog Leg, and 'Handedness' however that was geared towards the physics of a torsion spring and the forces you get in each handle. However in this ad the argument of varying ROMs arises. My first reaction was to agree with the claim however I had no concrete reasoning or science that could back it up. After some thought and some very informal 'scientific evaluation' (read: me closing a bunch of grippers with my left and right hand) I came to the conclusion that there may be a difference. What I also concluded was that this difference, if any, would be negligible. However I was not totally convinced so I contacted IronMind and in talking with Randall Strossen1 we both agreed that any difference would be negligible and would change neither the function of the gripper nor the resistance it took to close it.

The best analogy I can think of is a deadlift. Imagine we have a loaded barbell and one side is loaded with plates at their lower tolerance for weight (-2%) and the other at the ceiling (+2%). You perform the lift with the bar as is, but then you flip it for the next attempt. Overall the movement is the same and while there is a slight difference, the overall affect is the same. You wouldn't even know there was a difference.

Money is always a factor. For the same money you can buy two grippers of varying resistance or two grippers of the same resistance, one for each hand. If you have a set of four different resistances, you pay double for the novelty of having a gripper dedicated to each hand. Don't forget to label them either, lest you forget and close your left hand wound gripper with your left hand!

'N' Designation

Grippers with an 'N' designation typically mean that they are a Narrow spread (hence the N). What this means is that the handles, compared to a regular gripper, are closer together when the gripper is open. Originally I thought that the 'N' stood for Newtons and I'd hate for someone else to pay, literally, for that same mistake.

The advantage of a narrow gripper is that you don't have to set it. However, that is also it's greatest weakness since a no-set close doesn't allow the same ROM as a regular gripper. In my opinion the benefit of the no-set close ROM from a regular gripper is worth having to set a gripper once in a while. I don't find it difficult to set a gripper anyway so that isn't high on my list of desirable gripper characteristics.

Gripper Ratings

Every gripper has a rating. But what does that rating mean? During my conversation with Mr. Strossen we also discussed gripper ratings, more importantly their interpretation. If you have a 400lb barbell, you know what you've got, if you have a 240lb gripper…what does that mean? Couple that with the fact that evaluation techniques vary and you have a very muddied system for identifying the resistance level of a gripper. Case in point is Heavy Grips:

The above quote is taken directly from heavy grips' website. Without a standardized system I can produce a gripper which is tested at the base of the gripper (more specifically, the base of the handle) or at the top of the gripper. Both tests will produce drastically different results, proportional to the length of the handle. I can also report my results as a force (which some companies do) rather than a torque (which Heavy Grips prefers). Or I can modify my unit of measure for marketing purposes. ALL are legal as no standard exists to govern it. Looking at Heavy Grips again. Read the following three statements carefully. Pay attention to what they are actually saying about the resistance of their grippers.

In the first statement they state most strong people can do reps with the 150 and find the difficulty begins with the 200, meanwhile people of average hand strength have trouble closing the 200 for reps. Pay attention to this phrase from the third statement: "those with no grip training experience will most likely find it very difficult to close the HG200 at the beginning of their training".

Let us assume I have no experience with grippers. Reading those statements I would have no clue whether or not I should buy a 200. From my strength training I may consider myself a strong person of average hand strength but have never done any dedicated grip training. It boils down to this. Who can close a 200?

Aside from those contradictory statements, let's examine this quote: "When training their hand like other body-parts with reps under 20, most athletes, including women, are surprised at how fast they can master the HG 200 and HG250 and some athletes do reps with the HG 300 and HG 350."

Obviously the ratings system is very similar to the CoC grippers. Without going through their website and finding their unit of measure, you may assume that a HG 350 is a 350lb gripper. If you buy this gripper thinking you've got a #3.5-#4 CoC, you're mistaken. Units aside the quickest way to tell is right here: "some athletes do reps with the HG 300 and HG 350". A 300 is between a #3 and #3.5. People have enough trouble closing a 3, let alone repping with it. A #4 has only ever been 'officially' closed by 5 people!

I know I picked on Heavy Grips a bit. I have nothing against them, they just so happen to provide a good example for me to use.

Rather than compare a 100lb gripper to a 100lb gripper, or a 200lb gripper, it's easier to compare to a brand. Use the resistance, or certification system if possible, as a 'step in the right direction'. Couple that with a bit of research on the manufacturer, some customer reviews, and you have a gripper for your skill level. If you mix, fit your grippers into your training and progression based on the relative resistances within your set. Just remember what I said earlier about mixing brands.

I dream that one day there will be a unified method for evaluating a gripper's resistance, but until that day I'll stick with my favorite brand. :)

Seasoning

Seasoning has been around for a while. The idea behind it is that a gripper's resistance and spread will decrease over a certain amount of closes. To have a consistent resistance/performance, and a means of measuring progress, it is supposedly required to season your gripper. If you imagine having to season a No. 3, or even 4, level of resistance…Seasoning becomes daunting as those grippers are no easy task to close, even with two hands. Not to mention the fact that seasoning occurs (if you believe the legends) after approximately 100 closes.

My personal view is that it has no place in today's grippers. There is a marriage between material and design. The result of a bad marriage is a divorce. You pair a gripper designed for X amount of resistance but the material is not truly saying "I do", you get a gripper with a first time promise and a life time of shortcomings.

Of course, this wouldn't be a gripper article without some solid math and science. So here goes. The whole idea of seasoning is that over time the spring will lose strength and the gap will decrease a bit. The end result is a gripper with a shorter set and a weakened resistance, neither of which are a good thing. Why does this happen? It goes back to the altar (the marriage analogy). A proper design would ensure that the spring remained within the elastic range of stresses on the material's stress-strain curve. If the spring were improperly designed, then every time you closed the gripper it would exceed the elastic range ever so slightly. Every time you exceed that range, you get plastic deformation (read: permanent, unrecoverable movement). In the case of a gripper the handles no longer sit as far apart as they used to.

Resistance loss comes in because it is now easier to strain the gripper. Suppose the first time you close your gripper it starts at 0 strain and at close it reaches a strain of X and a stress of Y. This is slightly outside the elastic range. When you close it a second time it is already at a non-zero level of strain and to increase it to a strain of X takes less stress (for arguments sake, this is the resistance), owing to the non-zero strain component.

Graphically, our initial gripper is represented (below) by the black curve and upon closing reaches the red line. Upon the second close the gripper now takes on the dashed line. Drawing a line from the black-red intersection to the dashed line we have the vertical gray line representing equal strain values. Looking at the blue line we see the reduction in strength (the distance between the red and blue lines).

Now, this does not have to occur right away. It can occur after several uses. In fact I've exaggerated the effect in the above curve for ease of interpretation. This can be due to the endurance limit of the steel, which falls under the fatigue properties of the material. In a nutshell, everything has a limit as to how many times you can apply a certain stress. Think of a paper clip. You can bend it all the way back and forth only a few times before it breaks or quite a few times if you only bend it a little bit. The stresses in the latter are less, thus more cycles can be performed. The endurance limit refers to the minimum level of stress at which, theoretically, infinite cycles can be performed without failure occurring. Continually stressing a material, slightly above the endurance limit stress, will still allow the material to exhibit a large number of cycles before failure but each cycle is 'taking something' from the material performance. Don't be concerned that your gripper will break after 10 closes, fatigue cycles just about the endurance limit of steel can be in the millions.

Degradation over time can also be explained by the fact that plastic strains are very small. Along the same lines as looking in the mirror. If you're gaining or losing weight and using the mirror everyday you won't see a change but if you look at a before and after photo the difference is usually quite visible. Chronic exposure and slight differences make it very difficult to notice long term changes.

Seasoning may have been meant for steel which was not up to today's standards of quality control or as a means of justifying the use of cheap steel or improper design. With today's technology there is no reason why a gripper cannot perform its task well within the elastic range of stresses and strains. Thus making your gripper perform the same from day 1 to day 1000. To use ANOTHER barbell analogy: Think of 2 barbells. One is top quality and the other is cheaply made, both are calibrated to Olympic standards. You put 400lbs on each bar and the chances of the cheap one bending, permanently, are pretty good. You put even more on and the cheap one is frowning while the top quality one is straight as an arrow.

Hand Extensions

We endeavour to find balance in our regular gym training. Matching push and pull, chest and back, quads and hamstrings, but sometimes forget that opening the hand is the opposite, antagonist, of closing the hand. To keep your hands and grip healthy you need to train both functions of the hand. Problems in your hand can lead to problems in your wrist, your forearm, and even your bicep! If you don't believe me then you haven't got a copy of the trigger point manual by Claire Davies.

Extensions are simple exercises and not as boring as you might think. In my previous Gripper Guide article I mentioned using pails/buckets of sand or rice and working the hands that way. I also mentioned broccoli elastics (simply thick rubber bands) and to illustrate the technique Anuj (aka Wolf) has made a video demonstrating the exercise:

The beauty of using elastic bands is that micro loading is very easy. Placing the elastic closer to the base of the fingers provides the least resistance while placing them at the tip provides the most. When one elastic becomes too easy but 2 is too difficult, you can place one at the regular distance and the other closer to the base of the fingers. Don't forget about regular elastic bands either. They're a light resistance and you can add just about as many as you can keep in place.

Static Holds

I mentioned using grippers to perform static holds in my first gripper guide. While I stand by that recommendation there are a couple of things I would like to explain further. Static holds can damage the skin and tissue of your hands. I suffered a particularly nasty injury trying to squeeze a couple of seconds after I began to lose my grip. The gripper shifted slightly as it opened my hand and the result was a missing patch of skin between my pinky's 1st and 2nd knuckle. Lesson learned. Stop shy of failure or if you feel the gripper begin to slip. Grippers are different than a static barbell hold because a barbell doesn't push back like a gripper does.

Another solution I have found is to wear a leather palm work glove. It protects your hand. It's not 'legal' but since you're working supporting grip and you're not in a competition setting, who cares. :)

Even something as minor as a blister can interfere with your grip training. Regular barbell and dumbbell style training may not suffer since you can just resort to gloves and straps, but it sure has a way of messing with your grip training schedule.

As always thank you for reading. If you have any questions or comments (or if you would like to debate my explanations), please feel free to comment as either a guest or a user.

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by JoeWeir

In Part 1 we talked about planning and material selection, in part 2 we're going to talk about the design and construction aspects.

Let's get right to it.

Know Your Building Material

This is a crucial point, well one of them. Every material has a weakness. There is not one super material. Commonly used materials include Steel, Wood, Concrete, and Polymers/Plastics.

