Before going directly to hand grip strengtheners, let’s talk about grip strength first. What is it? The answer is simple. It is the force you use when pulling or lifting things. It can also be used to measure muscular strength or the maximum force used by your forearm muscles.
As an important indicator of your overall health, grip strength helps diagnose certain medical conditions, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis. Increasing your grip strength can prevent injury and disability. How to increase grip strength has become a topic of widespread concern.
Now you see the importance of increasing your grip strength, we can delve further into the grip strengtheners.
- What is A Hand Grip Strengthener?
- What Do Hand Grips do?
- How to Use Hand Grips?
- Do Hand Grips Work？
- Hand Grip Strengthener FAQs.
1. What is A Hand Grip Strengthener?
Hand grip strengtheners, aka hand grips, or hand grippers are tools that help to improve the power in your forearms, wrists, and fingers. You may reckon your hand is just a trivial part of good fitness, but that's not true. In almost every workout, your hands play a vital role. Confused? Read on!
While working out, it is crucial to have the right grip strength on the rods, bars, and other gym equipment. You can reap more benefits with a good grip in the workout, improve your posture in exercises such as weightlifting, and also reduce the chances of injury.
To increase grip strength, some try regular exercises such as climbing and playing tennis while others choose to invest in a set of hand grip strengtheners.
2. What Do Hand Grips do?
Forearms also gain strength during weight lifting, yet many fitness freaks neglect the vital role of grip strength. If you want to maintain your lift for a longer time so you can have more muscle gains, hand grip strengtheners can be a great help.
Hand grip strengtheners increase the strength of your arm and wrist, providing balance and foundation to get more gains in exercises that focus on your arms or other body parts alike. They allow you to lift longer without feeling pain in your palm.
So are hand grip strengtheners worth it? My answer is definitely yes. A hand grip strengthener is often durable and can be used for a very long time to help strengthen your grip and increase your forearm size. They’re not very expensive and can generate tons of benefits, which we will unveil later.
3. How to Use Hand Grips?
Hand grip exercises
Step 1
Place the one handle of the hand grip against your palm to begin a squeeze-and-release exercise. Wrap your fingers around the other handle. Squeeze the handles together as far as you can. Hold the closed position for 5 seconds, then slowly release your grip. Start with two sets of 10 squeezes for each hand, then build up over several weeks to four sets.
Step 2
Grip a hand grip between the palm and fingers of one hand, as far toward the tips of your fingers as possible, to prepare to do a reverse squeeze exercise. Close the grip using both hands. Pull your "helper" hand away, and release the grip as slowly as you can. Start with two sets of five reverse squeezes with each hand, then build up to four sets as you get stronger.
Step 3
Place the hand grip against the palm of your hand, then place the tips of your fingers on the finger springs or "buttons." Curl your fingers toward your palm to close the springs, then slowly release your grip. Add difficulty to this exercise by curling in only one finger at a time. Start with just one set of 10 finger curls on each hand, then work your way up to three or four sets.
4. Do Hand Grips Work？
Of course, there are many hand grip strengthener benefits.
4.1 Increase strength
There is no doubt that using hand grip strengtheners aids in increasing arm and hand strength. While opening and closing your fingers with the resistance of a hand grip strengthener, you automatically increase muscle mass in your forearm. You may turn out to have impressive and bigger forearms through regular hand grip training.
With more strength in your arm and hand, you can hold the bar or rod longer and perform better in exercises that require a good hand grip like climbing and gymnastics.
4.2 Increase endurance and resistance to pains
Adding regular hand grip strengthener training into your workout routine can increase the endurance of your forearm muscles. Your hands can apply more pressure for longer periods, making it easier to do exercises such as push-ups and weight lifting, which eventually leads to muscle gains.
Not only that, but using hand grip strengtheners also strengthens your resistance to pains. Doctor Brittany Ferri, an occupational therapist, OTR/L, CCTP says that using the hand grip strengthener only a few minutes a day can generate benefits, which helps reduce the impact of hand arthritis.
4.3 Improve dexterity
Another benefit of using a hand grip strengthener is that it improves the dexterity of your limbs through the frequent use of your fingers and hands. With agile fingers, you can better perform your daily tasks, especially when you’re a musician, a typist, or a hairdresser.
4.4 Relieve stress and boost confidence
Adults nowadays are already used to living with stress. All the squeezing and releasing through hand grip exercise helps relieve stress from study and work. Squeezing activates the muscles in your hand, and in releasing the grip strengthener, your muscles are relaxed, which results in the alleviation of the stress and tension.
Hand grip strengtheners have a positive impact on your performance in various exercises in the gym. When you find you’re capable of holding the bar for a long period steadily, you’ll naturally feel more confident about yourself.
4.5 Super portable to carry everywhere
A hand grip strengthener is super portable due to its small size. You can carry it anywhere you like, and train your forearms whenever you get time.
5. Hand Grip Strengthener FAQs.
5.1 Can hand grip strengthener build muscle?
Yes, but unlike other weight lifting and other strength training workouts, hand grip exercise improves the performance and strength of the muscles in your forearms, hands, and wrists. It is unlikely to bulk up with hand grip strengtheners, but you can also benefit a lot from them.
5.2 Do hand grips cause carpal tunnel?
No. On the other way around, hand grip exercises help alleviate the pain caused by carpal tunnel syndrome. But carpal tunnel can be a dangerous condition. If it doesn’t help much, you’d better turn to carpal tunnel release surgery.
5.3 Can I use hand grip strengtheners every day?
Yes, you sure can. Using hand grip strengtheners on a daily basis makes your hand stronger. When you feel you’re stronger than the resistance provided by your strengthener, you’d better overload or your hand strength is likely to hit a plateau.
5.4 Can hand grip strengtheners be used for warm-up?
Yes, hand grip strengtheners are often used in training your hand muscles and preparing you for the workout session. Doing hand grip exercise before lifting weight helps train your arm muscles and you can have the right grip during the workout.
