I’m taking a martial arts course revolving around the use of sticks, but the thing it: I have a terrible grip. After just a few seconds of certain warm up exercises, the muscles of my thumb just start to hurt, and after a long time of swinging that thing around, it just keeps slipping. So, I was wondering if anyone out there knew of a good way to improve one’s grip through easy to do at home exercises?
As a long-term martial artist and climber (rock, ice, high altitude), I would strongly recommend checking out whatever rock climbing magazine is available at your local bookstore. There are plenty of devices available that specifically increase hand and finger strength–key to becoming an excellent rock climber. One of them is like the conventional hand grip devices, yet it is modified to exercise the fingers instead. I often use it when on the telephone or driving. (Yes, I’m careful.)
A friend of mine who is a pistol guy works on his grip by holding a large (1" diameter) stick with an attached rope. There’s a weight attached to the rope. You hold the stick horizontal between your hands with you arms fully extended, then slowly roll up the rop, bringing the weight up. Then you slowly unroll the rope. This is one tough workout, but it builds up the forearm muscles that control grip really well.
Not quite the same, but your local guitar store will sell devices meant to built up your finger strength… it’s the equivalent of pushing your fingers into your palm, which seems close to grip strength to me. In fact, I think they’re called the Grip or somehting like that.
Or could you could squeeze a tennis ball a lot.
easiest way to do it (and cheapest if you get a daily newspaper subscription) is get a newspaper and scrunch up a page in each hand till you run out of paper. Do this for a couple weeks and you’ll see a huge change in your grip strength. No muss no fuss. (And if you personally dont get a subscription, theres bound to be someone you know who does, or at least a nearby paper recycling bin).
I have a few for ya’
If you have access to a gym with regular olympic-style bars (with the big fat ends to put the weights on) and plates (the cast-iron ones with a flat side), there are two that I love:
- Put some weight on one end of a barbell. Grab the bar by the Fat End, outside the plates. Pick it up and hold it for as long as you can.
- put two plates (start with 5 or 10 lb plates) with the “lipped” side together. You end up with a 10 or 20 lb donut with smooth external sides. “Pinch” this between your fingers, and hold for as long as you can (to get an idea of the grip, it will look as if you were trying to use an alligator sock puppet, with the mouth facing down).
Don’t neglect working the antagonist muscles, too. Put a strong rubberband (the band that holds bunches of broccoli together works great) around your closed fingers (the alligator puppet position again), and open your fingers wide.
You can find a whole bunch of good grip exercises at http://www.testosterone.net/articles/156short.html
and way more info than you could ever need at http://www.testosterone.net/articles/184grip.html
Another good one is to take a THICK bath towel (terry-cloth, etc.) and drape it over something like the top bar of a swing set or the curtain rod in your bath (if it will support your weight;) then grab both ends, lift yourself up and hang as long as you can.
It’s a great exercise for your grip (especially useful for judo or jiujitstu.)
I trained with a bo a little while back (~ 6’ wooden staff). One thing that can help devellop the muscles you specifically use with stick-type weapons (at least that one) is to get yourself some different lengths of solid 3/4" steel bars - easy to obtain. These are similar in diameter, but much heavier.
Start with one just a bit heavier than the actual stick you got (it will be a lot shorter), and go through the same movements at home or where ever that you normaly do in class. Then switch to one 6-12" longer (and consequently heavier), and so on.
Of course you gotta be careful when swinging it around as you won’t have the same amount of control, and your hands will get tired even quicker than they do now at first, but after a few weeks it’ll be much easier, and when you pick up the real wooden deal for your class, it’ll feel like a matchstick in comparison.
Another thing you could always try (which I’ve just noticed in the last few days) is making bread… no shit… specifically kneading the dough. I found a bread recipe that has a pretty thick yet “clean” dough that you can take out of the bowl and walk around the house with, which must be worked for a good 15 minutes before letting it rise. After 45 seconds of squeezing and turning over fistfuls of this stuff my hands were dead. Yeah, not the manliest of hand exercises, but if you’re not used to doing it, your forearms will be burning too!!