Steel

Steel is as close as you'll get to a super material but it still has its weaknesses. Welds are often susceptible to stress concentrations and weakness. Solid pieces of steel are usually bullet proof and where things typically fail is at a joint, hole or weld. Steel can still wear and fatigue which makes it susceptible to failure and sometimes the repair or replacement can be tricky depending on how you've designed/manufactured the piece.

Wood

The strength of wood depends on the orientation of the grain. When the stresses are distributed parallel to the grain, wood is at it strongest. This is just fancy talk for "go with the grain". If you're going to use a piece of wood for pinching deadlift, or lift exercises you should orient the wood so that the grain direction is vertical, not horizontal. Wood wears very easily and thus is not a good candidate for mechanical equipment. Wood with large dimensions (6x6 and up) can make a decent sled though.

Cementitious Materials

Ceramics, concrete, brick and cementitious materials alike are brittle materials. They are not very robust when it comes to impact resistance, meaning if you drop it or expect to drop it don't be surprised if it chips or fractures. I haven't found any uses for concrete, aside from the floor, in a home gym. The cost, labour intensiveness, sheer mass and lack of impact resistance make it a very niche material. Making a kettlebell or blob (or similar grip training implement) requires the ability to not only make spherical moulds/forms but also to ensure they are free of voids and finished with a surface that looks like glass. I'm also aware you could make rectangular kettlebells but then you have the bulky shape and the worry over chipping corners and edges.

Atlas stones are an exception to this rule because of their dimensions, mass, and spherical shape. Chipping usually occurs at an edge/corner whereas fracturing usually occurs at the smallest cross section. Examining the shape of the Atlas stone, there are no corners or edges and right away we've sidestepped that. The mass of the stone means that it will, 99.9% of the time, damage what its dropped on with only minor superficial damage to the stone. In order to fracture a stone we'd have to split it. The large diameter of the stone gives it a large cross sectional area and therefore a large resistance to a tensile/splitting failure.

Tension is a particularly weak aspect of these materials. I mentioned that an atlas stone had a large resistance to tensile failure. Seems contradictory but the Atlas stone does not gain its strength from the material, it gains its strength from the amount of material. Meaning that a smaller diameter Atlas stone would be more susceptible to splitting than a larger diameter one. Unless there is a lot of material there won't be much tensile resistance. In layman's terms this means you shouldn't be pulling on them; meaning you shouldn't make a concrete loading pin.

Olympic Loading Pin

Why is a concrete loading pin a bad idea? A Loading Pin, on the right, has a shaft and a base. Plates get loaded onto the shaft and when you lift it the base lifts the plates up. From a technical standpoint this means that there is pure axial tension in the shaft and shear in the base (not the same as axial tension but produces a similar effect). From a practical standpoint the strength of these materials is in compression and using it to resist tension is extremely inefficient. With the limitation of a 2" shaft (plates have to fit over it after all) there isn't a lot of room for massive dimensions.

For any of you who are familiar with concrete, I realize you could make a reinforced concrete loading pin or simply a reinforced base with a large diameter reinforcing bar serving as the shaft. BUT anchorage of the shaft is difficult unless you weld something for mechanical anchorage. That combined with the reinforcing and form work makes it more feasible to just weld some steel together and make it all out of steel. Who knows, you may chip an edge on your first bad attempt. Building a loading pin out of reinforced concrete is not a good idea in terms of durability or strength.

Polymers/Plastics

Plastics/Polymers aren't typically used for 'heavy' exercises although they can be used as handles. When using any sort of polymer, bolt holes are weak planes as are bearing areas, particularly edges where chain or rope are in loaded contact.

Regardless of the material you use, endeavour to know when/where it is strong and when/where it is weak. I'm not suggesting you pull out a calculator and crunch the numbers, you can over design just about any piece of DIY equipment without any math.

The Weakest Link

We all know the phrase "only as strong as the weakest link" and this is for good reason…It's absolutely true!

Joints

Think of 2 pieces of steel butted together (butt joint) with a couple strips of some good ole packing tape. Now we grab each piece of steel and pull, as if we're trying to create a gap in the butt joint. Obviously the steel is not going to fail! The tape is going to either peel off or break with failure right at that joint and the steel just going along for the ride and .

Failure will ALWAYS occur where the resistance is lower than applied force and this typically occurs within a very localized area.
That being said, joints are typical weak points. I wouldn't recommend using anything with a wood joint, unless it is a very lightly loaded piece of equipment. Steel joints are typically welded.

Dimension Effects

Let's take 2 pieces of different diameter pipe, slide one pipe a few inches into the other, and weld them together. Let's also assume that the joint is as strong as the larger diameter pipe. Now we try and pull them apart. The larger diameter pipe and the weld would be fine but the smaller diameter pipe would break because it's weaker than the larger diameter pipe and the joint. The failure of the smaller pipe would also most likely occur around the area of the joint. Weaknesses commonly occur at places where dimensions change abruptly or where they are the smallest.

For another example we can simply take a piece of chain. One of the links in the chain is substantially smaller than the others. If we pull on this chain hard enough the smallest link will eventually break because it isn't as big as the other links.

Bolts & Holes

Holes or places where material has been removed are weak areas. This subtly ties in with the abrupt dimension change that I mentioned but also opens the door for bolts. Bolts can also be weak areas. Its a bit of a catch 22. If you drill a small hole you retain the strength of what you drilled in to but you have a very small bolt. If you drill a large hole you will have a very strong bolt but you remove a lot of material from the thing you drilled. The trick is to get a happy medium between bolt size and the amount of material you remove.

Designing

A good starting point for DIY equipment is to pick up a catalog, do a google search or visit a manufacturer's website. I'm not saying that you blatantly copy someone else's design, but that is usually the easiest way. Manufacturer's websites can be the most helpful. Just take a look at the item and brainstorm from there.

When looking at any design or the manufacturer's design always think of where you can add strength. Generally you cannot take away strength but more often than not you can add strength. Even if you cannot 'out-do' the manufacturer's claims, you can figure out where your construction may be weakest or where you may want to have some extra peace of mind.

I have a Rolling Thunder deadlift handle and a carabiner from IronMind, however I made my own loading pin. The base of my loading pin is about 2-3" of solid steel. I can drop that until I'm blue in the face and it will keep smiling at me. With the added thickness I don't have to worry about it dropping funny either. It always lands on the base and very quickly finds vertical. I don't have to worry about dropping it cockeyed on a plate (and possibly damaging my pin or plate) or having it roll onto my foot.

The loop at the top of my loading pin, where I attach the handle, is made from a small diameter piece of rebar and has some ribs on it. The ribs on the bar would undoubtedly cause excessive wear and premature life span of my carabiner. So to prevent this I bought a steel shackle and now that takes the wear from the rebar and allows me to hook my carabiner onto something. You may be wondering why I didn't just attach the handle right to the shackle and the answer to that is because the shackle is a hard steel whereas the deadlift handle is either at par or a slight bit harder. If I attached the shackle right to the handle it could wear out my handle! The carabiner seems to me made from a soft metal and so far there are a few wear marks on it and none on my handle.

Simple Training Sled

Examining a sled, the rails and the point where you attach your harness are going to be taking a lot of abuse. The loading pin can also take some abuse depending on how much weight is on it. The rails obviously take a beating because they're being dragged along the ground and the attachment point will wear because of movement or excessive stress. A lot of people use sleds outdoors and on grassy surfaces, parking lots, some even use sand (think of sand paper on the rails of your sled). Uneven surfaces or jerky movements can wear out that attachment point because of the continual shifting, can damage your loading pin because of all the plates shifting around, and can wear down or damage the rails. Those 3 points are important places to reinforce.

As you can see, durability (and the ability to take a bit of abuse) is a pretty big one for me. I don't want to spend a lot of time and effort in something only to have it break because I dropped it, was too aggressive with it or used it too much! For that reason I typically make things heavier and bigger (thicknesses, welds, etc) than they need to be.

When adding strength or reinforcing something the answer is usually to add more material. A bigger piece of steel is stronger than a smaller one. When it comes to durability (reinforcing wear points) there are a couple options. We can add material so that there is more to wear, you can control what wears and make sure that whatever wears out is easily repaired/replaced and economical. In the deadlift handle example I used the latter of the two, a shackle costs about 50 cents. I can afford to wear out at least 6 of them.

For impact resistance for a log, you can simply wrap some rope around the ends. Because of the way the weight is distributed the log will either fall straight down or on one of the ends. Wrapping the ends with rope safeguards against, approximately, 99.9% of the ways it can land, unless you caber toss it..To protect your equipment from damage due to missed attempts or dropping, etc. reinforce/cushion the points which will bear the impact.

Existing Equipment Modifications

Take a sled for example. You don't like the way the rails are performing, maybe the sled is upsetting if it goes over a bump or uneven ground. If the rails were bolted rather than welded it would make it a lot easier to put a new set of rails on. You should try and make your equipment in such a way that you can change it or modify it once it's been in use. You may find one area that could be improved and its always nice to be able to just improve it rather than start from scratch.

Hopefully you find that your training involves heavier and heavier weights or more and more demand out of your equipment. Today you may design a log capable of going up to 260lbs but one day you might be able to do 280lbs. While that would be a great day, it would suck to have to re-make or buy a new log. By the same token you may find that you made something too heavy. Being able to shave a couple of pounds of it means the difference between starting over and starting to use it.

Now that I've finished boring you about general material properties and design I'm going to be concluding this series with some DIY examples. It will be some of my stuff plus some of the stuff I've seen on the web. If you have any suggestion or question….my comments section gets lonely sometimes, feel free to keep it company.

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by JoeWeir

Recently I've been getting involved in more and more aspects of grip training and strongman training however, these endeavors require specialty equipment at times. Anyone that has ever looked at buying training equipment knows that it can get expensive in a hurry, even for a couple of seemingly small things. The shear cost of equipment, combined with the fact that shipping to Canada can be just as much money as the item you're buying, has sent me into the workshop to build my own equipment. This series of articles will serve as a general overview to building your own equipment. I'll include a basic outline of how to come up with ideas, how to build, tools that you may need, building materials, etc. and I will do my best to make it as comprehensive as possible.

I'm going to set this guide up as a series of posts for easy reference so keep an eye out for future articles. They'll be indexed on my sidebar similar to the Grip It Series.

Before I begin I want to state the most important rule. Always fabricate and use your equipment SAFELY. Safety is the biggest issue when using your equipment and always assume it can/will break! The information contained in this post and other posts of this nature are just that, information. Use this information and any manufactured equipment at your own risk. Ground Up Strength, its' owners, and I (Joe Weir) are not liable for personal or property damage due to equipment misuse, equipment failure, or the use of the information presented herein.

Let's get building!

Planning and Feasibility

I lied, we're not building yet, before we think about building anything its a good idea to sit down (or stand if you prefer) and think about what purpose or need we're trying to serve and if our plan satisfies it.

• Will this idea work? Is it feasible?

We don't want to build something that won't work! You want an olympic barbell but they're expensive…So you replicate one using a piece of lumbar and a lathe. I've set up a table to be sort of a checklist for the equipment we're considering and I've put our wooden barbell into the table below:

For your convenience a blank copy of this table can be found here.

• Is there room for me to progress?

Suppose you want to build a military press log. You build a log that weighs 140lbs but you're not able to add any extra weight to it. You manage to perform singles with the log but in a few weeks the weight is no longer challenging. Keep the idea of progression in the design. In the case of a log, loading pins on the ends of the log allow you to add plates to the log.

• Is this representative of the equipment I'm emulating?

This is a big one. Suppose you're building a loading pin, but when it is completed you find that it is much too tall. Its so tall that when a handle is attached you can readily grab it from a standing position, making it impossible to do any sort of deadlift style pulling. This also ties into the first point of "will it work".

• How much will this cost? Will it cost more than just buying the item?

Usually you build something because it is too expensive to purchase. If you're building something that will cost more than just buying it, it's probably not worth it. The exception would be if you're building something because you want an improved design or an added feature that isn't part of the original equipment.

• Is it an appropriate starting intensity?

Going back to the log example. If you can military press 140lbs but you make a log that weighs 240lbs…doesn't make much sense. Its good to have that long term goal of pressing a 240lb log but rather than start at that weight, build a log that is an appropriate intensity when unloaded but make it capable of being loaded with an extra 100lbs.

• Can you build it?

If it you build it, they will come. No, I don't mean Kevin Costner, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the voice of Darth Vader. I mean the ambulance. If you aren't confident in the fact that you can build or have built a safe and reliable piece of equipment… DON'T BUILD IT! and if it's already built DON'T USE IT! Get a skilled worker to do the tricky stuff for you or just bite the bullet and buy the item. In the end the risk vs reward is not worth it if there is a chance for personal injury or property damage.

After we've figured out that it is feasible to make this piece of equipment and that we can in fact build it we need to think about what types of material we would like to use.

Material Selection

A few things go into material selection:

1) Is the material strong enough?

If you remember our wooden barbell example, we don't want to build with a weak material. Let me rephrase that, we don't want to try and achieve strength with a material that is not strong in that particular configuration. From a safety standpoint we want as much strength as possible. Steel is the preferable choice because of its strength.

2) Is the material an appropriate weight?

Suppose you read my post about the crosswise brick exercise and decided to give it a shot. You don't want to buy the 'brick' from IronMind because you can get the material to do it for free. In this case material strength is not as big of a factor as the weight is. A solid steel 'brick' would survive nuclear holocaust, too bad we could never lift it from the table. A steel 'brick' will definitely work but it would need to be a hollow, thin walled, piece of steel. Another solution to this problem, a much lighter solution in fact, is to use a piece of wood and some galvanized pipe similar to the photo below.

Wooden Hermann Goerner Brick with a Galvanized Pipe Loading Peg

I'll explain what materials are needed and how to build this particular piece of equipment in Part 3.

3) Is the material easy to work with? Do you have the proper tools?

If you haven't got the tools, or access to them, to work with the material it doesn't make sense to try and make something with that material. Steel is an easy material to work with but not if you don't have a welder or a grinder. Threaded rods and chains can go a long way in the absence of proper metal working equipment. Going back to the idea of making a loading pin we have 2 approaches. We can use a piece of pipe and weld a base onto the pipe OR instead of a pipe you can use a large diameter threaded rod, some large washers or flat piece of steel and some fasteners. The main difference is that the first method requires a welder, the second requires a wrench.

4) Is the material durable and resilient?

Everyone loves the farmer's walk. Suppose you make a pair out of concrete (yes, I have done this). You get tons of weight and you can cast handles into the blocks of concrete and pins onto the ends. It is actually a very easy way to make some heavy farmers handles. However, if the concrete is a bit weak or you use them on a hard surface…dropping one can cause some damage…to everything. Aside from splitting in two or damaging the surface your using them on, chipping the edges or corners will change the weight of the implement. While it is an easy way to make some farmer's blocks, they're not as resilient as a pair of compressed gas cylinders (no gas of course, filled with water or sand (or both) and with pins welded to the ends).

5) How much does it cost and is it readily available?

If you want to build a log there are pretty much 2 choices, steel or wood. If you have a nice looking tree, the log cost is pretty much zero. If you can get some old compressed gas cylinder, you can make a log relatively cheaply. In this case, assuming you can work equally with both materials, material choice is dependent on what you can get your hands on for the lowest price.

Here's another example. Let's look at a pillar of pain, which is basically a pipe filled with water. My material choice would be a 6" watermain pipe. It's heavy, durable, and easy to work with. You can even make them into a log because the pipe walls are thick enough to support installing a pair of steel handles. However, not all suppliers will sell to the general public and I would not trust that thin wall ABS plastic pipe from the hardware store.

6) Does the material match the purpose?

This ties in with some of the other things I've said but consider this. We're building a hub. We have a couple of choices. We can make it from a piece of steel, copying the IronMind design, or use a hockey puck (rubber). The benefit of the hockey puck is that it is already the right dimensions and it is dirt cheap. The downside is that just about all pucks have a texture. Texture and the rubber gives you an inherent advantage over a steel hub. Steel hubs can be painted to decrease friction or even powder coated like the IronMind version. That gives steel a distinct advantage in terms of the difficulty level you can achieve.

A very good method of material selection that I did not mention is to simply copy what manufacturers use. It worked for them so it will probably work for you. The exception of course is if you can't work with the material, you can't get it, or you can't make it cost efficient by using that material.

In this post we discussed some of the planning and material selection aspects. In the next post I'll be getting into the good stuff, design and construction.

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by JoeWeir

I came across this video on youtube this morning. All I can say is WOW! That is some pretty serious grip strength. The one point in the video where he is holding the flange of the plate I thought he was going to do a plate flip but then he pulls off that mid air hub grab. Awesome!

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by JoeWeir

Well, it goes a bit deeper than that, I actually love weighted vertical pulling (that's my fancy term for chinups and pullups with a weight belt strapped to my waist).

So many people, myself included, started out with lat pulldowns and didn't give a seconds thought to doing pullups. Having been converted from a lat blaster on the pulldowns to a weighted pullup junkie, I can honestly tell you that I will never go back to the pulldown machine even if one day I can only do a single pullup. (At which point I will be revisiting this article)

But why do I have so much love for vertical pulls? Let me count (or maybe list) the reasons:

They're hard!

Vertical pulling can be a big challenge even without the added external resistance. It took me quite a while before I could pull off any bigger sets and with the added weight it makes it even more of a physical challenge! Plus who doesn't like strapping an unholy amount of weight onto themselves?

They encourage good form

Take a look at the guys doing lat pulldowns, maybe even yourself. The handle is attached to a cable or belt and you can change the angle to whatever you like. A vertical pull is just that, vertical. Pretty soon people are pulling on most of the stack but the angle of the pull is not 90 degrees, to the horizontal, (or close to 90) its 110, 120, maybe even 130 degrees and that, my friends, is not proper technique. Changing that angle changes the muscles you're using, in this case it allows you to recruit more of those bigger muscles we use for horizontal pulls (i.e. Rows). In many cases these muscles are stronger and at the very least it takes some pressure off the muscles that are supposed to be working. And of course there is always the ever popular technique of back extension/leveraging.

I've seen some pretty crazy attempts at making pullups 'easier'. These include torso inclines (same idea as changing the cable angle, except your doing it with your body), swinging (like on a swing set) and kicking (call them extreme butterfly pullups if you like but I call them something else that starts with 'bu' :) ), to name a few. While these still allow you to change the difficulty of the pullup, they're extremely difficult to do with any sort of weight strapped to you. The weight encourages a vertical position and swinging the weight (by either kicking or swinging your legs) seems to make the exercise harder. Its also a good way to injure yourself, especially the abdomen and groin.

But all of this stuff about cheating is overshadowed by the benefits a proper pullup provides in terms of the scapula and lower trapezius. Benefits which carry over to essentially everything involving the upper back and a stable shoulder girdle.

They're good for you

As I just mentioned they're good for a lot of muscles which aren't visible on the beach.

If you spend countless hours shrugging things on 'back day' then chances are your lower traps need some loving. Getting a nice full pullup with plenty of retraction encourages the lower traps to function correctly and offsets the overworked upper traps.

We're all familiar with problems that can occur when the antagonist-protagonist relationship is severely unbalanced. Good routines will balance pushing and pulling or antagonist and protagonist. If you bench (we all do) you need to balance that with horizontal pulling (rows). Something that is often overlooked is vertical push/pull. Just about everyone does military presses or some form of it but what do you do to balance that? The answer is, obviously, to do vertical pulling.

Nobody wants unstable shoulders or an unstable back. Stable shoulders require the scapula to be abducted and depressed. If you're upper trap dominant it may be difficult to obtain or maintain that depression. Likewise with abduction. If your shoulders are rounded forward and you have poor scapula function, well…horizontal pressing relies on scapula function, horizontal pulling (done correctly) relies on scapula function, deadlifts and squats (especially overheads) rely on it as well. And your lats are more than just for doing lat spreads. They stabilize the thoracic region of your back. We can all appreciate the ability to have a stable thoracic spine when doing any sort of heavy row, horizontal press, squats (especially front) or deadlift.

Most of us are familiar with open vs closed chain exercises but, because I like to beat dead horses, pullups and chinups are CLOSED, pulldowns are OPEN. If you conquer pullups, you conquer the pulldown. The converse, however, is not true.

BICEPS

Many exercises involve elbow extension and those seem to be the most popular among beginners. To balance it with more than just bicep curls, vertical pulling will do the trick. Chinups are very good for bicep development and pullups are right behind it. Ever remember hearing people talk about not doing direct arm work. This is part of that. Heavy pulls do the trick and I've found that they're better than doing bicep curls. In a recent discussion with Eric Troy, he mentioned how doing bicep curls AFTER pullups or chinups actually increased the amount of weight he was able to curl, I've noticed this in my training as well. One thing that Eric also noticed was that performing curls BEFORE doing pullups DID NOT help his pullups. We all know raising your curling weight is good for bicep growth. If that hasn't sold you, you must be out of my price range.

To finish this post off I pose a question. Would you rather pulldown a stack that is twice your bodyweight (which we know isn't REALLY twice, damned pullies) or would you rather strap on a belt loaded with your bodyweight (or perhaps a friend of a similar bodyweight) and do a single pullup? I won't give you my answer….I'm biased.

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by JoeWeir

By now you're probably done shaking your head or laughing at the guys in the video, but the main reason I'm posting this is because it was the No.3 site listed when I searched "Squats" on Google. For two guys claiming that this is the "right" way to squat…oh boy.

I thought by now that the truth about the knees over toes myth had made the rounds and it would soon be a ghost of training past. I realize the video is almost 2 years old but come on. That myth was being blasted before then.

In case you haven't heard the facts about this myth I'll list a couple deal breakers for you:
1) By restricting the knee from passing the toes there is a 22% decrease in knee torque and a 1070% increase in hip torque!¹ Slightly good for the knee but 10 times harder on your hips.
2) If your knee is to never pass your toes, while the knee is in flexion, then why haven't lunges been outlawed? You may say to yourself "What? I always lunge so that my knee is at a 90 degree angle and stays behind my toes", but I never said anything about your front leg. The trailing leg's knee is well in front of the toes.

There are many more studies and reasons why this is bogus but for now I'll leave you with those. There is some more info on this myth on this page.

This whole idea of stopping at 90 degrees is kind of bunk. For strength and joint health, using the full range of motion on squats is more beneficial than squatting to parallel and squatting deep isn't any more hazardous to the knees than squatting shallow. If you look at these guys, he stops at 90 degrees but isn't even at parallel depth. Parallel is when the hip and knee joint are parallel with the floor, meaning you draw a line through the joints and that line is parallel with the floor. 90 degree knee flexion does not necessarily mean you are at a parallel depth and it does not mean it is time to squat back up.

A couple of big ticket items that they neglect entirely are mobility and stability.

Suppose you keep losing balance or you're falling on your butt, maybe your lower back is rounding as you try to get more depth, maybe you can't even go below parallel. You may not have enough mobility in your ankles or your hips. So now you begin mobility drills. You're doing some hip mobility drills while holding onto something, for external support, and suddenly you see that your lower back is perfectly set. You try your squat again but still have the problem of lumber rounding.

What gives?

What gave was your stability, not mobility. Its not witchcraft, you provided some external support and reduced the stabilizing role and revealed your mobility. But when you re-applied the load you were unable to stabilize it. If you can't stabilize yourself you can't transfer the load correctly. In instances of higher loads you can actually find yourself losing depth. This is a case of not being able to stabilize your joints and in turn those joints restrict their ROM, or lock-up, in order to remain stable.

Let's assume we're ready to move to squats with some external resistance, i.e. a barbell. So we hop in the squat rack, grab an empty bar and do some squats. No problems. Now we add a little bit of weight to the bar and we're squatting great. We decide to get a little crazy and load up the bar because it will most likely impress girls(right?). We begin our squat and run into some problems. Our balance is off, our lumbar is rounding, things aren't pretty.

We knew how to squat perfectly up until this, what happened? We hit our load threshold. We attempted a load which we were not prepared for. A couple of things factor into this. For one, we perfected our squats with our bodyweight and hopped right under a heavy barbell. Which may not seem like a big deal but to your body it is. We all have a centre of gravity and introducing a barbell changes, or shifts, that centre of gravity. Since we didn't bother working up in weight slowly we didn't give ourselves a chance to adapt and when we started off with the very light weight we didn't have enough weight to sufficiently change our CG and alter our equililbrium.

In the end a good and deep squat is all about mobility and stability. You need to be able to not only produce the position involved in a deep squat but you also need to be able to stabilize that position. BOTH need to be present and accounted for, if either one is deficient…well your squat will amount to just that, squat.

This is the thing that REALLY got me fired up, "Jacob is a little more advanced". He does a shallow squat, using both legs, and because he can put his arms anywhere that makes him advanced. Let's give Jacob a barbell to put overhead or take away one leg and see how well he does. Classifying that as an advanced movement or advanced progression is really nothing more than jargon meant to impress people that simply don't know better.

If you want to learn how to squat, read the GUS exercise descriptions or look up Dan John, don't listen to these guys. If you have specific questions or problems….the comments sections of my blog is generally pretty lonely so don't be shy. My inbox is always open, too.

Comments

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by JoeWeir

At the entrance to my local gym there is a sign that tells you which trainer is currently working as well as who the desk staff person is. Occasionally it will also have a tip of the day sort of thing. Recently the tip of the day has been rep and set ranges for various goals. Until now I have managed to keep my outrage to myself…:)

The board lists 3 goals and 3 guidelines, in terms of reps and sets, and rest periods to perform.

Forget the first two, look at the strength recommendation! Whoever wrote this little guideline has never been exposed to ANYTHING resembling serious strength training. How do you prescribe a blanket guideline for sets? How do you post that information and expect anyone to be able to put it to proper use?

What about 1-3 reps? Are they simply not able to categorize this or have they simply neglected it? Seriously, where did they get this information from. In my opinion 1 rep is absolutely strength training. If I could pick one thing that sort of smacks me in the face as being strength training, it would be singles, maximal training.

Another thing that really gets me about this, and will get other people thrown under a bus, is the fact that it only says rep and set ranges. If my goal were strength I would assume that ALL of the things I do have to be 3-6 reps and 3-5 sets. But they utterly neglect anything to do with overall volume, density, fatigue, and they miss it with all of their 'guidelines'.

How about those rest periods? I can't even count how many times I've seen arguments over this exact thing. The endurance rec is fine with me, a lot of circuits and whatnot rely on timed intervals and 60s fits. The hypertrophy rec may be a bit low but that is neither here nor there. The strength recommendation however is out to lunch. The usual recommendation is anywhere from 3-7 minutes. Personally, I'm always on the high side when it comes to rest periods and don't mind taking even a 10 minute break between some really heavy deadlifts. The kicker with strength training, in terms of rest periods, is that you may feel ready for the next set but your nervous system is not. Its the neural recovery that takes lots of time. You can't feel it but you can see it at play if you use short rest periods. Again, this is something that is very important but has been neglected. Eric just recently blogged about this very topic and it can literally make or break your training. Anyone reading this post should absolutely read that post.

Its been my opinion for the last year or so that giving people little glimpses of the big picture can be very damaging. Perfect example here. You tell someone strength training is this and before you know it you have an injury or someone that is hammering their body into submission. This sort of thing should be realized by any trainer with half a brain. Unfortunately my gym only has 1 decent trainer and I think if you took all the brains of the other ones and turned it into one, you'd be short of getting half a brain. Enough people get thrown under the bus as is, we don't need trainers handing out this kind of vague bs.

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

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When talking about lower arm and hand strength we here at GUS have referred to an exercise known as the "crosswise brick exercise". This is a fantastic exercise for strengthening the wrist and the fingers, the best part being it can be performed with a few bricks!

The crosswise brick exercise is actually the Hermann Goerner brick lift. As seen in the image to the right, you place a brick lengthwise on a table such that it overhangs off the end of the table, stool, etc, stack bricks crosswise (hence crosswise brick exercise) on the supported end, then you grasp the lengthwise brick with your fingers on the underside and thumb on top. Grip the brick with a straight wrist and lift it off the table.

It may seem easy enough but I assure you it can be quite difficult. The gentlemen in the picture I showed you is 'only' doing 2 bricks but they're both solid and so is the one he is gripping. Most hollow clay bricks are around 5lbs (give or take) and I would estimate those as being 10-12lbs each, and may even be as high as 15-20lbs. From what I came across in my research Hermann was able to miraculously perform the exercise with 9 large bricks (40kgs). I don't care what you can deadlift or benchpress, that right there is strength!

When it comes to figuring out what to use for your 'gripping' brick, a regular old brick or something like in the image will work just fine. You can also use a piece of rectangular steel. Really you want to be able to have something that is a brick's thickness and be able to get full contact with the fingers and thumb. If you use a brick just make sure you clear off any sharp edges or protrusions and you should be good to go. I personally like using a brick because it is easy to use and CHEAP. I also like to perform a variation of this exercise by gripping the TOP of the brick with my thumb and finger on the sides and palm on the top. Its not necessarily the same exercise but it is a grip exercise that uses the same equipment, which is always nice.

The exercise and the equipment are pretty straightforward but the tricky bits come to play when we talk about our progression. At the beginning it will be very easy to add a brick or two but sooner or later, just like everything else, those full brick increases will be very difficult. Here are some tricks we can use to progress and keep progressing.

-A full brick increase may be difficult, but what about a half a brick? Break one in half and use a half brick. Aside from that you can also load up with micro plates or even small plates (2.5, 5lbs etc).

-Use time to your advantage and progress based on timed sets. Holding for an extra second or two will mean half a minute after 15 session. You can argue that this is not the same type of training (supporting vs crushing sort of debate) but I would argue that the two are very intimately related.

-Use your 'off' hand to assist some tougher lifts. You can use your off hand to assist on the liftoff.

-Bands. I love using those cheap 'toning' bands for grip training. They cost enough you can destroy them and not feel bad but they also provide just the right resistance for grip training exercises. Simply slip the band on the gripping brick so that it sits just before the crosswise ones. If you put the band close to your hand you lose the opening effect, if you put it on the crosswise stack it will most likely topple anything over 2 bricks high, if you put it between two crosswise bricks it will most likely topple the bricks above it.

I strongly believe that lower arm strength (hand, wrist, fingers, etc) is the most practical form of strength. We use them everyday so why not, literally, make life easier.

Before you start lifting bricks I have one last word of advice. Mind the surface BELOW you. Nothing is worse than dropping a brick on your toe, except maybe dropping a brick on hardwood or tile and breaking or damaging it. A toe will heal, expensive flooring will not!

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

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There are A LOT of myths, rumors, theories, etc. regarding grippers and just about all of them are rooted in the spring itself. Just like the title says, we'll be taking a look at torsion springs, the dog leg and 'handedness' (left handed vs right handed grippers).

Its been all fun and games up until now but I'm warning you. In order for me to disprove these myths I'm going to have to get very mean. I am going to have to absolutely destroy these things. There can be no shadow of a doubt that these have been disproven. For this to happen I am going to have to use an OBSCENE amount of physics. We all know that physics is absolutely full of confusing jargon, and I'm going to have to go down that road. It won't be pretty and it might hurt our heads a little (or a lot) but by the time we're through you will know the truth. So let's begin!

All the myths and whatnot aren't surprising because we almost always equate anti-symmetry to a difference in structural capacity. In this case, if we see that one part of the gripper looks a bit different than its counterpart, we think this means a variation in resistance. Psychology also plays a role because if we think something is slightly different and we have physical evidence that, seemingly, supports our claim we can justify this behaviour. However this is all analogous to being right for the wrong reasons, except in this case we're wrong for the wrong reasons.

Torsion Springs

Although they are technically Helical Torsion Springs, we'll stick with torsion spring because it saves me from writing helical all the time. There are other torsion springs, such as torsion bars in the suspension of a car, that are flat or other non helical shapes but the main reason for the distinction is that typical torsion springs are subjected to shearing stress whereas helical springs are subjected to a bending stress.

Torsion springs, for grippers, are made from round or square wire that is initially straight. The end of the wire is held in place while a force (in the normal direction of the wire) is applied which bends the wire into its helical shape. As a result of this process the end that was held in place has a straighter leg than the leg of the last turn (coil), this is referred to as the dog leg of the gripper. The spring can be a left hand bend or a right hand bend (we'll come to this later).

Just about every torsion spring works the same. A force is applied at a given moment arm and a torque is the resultant. This torque is applied to the spring causing it to twist about its axis and wind TIGHTER. If you take your gripper and look at the spring while you close it, you can see that the spring is tightening as if you're trying to put another coil in it.

The spring of a gripper is all made from the same steel, the same diameter wire, therefore their torsion elastic modulus is constant. Meaning they have a linear relationship between the applied torque and the amount the spring rotates. In layman's terms, the more the spring twists the more you have to squeeze which is why it is easier to close a gripper a little bit but very hard to close it fully, even though your hand has a mechanical advantage the more it closes.

Armed with this information, confusing though it be, we are now ready to begin debunking some myths and misconceptions.

The Dog Leg Myth

The origin of this myth is very difficult to find, in fact I looked for quite a while and found nothing except information on setting, IronMind's view, a few youtube videos, and my last article.

In case you're wondering what a dog leg is or what it looks like, you may find the following image helpful.

Comparison of the two spring ends of a single gripper

In the image above you can see the sharper bend of the spring on the left hand side, dog leg, compared to the smoother bend of the other spring on the right hand side.

As far as I can tell the myth started because someone noticed one bend in the spring was different from the other. Like I said earlier, this most likely led to that individual thinking that there might be a difference in the gripper's resistance/difficulty depending on where it was placed. Throw in some demand characteristics, or maybe a bit less fatigue, and all of a sudden the gripper is easier to close with the dog leg in the palm of the hand. Implying, therefore, that the gripper's resistance is not the same for both handles. In other words, handle one (dog leg) takes X amount of force to move and handle two takes Y amount to move.

I'm going to try and debunk this one a few different ways. However each one will be standalone proof that is it not true.

1) Take a piece of string, grab each end and pull it taught. Now pull a bit harder with the right hand while maintaining the same level of tension ('taughtness') with your left hand. If you did it correctly then the string moved in the direction your right hand was pulling while it was maintaining tension. This is Newton's second law, F=M.a.. Because you pulled harder with your right hand, your left hand and the string accelerated along with your right hand.

When you're closing a gripper you're doing so because the forces generated against the handles exceeds the internal forces in the spring. However when the gripper is closed think of your fingers and palm as two support points, both applying a force such that everything remains static (ie. The sum of forces=F=M.a=0, no acceleration). If one handle required more force than another then the sum of the 2 opposing forces (assuming they are co-linear, which they are) would not equal zero and something would be accelerating, or moving. Think of it as a pair of pliers. When you squeeze something with a pair of pliers you are squeezing it equally from both jaws and exerting the same force on each handle.

Free Body Diagram of Pliers Gripping a Pin

Think Pliers!

2) Remember that part about the spring being made of steel and constant modulus something orother? Well that means that the resistance along each point of the spring is the same. Since we're tightening a single spring made of a single material we have a uniform force to overcome. Simple physics and math says that if we have two points resisting a single force at the same distance along a symmetric axis each point will carry an equal load. Its also, as far as I can justify, a statically determinant system so the forces cannot be anything other than equal. And there's also that thing about for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, when you squeeze a gripper the forces are the same in both the palms and the fingers. Regardless of which handle is where you still have to overcome a uniform spring force and maintain force equilibrium (the equal and opposite thing).

3) Leverage. During my time with this myth I thought to myself maybe someone thought the dog leg was harder because its straighter for a slightly longer, umm, length (and that's why people brace it in their palm), and what if the dog leg serves to increase your leverage, since its a bit straighter and everything. And I have also read people stating that the dog leg provides better leverage against the gripper. I have an answer for that as well.

Torsion Spring Diagram

The moment arm, or leverage, does not change because the coils are concentric and the handles are of equal length.

In the above image you can see the label "moment arm". This is the key to my point. Because the spring is concentrically wound each coil shares the same centre and because the handles are the same length and each handle has the same leg length coming into it they therefore have the same moment arm length. If the force is applied at the same moment arm length then the force, P, must be equal (in a direction which causes torque in the opposite direction) in order to create a moment equilibrium (in the diagram the equilibrium force for the other leg would have a magnitude of P, be perpendicular to the leg and pointing to the right). In point two I already mentioned that the spring has a uniform force and that the force is shared between the handles but I didn't mention anything about torque or moment. And…now I have.

So go ahead and use your grippers, dog leg in your palm, dog leg in your fingers, dog leg on your dog, it doesn't matter one tiny bit.

The Handedness Myth

Along the same idea of the dog leg comes the myth that grippers are hand specific. Meaning a left handed gripper is different from a right hand gripper. This is incorrect and all stems from the winding (remember that right hand/left hand stuff from earlier). To tell if a winding is left or right handed you hold the body of it by placing your fingers around the coil. If the coil ends in the direction that your fingers are going AND your thumb is facing upwards, the winding is 'that' hand. So for an IronMind CoC, it is a left hand winding. This doesn't mean you can't have a gripper with a right hand winding as a right hand winding will still function the same (ie tightening mechanism).

I suspect that the myth started when someone associated a left hand winding as being a left handed gripper. I have also read people saying that you should place the dog leg in your palm for the right hand and in your fingers for the left because the winding is reversed. I personally still cannot make sense of that statement, but its been a long day for me.

Again if we go back to the previous sections, the spring is wound such that it always tightens. Regardless of which handle is where or even if you invert the gripper, squeezing the handles together will always cause the spring to tighten. I can think of no circumstances and have come across no concrete reasons as to why grippers are not transferable between hands. The only way it may not work is if the handles are ergonomic and change your gripping position or if you try to pull the gripper handles away from each other whenever you train your other hand.

IronMind reports that they receive quite a few emails from people who actually request a set of left handed grippers, and now you don't have to worry about being one of those people.

I hope that by now you realize the fallacies of these myths and that you will help thwart them everywhere you go. For any naysayers out there, I would be more than happy to discuss anything I've said here; after all I am human. IronMind supports all of the conclusions that I have made through their own manufacturing and experimental work, but since they simply state facts without any detailed explanation I have merely attempted to provide the physics and logic behind their statements.

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by JoeWeir

As an offshoot to my Gripper Guide I'm dedicating this one to setting a gripper and everything I can think of that relates to setting.

What's a Set? and Why Set a Gripper ?

A set refers to the position of the handles before the close attempt. A set is attained by using your non-gripping hand to hold the gripper firmly in your gripping hand and squeeze the gripper into the desired starting position.

The main point of the set is to position the gripper in the correct part of the hand, allowing for a better grip, proper hand position, leverage and a straight wrist. If you were to simply pick up your gripper and squeeze you would certainly have less strength than if you were to set the gripper by even 1/4". The typical way most beginners use a gripper is to brace it against the web of the thumb and squeeze. This method leaves out a lot of hand strength, and it is very difficult to do this with a straight wrist. Later we'll come across what is called a 'no-set' set in which the gap is not closed, prior to the attempt, but it will still require proper hand positioning.

The Dog Leg

If you've done any sort of gripper training or began looking at gripper training you may have heard of something called a 'dog leg'. Many people on youtube mention it when talking about setting a gripper and , in fact, it is mentioned in the videos you'll see later on in this article. The dog leg is simply a sharper bend that occurs during the manufacturing of the torsion spring. It can be difficult to see so here are a couple of pictures to help illustrate this.

You may be wondering what this has to do with setting your gripper. Like I mentioned earlier some people mention where it should be placed when they talk about setting. The rule of thumb is that the dog leg should be in your palm and that this makes the gripper easier to close. This is nothing more than a myth. I'll be talking about gripper myths and misconceptions in my next post, but for now lets go with the idea that it doesn't matter where the dog leg sits.

The Parallel Set aka The Deep Set and The Credit Card Set

The deep set or the parallel set and refers to the setting position of the gripper, more specifically it relates to the size of the gap being such that handles of the gripper are parallel to one another. This is the popular starting position for many competition closes.

This set is a very useful training tool but it is very deceptive. Using a deep set will make it seem like you have quite a strong grip, stronger , in fact, than you actually possess. IronMind uses the analogy of the quarter squat when talking about the deep set and I think that is a good analogy to keep in the back of your mind.

Official rules for an IronMind close state that a credit card set is to to be used, meaning you can set the gripper but cannot set it so that the gap is less than the width of a credit card (~2-1/8"). According to IronMind, the deep set has long been an excuse for people stating they have smaller hands and need a deeper set, however they have not bought into this and state it is usually a hand strength issue rather than size.

Here are a few videos I found. The first two explain a parallel/deep set and the third shows a 'credit card' set. All 3 videos illustrate proper setting technique and you'll notice that regardless of the type of set, the procedure of getting the gripper into the groove of your hand is the same.

What Sets Should I Use? and A Bit About Hand Health

You SHOULD be setting your gripper on most attempts but you do NOT have to use the deep set for every attempt. Rather you should use a full ROM for most grip work, or very close to it, with a set no less than a ~2-1/8th gap (credit card). The two sets are no different in overall setup, you're still getting the handle into that groove of your hand, you're simply not closing the gap as much. You should be using a 'credit card' set as well as some parallel set closes and even some no-set closes.

For overall hand health and grip development you should rely on full ROM closes. I personally use a deep set in my own training as a training tool, but not for the majority of my training. There are many competitions where this is legal but I much prefer building strength across the full ROM, just like in all my other strength training. There is also more carryover when using full ROM closes and the perfect example is the rolling thunder exercise. It is extremely difficult to do and if you look at the position of the hand it is, for most, probably opened more than the starting position for a deep set. Unless you have a robust range of grip strength the rolling thunder will get you just about everytime.

This quote, related to hand injury, is straight from IronMind:

Skin, muscle, joint and nerve damage are real possibilities, as the pressure and forces exerted by an over-reliance on deep-set training tax your system beyond its normal capacity.

Another reason for using full ROM is proper function of the hand in general. If you only train your hand in that limited range of motion you will lose mobility in your hand. This in turn can lead to problems in the forearms. For anyone with the trigger point workbook, take a quick look at the hand and forearm section and see what some of the causes for trigger points are. Hand disfunction can affect a lot more than your hands and forearms.

I'm not trying to put down the deep set or parallel set, I'm merely trying to say that it should not make up the majority of your grip training.

IF you're one of those people with smaller hands and have trouble with a credit card set, a neat trick is to put the gripper into a deep set and then open your hand a bit to increase that gap to make it a credit card set. This way you can ensure a good snug fit in your palm and a good grasp on the handle with your fingers.

Other Useful Sets

A couple of other sets include the no-set, where you don't close the gap prior to the close attempt. You open and close the gripper solely with one hand. I also use what I refer to as the full-set. A full-set is sort of the opposite of a no-set, where you close the gripper fully with the help of the non-gripping hand. This allows you to perform a negative with a very difficult gripper or you can take a slightly less challenging gripper and perform a static hold for some supporting grip work.

To finish off this article here is a video of one of my favourite strongmen Magnus Samuelsson. Check back in the near future for a piece on gripper myths and misconceptions.

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

As a follow up to my last blog post, and to satisfy my obsession with crushing grip strength, I'm going to lay out a guide for torsion spring grippers. I'll make it as comprehensive as I can and it will contain information for people with and without experience with grippers.

First things first, below are a few torsion spring grippers. They are used to develop crushing grip strength but can also be used for supporting grip by using static holds or using strap pinches. From left to right, we have a CoC gripper, an ergonomic gripper and a straight gripper.

Below is a list of the Iron Mind Captain's of Crush grippers and their resistances. Now, not everything has to be done with a CoC gripper, but these numbers are a good way to describe your 'level' of grip strength and will be especially helpful when I refer to what resistances you should be looking at getting.

After reading this table you may be saying the same thing as I did when I first saw these, holy crap it takes 365lbs to close the No. 4! While the No. 4 takes legendary strength to close, the ratings on grippers are really nothing more than an indication of how tough they will be. Since there is no standard method for evaluating a grippers resistance it should be taken as nothing more than an idea of how challenging it will be. The main thing is that you train with a consistent set of grippers, as progress is really all that matters.

Beginner's

If you're brand new or relatively new to the world of grippers then this section is for you!

I'm sure most of you have seen grippers sold in sporting good stores or even Wal-Mart. Typical department or sporting good store grippers are usually around 30lbs resistance and even if you buy a package of 2 identical ones, they can vary by a few lbs.

You don't necessarily have to go with the CoC grippers and a good alternative is the Iron Woody Bonecrusher. They're about half the price, start as low as 100lbs and go as high as 400 and 500lbs of resistance! (Remember what I said about those numbers though)

I'm not suggesting you go out and buy a whole whack of grippers but I will suggest that you get one of those weaker grippers from Wal-Mart (or wherever). A weaker gripper will help you learn to set a gripper and can also be used as part of your warmup. You want to avoid the ergonomic style grippers however, and go with a straight handled gripper. Ergo grippers are not good for learning to set a gripper and some of them can be awkward to use and even painful, depending on how well they fit your hand.

From what I have read and from my own personal experiences with myself and others, an average person can close a 'trainer' level (100lbs) gripper for a few reps. I would suggest purchasing one of those as well. You will also want another gripper that you can do for only a single (or even barely) or a couple reps so that you have something to work towards. I would recommend something in the No. 1 range of 140lbs.

Having a variety of challenging grippers will not only keep you interested in grip training but will also give you some realistic goals to set.

Just because it is grip training does not mean that you don't need to perform a proper warmup and it doesn't mean you need to be able to close the gripper 8000 times. We will be doing a proper warmup. Typically I will close a weaker gripper for a couple sets of 10, move onto the next level gripper for 2-3 sets of 2-3, intermediate gripper for a 2-3 1 rep sets and then perform some maximal work with my heaviest gripper. A warmup should get you ready and acclimated but not fatigue grip strength so that it impacts the session. And we will be doing sets of 1 or 2 reps with the heaviest gripper, maybe not even a full rep at the start.

If you find that you can close all of your grippers easily for 10 full reps then it is probably time for the next resistance level. If you cannot close your highest resistance gripper, its ok, try and close it as much as you can and take note (or even measure) of the gap you need to close. On the next session you can measure the gap again and measure your progress by seeing how much you are able to decrease that gap. Partial reps are also a good tool as well. Closing a tough gripper for three 1/2 reps is still better than not trying to close it. You're still working your grip afterall.

This training is the same as barbell and dumbbell strength training. We want quality reps and low volume, with good ROM and technique. This should always be kept in mind when doing grip training, especially when you start to move into the higher level grippers. Its just like anything else, because you deadlifted a heavy weight does not mean you are a good deadlifter, form and technique count especially if you want to do this for the long haul.

The absolute worst thing to do is sit there and do hundreds of reps with a weak gripper. At the very least you will wear out the gripper prematurely and have a sore hand. We also want to work the hand extensors, using some sort of a band(s) or other means of resistance. There are some exercise ideas for this in my previous post.

WARNING: This can get very addictive so keep this in mind and try to minimize the impact that this has on your normal training.

Intermediate

I won't go much into this stuff because I'm not terribly advanced myself, but I will share some tips and tricks that make progression easier for those higher number grippers.

By this stage you should be working on the No. 2 level gripper, maybe you can close if for a few reps or more. The jump from the No. 2 (200lbs) to the No. 3 (280lbs) is pretty huge and very difficult. You can always buy an intermediate gripper (around 240lbs) but that can be an expensive stepping stone.

Here is a list of things that have helped me or others.

Strap Grips
For this one you're going to take a wrist strap or something similar, it doesn't matter much so long as it is flat, and attach it to a weight plate. Bring one end of the strap through the plate and then through the loop. Now take a gripper that you can close, set it, and place the free end of the strap in between the handles and close the gripper, suspending the weighted strap.

Here is a video to illustrate this.

Banded Grips
Similar to the strap grip but with a twist. Instead of a weighted strap you're going to use a band. Anchor one end of the band, you'll want to do this so that the band reaches the height of the closing hand with a bit of slack, you're going to set the gripper again, place the band in between the handles and close the gripper. Once the gripper is closed, lift your hand up (as if you're doing a bicep curl) until you put tension into the band. You'll want enough tension so that it will almost begin to slip out of the handles but not so much that it does come out.

I would recommend doing this with an old band as the handles may damage the rubber or you can use another medium to wrap around the band to protect it.

Monitor the Gap!
Similar to what I said in the beginner section, it doesn't matter that you can't close the gripper, it only matters that you're getting closer and closer to closing it. Sometimes the most frustrating thing is missing that last 1/8th or 1/16th of an inch. When you get very close to closing a gripper but not quite there, you can get an official gap measuring tool from Ironmind but I have a few cheaper alternatives. You can always use a ruler or a tap measure, but that can be difficult while you're trying to sustain a partially open hand. You can use a spark plug gapper for those really really close closes or you can use my personal favourite, silly putty!

Yep, that's right. Because it doesn't dry out or tear easily and can be repeatedly molded to any shape it is perfect for this. What I do is take a piece of silly putty that is appropriate in thickness, when compared to the gap I have left, and I make a small strip at the bottom of the handle in your hand and facing the other handle. When I close the gripper the silly putty conforms to the shape of the handle and what you get is the exact impression of both handles in their closest position. You get the smallest gap created during that attempt as if it were a still picture. You can then take that and measure it with a ruler or caliper and not have to worry about measuring and squeezing. You can also save the piece from previous sessions, since you use so little, for a direct comparison.

Wrap it up
Take a gripper that can be closed with some effort and wrap some cloth or tape around the handles. Increasing the handle diameter will force your hand into a more open position, but it will also decrease the gap a little bit making it less of a closing distance.To get around this you can use tape ONLY on the sides where your hand is contacting the gripper handle. Obviously you will need to either use quite a bit of tape or tape something to that part of the handle, the result is more important than the method but so long as it is not extremely soft, to the point where your hand sinks into the 'padding' it is fine. This method is also good for supporting grip, especially if you don't have any thick barbells.

My last piece of advice is for beginners and experienced 'grippers'. Chalk can be a great asset for anyone, beginner or otherwise. Nothing will put a stop to your grip training faster than a painful blister or skin irritation. I've had some real good ones trying to do some max effort closes with a slightly sweaty hand, the friction will eat your hand alive. Chalk will save you the pain and downtime and can be easily removed from the gripper with a bristled brush. If you don't have chalk, you might want to look into getting a few ounces.

With this information you are all set to explore the world of grippers. Grip training can be extremely fun and it is very flexible so I encourage everyone to experiment and find what is effective for you.

I'm currently writing up another article related to setting a gripper, where I'll go into deep sets, credit card sets, the dog leg, etc. In the meantime feel free to drop me a line if you have any exercise suggestions, gripper reviews, or even a question!

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

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I came across the title of this post while I was looking around youtube (I feel compelled to watch weightlifting vids or strongman events sometimes) and not only is it a classic line but it also reminded me of something I've never really sat down and talked about: Grip Strength! Just like the title says if you can't hang onto the bar or the handles then you can't perform that exercise. You COULD use wrist straps, but where's the fun in that.

Grip strength is possibly one of the most overlooked and under appreciated aspect of any sort of training. This past Christmas I bought myself some Captain's of Crush Grippers (they can be found here at the GUS Store) and I love them. Sure a one legged squat or an absurdly heavy pull-up is impressive, but I'd say being able to close a #3 gripper or squeeze and crush a full, unopened, can of coke/beer is just as impressive if not more (the coke can is a very long term goal of mine as well ;) ).

I'm more obsessed with the crushing aspect but there is more than one type of grip strength. There is pinching, supporting (holding things for extended periods ie farmer's walk), and crushing (grippers, handshakes, etc.). And as with any sort of training we want to have a balance between protagonist and antagonist, so we can do exercises that work on opening strength (ie extensions).

Most think grip training is wrist curls or simply doing some deadlifts but it is so much more and truth be told grip training can be a hell of a lot of fun. Just the other day I decided to do some farmer's walks with some dumbbells. This has always been a favourite strongman event of mine but I have never done them consistently because there is never a clear piece of real estate at the gym. I would almost guarantee that I would smash into someone, while carrying a payload of a couple hundred pounds. Now that I workout in the early morning, its not so much of a problem but there is always the occasional person doing some sort of curl or fly right where I have put my 'course. The other reason, now, is that when I did them I was using 125lb dumbbells and the heaviest dumbbell is 135lbs. I have a couple friends around the 160lb mark and I was thinking of asking them if I could use them as 'dbs' once I had progressed that far. I doubt they will agree but nonetheless, fingers crossed, otherwise I'll have to find a longer laneway.

I also enjoy grip training because the results you get are very satisfying. You pull a very heavy deadlift with an over-over grip and all of a sudden the deadlift isn't nearly as impressive as the fact you did it with that grip. Same with pullups. Strapping on a few odd pounds and being able to do a pullup is a very good feeling, but so is doing it without feeling any strain in your forearms and hands.

I mentioned the CoC grippers, they're top of the line but they are a bit pricey. Well, there are plenty of cheap ways to get some good grip training gear. You can train pinching grip by using a hub made out of a hockey puck, some chain and a couple of eyebolts. A favourite of mine is a pinch deadlift. I like taking a pair of dumbbells for this. Simply pinch the bells together and deadlift it, the beauty is that the heavier it gets the thicker the bell is, instant double progression! Supporting grip is easy, just grab something heavy and hold it, irregular objects like a sand bag or a larger rock work wonders. Crushing grip is a bit trickier but it can be done, support your palm on a racked barbell, tie a soft roped to some plates or a db and make a loop on the other end. Put the loop around your fingers and squeeze. It may be barbaric but it costs a lot less than grippers. For opening strength you can plunge your hand (with finger tips touching tip of the thumb) into a bucket of rice and simply open and close your hand. Or for an even cheaper alternative, take one of those big elastic bands that comes with broccoli and again, with finger tips touching thumb, put the elastic at the end of your fingers and thumb and open and close your fingers. When one elastic isn't enough, use two or three.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. You can turn just about anything into a grip training implement.

You never want to let your grip hold you back so its always a good idea to throw in some grip training even if you think you don't need it. You can even make it fun, it doesn't have to be spring loaded handles and static dumbbell holds!

Before I leave and go do some unscheduled grip training, I'll give you a video of a lovely little exercise called…Rolling Thunder! Enjoy.

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by JoeWeir

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In Part 1 we talked about watered down knowledge floating around, intensity, and its meanings, 'burning out' (or lack thereof), acclimation and percentage based training. In part 2 I simply want to talk about one thing: The Definition of Strength.

Today, during my workout, I noticed a piece of bright orange paper taped to a column. That piece of paper was an ad for a study that is about to be performed. At the top of this paper was the sentence "Is your exercise program making you strong?" I was first drawn to the ad by the colour (wondering what the hell it was, not because I like the colour orange) but I was intrigued when I read that line.

Reading on, the ad went on to say they were looking for female participants of a variety of ages and that they would be studying "how age effects the ability to recover from fatigue in knee muscles" (don't quote me on the title, but that is the jist of the study). Sounds great. Except what the hell does that have to do with the question of "is your exercise program making you strong?" I would say that the two are mutually exclusive. Its certainly possible to regress, or become weaker, and accumulate fatigue. But what I'm also wondering is how does fatigue or recovery relate to an exercise program making you strong? Does poor recovery mean your training is inefficient or poor or does the opposite hold true? By the way, this study had nothing to do with your training history or current history. The only training requirment was that you didn't perform lower body resistance training more than 3x per week.

The point is not to debate the merits or flaws of this study, the point is that people use the term strength, or stronger, or strength training without actually thinking about what that entails.

Pop quiz, you see a couple of people doing overhead squats. One person is using 115lbs (A) and the other is using 125lbs (B). Which is stronger? The guy with 125lbs, of course. Now I tell you guy B is shaking and looks very unstable but guy A is solid as a rock. Who's stronger? I would bet that everyone, or just about, says guy A.

So what happened. Well, our definition of strength changed. First we said, ok, guy B is lifting more than guy A so our definition of strength is based on the weight of the exercise. Then we introduced another parameter and our definition shifted to that one. We said, ok, guy A is doing this movement better than guy B so he's stronger. I would also bet that people based this shift on their perception of HOW MUCH guy A could do considering how well he handled that weight. And for those of you that stuck with your horse and said guy B was still stronger, well thats weight on the bar still. So really in the end our definition is still based on bar weight, its just packaged differently.

This is a big problem as soon as you mention anything about strength training or being 'strong'. The amount of weight you can push/pull/drag/throw/eat is a direct correlation to how strong you are. That is closed mind thinking.

On the left is an image of a spring scale, it measures force (or weight) and nothing else. Looking at strength in terms of only weight or poundage is like saying your strength training is a spring scale, only the numbers matter. It doesn't matter what you do or how much improvement you make elsewhere, it provides no feedback other than a measurement of weight. A spring scale is only fitting because it is only capable of linear measurement (Hooke's Law F=kx) and it just so happens that most progressions are linear and related to load only. We do not want our training or view of strength to resemble a spring scale, this only restricts our capability to progress and sustain it in our training.

Pop quiz number two. We have two people lifting the exact same weight with the exact same form. Which is stronger? Let's say they're at par. Now suppose one of them weighs half as much as the other. Who's stronger? The lighter one…?? Its not such an easy answer now is it, even the last one was a bit tricky. In this case why would the lighter lifter be the stronger one? They both lifted the same amount of weight with the same amount of form, so now maybe we're thinking his muscles are smaller AND stronger. He's more efficient! Or he has more RELATIVE STRENGTH.

Relative strength can also be a measure of strength. I'll use the famous example of benchpress. Guy A and Guy B are benching, A is benching 250, B is benching 275. Who's Stronger? Well, B is in terms of absolute strength but in terms of relative strength it may be different. If A weighs 165lbs and B weighs 300 then A is stronger in terms of relative strength. Let's not forget that there is something to be said for being able to man handle your bodyweight in just about every exercise, or even a couple. Purely from physics, it takes quite a bit to be able to accelerate your own bodyweight and it also takes quite a bit to be able to stabilize yourself with such a large shift in your center of gravity.

New trainees are especially susceptible to the poundages trap and while they can progress (linearly with single progression, spring scale) with plenty of strength gains, there will come a time where those small errors in form or poor movement patterns or reduced ranges of motion will catch up to you. Strength training is also about sustainable practices, its a marathon not a sprint.

Last quiz, I promise. You hurt your back or knee and go to a doctor or physiotherapist, they treat you and they give you some exercises to 'strengthen' your injured area. What is the definition of strengthen in this case? I would say that it means restoring the function of that area. Those exercises aren't going to help increase your max deadlift but they will help you get back to walking pain free.

Strength does not have to be all about bar poundages. It can simply be about becoming more efficient, having better form for a certain exercise or movement, having more stability, more functionality, and yes of course it means more poundage but to steal from Eric Troy, when we talk about strength or strength training we should simply talk about it in terms of becoming better. If you're becoming better at something you're becoming stronger at it. Strength doesn't even have to involve weights, you can be strong at MATH!

Thinking of strength as something more than just plates on a barbell can open up a lot of options when it comes to progression, and quite frankly, realizing that you can become stronger or better by something other than continually adding weight is of paramount importance.

Here's the definition from Webster's, what's yours?

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by JoeWeir

Personally I never backsquat for a triple with anything I can clean and press. I don't do them on a ball either, I'm not that hardcore.

Is it wrong for me to think that this is the best video of the 3?

Disclaimer: None of the above comments should be considered even remotely serious (aside from the fact that I thought #3 was the best). Thank you.

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

Very recently I came across someone, and more importantly their training, and it warrants some blog attention.

This whole mess stems from single's training, which I dare say I know a thing or two about, and volume. The jist of the discussion is that if you perform more than one, or two, singles you are headed down the road to overtraining. This person went from one extreme end, overtraining, to the other, barely getting a training effect, and after posting a few comments and opinions I realized it was over before it began.

I presented clear and concise points regarding volume manipulation, fatigue dissipation, etc. yet he refused to consider anything other than the fact that one rep was the most volume he could do without risking overtraining. He even went as far as to say one rep was OPTIMAL. Throw in some random facts about TUT and a couple of seemingly accurate percentages for optimal stimulus and you have quite the tangled web. If you're interested in reading the conversation or want proof that I'm not making this up, haha, here's the tangled web.

As you can see he treats his training like an experiment, which I applaud, except that his study parameters are a bit out of whack. The most recent conclusion is that volume has NO effect on the stimulus. Yes, I said no effect. His study? Performing single rep sets of biceps curls, 6 sets on one arm and 1 set on the other. After 28 days of this he had gained the same amount of strength in each bicep curl (+1.5kg). I don't have to go into the problems with this 'study' as they are quite obvious but rather I'll go into the reason WHY he was compelled to do this.

A while back Eric Troy wrote an article about Belief Perserverance and that is precisely the method to this particular person's madness. If you hinge everything on a belief, then it will become just that, or at least you'll rationalize everything to fit it. Without this belief there is no training and this is where the analogy comes in. Dealing with such an ingrained belief perserverance is like trying to talk out the card holding the house up. Try as you may, that card will not budge because without it the house collapses, without this belief his training collapses, it IS the foundation for his training.

If we take a look at some of the specifics its easy to see how his house is built.

The first thing I want to look at is this quote "to ~95-97% the TUT and the Effort are relatively short/low but if you go beyond ~95-97% the TUT and Effort explode." Does this make sense? Kind of, but not in the manner he has presented it. I woud argue that 95-97% is in no way a low effort, if it was you wouldn't perform singles in the 90%+ range, you would need to be in the 95%+ range. I agree effort will increase as you approach your relative max, duh, but saying that TUT increases automatically assumes you will hit a sticking point and struggle through some of the ROM. I've had time where a weight in that range took no longer to complete than any other rep, To me that is probably the biggest hole I could put in his bucket.

Let's think about that 95-97%. Where the hell does that come from? and how can you make such a generalization about tut and effort with such a precise range of 2%. You can't, its a number that has been plucked out of the air and just so happens that it can be rationalized to fit his experimental data.

Already we're starting to see that his house is on a rocky foundation.

Here's another quote to look at "If you lift your 1RM workout after workout you'll lose strength quickly, a few weeks, 2-3 months at best depending of the frequency… If you stay around 95-97% you'll never accumulate fatigue because the time under tension is very short…while a heavy single at 95-97% will take 2-3 seconds at most. Maximum force generation with as little fatigue as possible. It's like a Static Hold. If you can hold a weight 5 seconds before falling, then you must stop at after 2-3 seconds if not Force is not increased but fatigue/effort explode. "

Again, we have some very precise data here. If you lift your 1RM workout after workout then you're 1) consolidating that hard earned number 2) probably not at the same 1RM anymore. We're talking about 1 rep, not 12.
Going back to the quote, he says that for a 5 second, max, static hold the dynamic movement should last only 2-3 seconds. And how do I measure this? With a precision of 2 seconds I'd need someone to yell at me to stop once I got 3 seconds. I can barely count to 10 using my fingers, let alone count to 3 while pulling a 97% deadlift.

Just looking at the above examples you can see how he has turned it into his own pseudo-science and ultimately into his own concrete training principles. I think the worst part about all of this is that one factor has been considered, overtraining, ie. THE CARD. While looking only at this one aspect you neglect the very thing that creates fatigue. The training stressors. By severly limiting these you ensure overtraining is avoided but you also ensure that your gains are minimal or almost non-existent.

The important lesson to be learnt from all of this is that you cannot let these beliefs control you or your training. In posts to come I'll talk about how you can pull the card out and rebuild your house with a better, stronger foundation.

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

A big problem with strength training is that it has been introduced in places (read: forums) where the general membership doesn't have adequate exposure or adequate knowledge. And like alot of internet sources and sites, the ideas and principles have been twisted and convuluted into something that it really isn't. With the large proponents of the distortion coming from the uneducated 'experts'.

The truth is that strength training revolves around INTENSITY. If someone is talking about 'strength training' and mentions the terms 'volume intensity', '5x5', or 'I don't want to burn out after a couple weeks' then that person really doesn't have a clue about actual strength training.

Volume intensity really doesn't make much sense because volume and intensity are inversely proportional, as intensity increases volume must decrease and vice versa.

Its quite possible to sustain maximal strength training for long periods of time without the risk of 'burning out', you just need to be smart about it and know how to manipulate volume and accumulated fatigue. Which surprisingly is not a difficult task but seems to be a difficult concept.

I don't even want to touch the 5x5… for now.

Acclimation is a very important aspect of strength training. It can single handedly make or break an attempt yet many people still opt for the traditional "bodybuilding" style warmups (1 plate 10 reps, 2 plates 5 reps, 3 plates 3 reps, you get the idea) which are not only inefficient but also prevent you from properly acclimating. A proper acclimation will have you performing single reps at a high intensity leading up to (what I refer to as) your working sets and we can justify these high intensities because the volume is kept extremely low (1 rep). Just as it sounds, acclimation is your body adapting to the environment it is exposed to and in this case the environment is very high intensity lifting.

The beauty of this is that it takes place the entire time you're lifting. As you progressively lift heavier weights, all preceeding sets inadvertently act as acclimation.

You can also use it as a means to complete a failed attempt. You may find that performing a couple of sets at a slightly lesser weight and returning to that failed weight may result in a succesful lift. This also brings us into postactivation potentiation effects, an acute effect with some very lovely attributes.

An especially frustrating topic is percentages and percentage based training. Yeah, they're easy to use to relate things but they really don't mean a whole hell of a lot. The core principle of strength training is you lift a heavy weight, the heaviest weight that you can at that time, and you keep lifting a weight that is close to that weight. Who cares if its 96%, 98% or 92%. 96 today might be 98, 94, or even 90 tomorrow and with many of these percentage schemes having PR or Max weeks built into them, it helps to muddy the waters a bit more and turn maximal training into a glorified PR hunt. Which is a complete mis-interpretation of strength training.

The next time you're looking at your workout log you should ask yourself "Is my 'strength training' actually strength training?"

In part 2 I'll be talking about some not so obvious components that are essential to comprehensive strength training.

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by JoeWeir

By Joe Weir

Any of you that have been following my Journal here (Strength Journal) will know that I recently included the infamous 4 squat workout into my routine. This delightful little routine consists of 4 exercises, each with 4 sets (5,4,3, and 2 reps respectively).

For the 4 squat variants I chose Overhead Squats, Anderson Front Squats, Back Squats (to parallel) and what I've coined the Anderson Half Squat. For anyone unfamiliar with an Anderson squat its not much different from a regular squat or so it may appear. The glaring difference is that an Anderson involves a deloaded bar in between eccentric and concentric portions of the movement. Basically you finish the eccentric movement, you're setting the bar on some pins, grabbing a breath maybe, and then completing the movement by driving up against the bar.

Sounds easy but its not quite.

Moving back to the idea of the Anderson Half Squat. If I posted a video on any number of forums I would most likely get the "nice 1/4 squat" or "go A2G" and if this were my main movement of the workout I might agree. Yes, it is a 1/4 squat, if you call full depth dropping your ass to the ground, but I coined it half because all of my "full" squats in the workout were brought to parallel. The point is that this movement is being used to supplement everything else so depth is really not the goal at all. The goal is to get a heavy bar on your back and work on your ability to accelerate it at a mechanical disadvantage as well as provide the other necessary criteria to do it safely and effectively.

Anytime you deload a bar you lose the elastic energy stored in the muscles that controlled the eccentric movement. Furthermore you lose your abdominal pressure, core engagement, and pretty much anything else involved in keeping yourself from folding like an accordian. In using this movement you really have to be confident in the fact that you can properly engage everything, push against that bar and accelerate it from a dead stop to full lockout. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, chaulk on another 50% of the weight you can do for a backsquat at that rep range.

This is the part I like most, the results. From using this exercise I've noticed a few very good side effects:

1) Feel of the bar. Since I haven't been backsquatting in a while, my regular backsquats felt very very heavy. Mainly from the fact that I haven't quite got my front squat to surpass my backsquat, yet. After including the half squats the weight of the barbell used for backsquats feels virtually weightless, a good boost to self-confidence at least.

2) Hip and glute activation and strength has increased. Since the bar is deloaded on some pins it takes a whole lot of hip to get the bar accelerating and since its such a heavy weight a whole lot of glute is involved to lock it out.

3) Core activation and stabilization has increased. Again because of the deloading you've got to get your core activated in an extremely fast manner. Driving up against the bar requires some explosive core activation and some very good stabilization. Without that your either not making it off the pins or your going to start folding over under the weight.

Those 3 side-effects carryover to anything that involves core activation and hip/glute strength, which, by the way, is ALOT of exercises and movements. I encourage anyone reading this to give it a shot but you'll have to answer one question after you do: Do you still think half or quarter squats are easy?

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by JoeWeir

A while back I posted a piece called "Ignorance as a form of progression", I'm posting it here (below) as well as a follow up which you may find interesting.

Not so long ago an acquaintance asked me if I would take a look at his routine. He knew I was a regular gym goer and lifted some decent weights so he thought he'd get my opinion.

Being the nice guy that I am I critiqued his routine and offered to look at his form as well. I gave him an explanation and an alternative for everything so he had some flexibility with concrete reasons backing everything.

The next week he handed me a new routine. With an arm day! He had completely scrapped my advice because his workout partner (who couldn't lift much and knew even less) said he needed lots of arm work or there was no point in going to the gym. Needless to say I never went and critiqued his form. Instead I suggested what he should do with his “new” routine. Tactfully of course.

Then one day he called on me to critique his deadlift form (I'm a nice guy remember). After watching a 'warm-up' set I told him it was absolute garbage and I was surprised he hadn't slipped a disk yet. His partner, who must have ears like a fox, heard me, saying, "Whatever, that guy doesn't know anything. Look at how much he's lifting, obviously your form is good if you can lift this much. Just forget that guy."

Realizing I had lost the battle I did the opposite of what I'd normally do: I bit my tongue and finished my workout (tougher to do than the actual workout).

Months later, lo and behold, he’s plagued with injuries not surprisingly related to poor deadlift/squat form. Particularly he's experiencing several shoulder problems which we all know are automatically correlated with bench pressing and shoulder pressing…not his horrid lack of hip mobility or mobility in general.

I've been free from 'major' injuries for quite some time now (knock on wood) which, despite earlier disregard, somehow lends credibility to my training. So said acquaintance returned for more advice. This time his questions involve training AND injuries rather than just training. I'm sure you can imagine how sympathetic I felt and you can guess how much advice I gave him.

Originally, my advice was dismissed because I couldn't lift as much, yet my advice was sought after when I was deemed to be injury free.

Weight on the bar and good form are not factors to be considered separately. They go hand in hand. You can't lift heavy weights without knowing good form and you can't get stronger without staying as injury free as possible.

But wait a minute. You also can’t get stronger without lifting heavy weights. Since remaining injury free is a prerequisite for lifting heavy weights…none of these factors I’ve discussed can be escaped.

The mentality of the trainee in this anecdote is common. Believing that you are practicing good form, and know the movement, because of the weight you use is a big mistake. Thinking form work is something that should be done post-injury is just as big. Combining those two is catastrophic!

Movement, technique, and ‘prehab’ work should be integrated into training or even precede any heavy lifting. These are not after-thoughts. Perhaps, when discussing strength work, instead of speaking about getting stronger, we should simply speak of getting BETTER.

We can't train safely and effectively without realizing form, strength, and injury are inter-related. You've seen the pieces of the puzzle but if you'd like to know more take a look though these pages and post in the forum and we can help you put it all together. And if you're like the guy in this story that's ok too, we'll help you, but don't expect the story to end differently if you're not prepared to take the advice to heart.

Many of us know this trainee, have come across this trainee or may have even been this trainee. The big difference is that alot of us got smarter about our training and our injuries. However, it doesn't quite end that way for this guy.

The person that I based this on has come crawling back for more info. He recently pulled a 500+lb deadlift and I don't think I need to describe how it looked. As a result of his training he has injured his back and shoulders even more, yet hasn't seeked any sort of answer as to why or how.

Somehow he found out the time I go to the gym and one morning he caught me there, again. I was doing a warmup for overhead squats and he came over and said "don't hurt yourself", commenting sarcastically on the lightly weighted barbell I was using. He went and did his set of decline bench and came back when I was doing a working set and mentioned how he tried OHs but gave up because he just didn't have the shoulder flexibility for it and it wasn't an exercise for him. Which means he couldn't put enough weight on the bar or had to dump it nearly every attempt. Basically after every set he would come over to me about some pain here or how he was working around injuries, blah blah, and he would not stop about a pain he had below his shoulder blade. Finally I told him to go and try some scapula dips and scapula pushups and see how that went. By some miracle it had eleviated his pain. He came back and asked how I knew that so I told him maybe his lower trap was tight and it was pulling a bit, causing discomfort. To which he replied, hahaha the trap is up here dummy. I don't think I have to tell you where he pointed. He finally left shortly after but what a workout. One time he even said he had to deadlift with a rounded back because it hurt to bend down and grab the bar with an arched back!

To sum it all up his back pain has gotten so bad that he's going to doctors, pt's, and even the dreaded chiro! If only he would've taken me seriously in the first place…

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by JoeWeir