Forearms Built For Popeye

 Well, in a sense. No, my forearms are no where near The Sailor Man but over a period of YEARS, I've developed some pretty decent lower arms that have arm wrestled three generation of a logger family, swung heavy sledgehammers as heavy as 75 lbs, bent tough steel (short and shaped long pieces as well), tore through phonebooks with ease and lots of rows and pulls using Fat Gripz. Alas, I'm not done or haven't peaked yet.

The lower arms aren't just merely little muscles in the forearms, there's bone and tendon strength there too that gives you a different outlet of strength over purely weights and bodyweight style. The grip strength that came with these thick puppies wasn't made overnight or just a pump after a workout. Believe it or not, I never really specialized in them, just worked them hard like anything else and focused into the muscles as I trained them. Some of it is genetics but the reality is, I busted my ass to make them strong yet supple, flexible and durable. 

Sure I've trained with wrist rollers and done wrist curls and all that but nothing builds the forearms IMO than working with Sledgehammers, Isometric Training, Thick Handle Work. Working the fingers as well is part of the package deal when you're building grip strength and/or muscle building. Very little Isolated movements are done, like with the whole body, everything should be working together regardless of what you specialize in. When you're training with sledgehammers, it's a feeling you don't get with a lot of other stuff; the swing, the just right amount of grip strength to tighten up on the handle to move the hammer effectively (can't grip it too tight but you can't have a weak and loose grip either). When you've done hundreds or over 1000 reps in training, it's not just a pump you feel, it's that surge of power coursing through your veins and feeling like a warrior who was victorious in battle. 

Having a powerful grip is also one of two things; a life saving entity and a make or break formality in sports. For the life saving aspect, the ability to grab somebody to save them from a burning building or pulling them out of a rapid riverbend puts a whole new meaning to the term "real life strength." In sports, hitting the ball far, throwing it down the field, working a submission in MMA or the strength to toss your opponent like a rag doll in Amateur Wrestling all have ties to a strong grip. Granted not all who have a strong grip have huge muscles, some 165 lb stick figure of a man can have incredible grip strength either from farming, labor work or other things. One of the greatest figures in wrestling history had a grip that to this day still baffles people; the legendary Danny Hodge was able to crush apples, break pliers and make men fall to their knees with his handshake. 

If you were to specialize in building incredible gripping power, focus mainly on the tendons and ligaments...This could go with high rep work, isometrics, thick bars or attaching Fat Gripz to your barbells and dumbbells, fingertip push-ups and plenty of pulling and pushing while focusing on the grip itself. There are far better experts out there than me that make my grip strength seem like I have the strength of Twiggy; guys like Dennis Rogers, Brooks Kubik, Edward Aston, Mac Batchelor and others are some of the true masters of grip strength. As you work exercises that flex or squeeze the muscles, be sure to work the opposite doing extensor work as well. A great book to look into is Molding A Mighty Grip by George Jowett. 

Don't just go for strength either, condition the lower arms as much as you can because having strong, durable and conditioned hands goes a long way than just maxing out for a short period of time. Moving furniture is a hell of a way to find out what your grip is or some good old fashioned arm wrestling or tug of war. Having strong and conditioned hands can also indicate how healthy you are as well. Be strong, build some mighty mitts and keep being amazingly awesome. 

Grip Strength And What It Says About Health

 Having a solid grip while shaking hands with someone is known to be a form of confidence at a higher level. Strength in our hands and fingers can also be a process of longevity. Grip Strength according to researchers has great potential to predict our overall health and well-being. As we get older, the stronger we are in the grip aspects, the greater chances of blasting through diseases like cancer.

While maintaining muscle mass, it also indicates a strong importance of mobility and strength. If we lose muscle, we also lose mass. I'm only less than a couple years shy of 40 and need to keep up with what I do for as long as I can because after hitting the big 4-0, muscle mass will start going little by little each year from then on. Some say it happens after 25, some will say 35 but 40 seems to be the majority among those that research. A powerful grip is a large indicator of longevity so it's apparent we do our best to keep that intact. 

A study done in 2015 which 142,000 grip measurements were taken, along with obtaining info that tested ongoing diseases showed some pretty interesting results. It was suggested that for every 11 lb decrease in grip strength was a 16% chance you could die at a higher percentage from any cause. There are ways to measure our grip but there are great ways to build it as well using various tools while keeping a solid level of overall strength training as we age. Smashing a tire with sledgehammers builds incredible grip strength and also builds insane conditioning. Working with a Thick Bar or implements such as Fat Gripz you can attach to pull-up bars, barbells, dumbbells or even handles like with the TNT Cable System. One idea is about as simple as you can get is what John Brookfield has demonstrated where you take a towel and put in a bucket full of water, elongate it and start twisting the water out of the towel until it dries. This will fire up your forearms like crazy.

Building muscle and maintaining it can go a long way more than just looking good, it could be life saving and keeping things in order has great potential to keep you from getting injured easily and keeping your organs strong for a long time. Grip Strength is a piece of a big puzzle that continually comes together in order to live a quality life. Stay away from the steroids and find resources that will help you stay strong for many years to come. 

Stay strong, build some mighty mitts and be amazingly awesome. 

How Do I Keep My Lower Arms, Hands & Wrists Strong

 As a human being, we are responsible for what types of strength we develop whether it be physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. Some don't always get to even choose that responsibility because of either birth defects or other things but if you're compelled and learn to work with what's possible, there are many ways to strengthen yourself.

Strength is not always measured by a cannonball shaped bicep or having washboard abs that look good in a magazine, it really is measured what the body can handle and be able to do things that require sometimes a great deal of effort in order to provide the strength needed in life. The hands for one is probably, arguably one of the most prominent aspects of strength that we don't always understand the true meaning of it. We build things with our hands, we can clip hair like it's electric with such precision and speed, we destroy things, we test a man's grip with a simple shake, we lift and hold onto things as if our lives depended on it. Our hands are the ones that turn the knob to a world of possibilities.

When I was in my teens, I didn't have thick forearms or crazy strong hands and wrists even though I threw the shot put and the discus along with some mediocre weight training. I didn't understand the value of grip strength and hand health until I started learning feats of the old time strongmen. The first people to show me this were Logan Christopher & Tyler Bramlett. They showed me how these small guys like Dennis Rogers & Mighty Atom were able to bend, twist, break and shape steel with such power it looked effortless yet impossible to look at. They were the first men to teach me steel bending short and long along with leverage work and utilizing the flexion and extension of the hands. If these small dudes can teach me how to do things that men twice their size can barely even touch, that gave me the reason to be able to do it too.

For years, I've bent hundreds of spikes, tore through dozens upon dozens of phonebooks, levered sledgehammers and shaped flat bars and rebar till my hands bled (literally) and those were the foundation of making my hands crazy strong, durable and powerful. My fingers would feel like bone, my forearms were hard as stones and my wrists had strength yet were flexible and limber. As time went on in the midst of doing these crazy feats, I started studying more on how to keep the lower arms healthy and as pain-free as possible. When I was learning the unorthodox and strange ways to train using Garin Bader's CoreForce Energy, he also had a course specifically for the hands called Finger Gymnastics. You've all read about my dealings with the meningitis and how it shaped my nerves to the point where dexterity in my right hand is almost impossible with using individual fingers. With FG, it gave me tools that I never was able to learn before as a child and it showed how I can use my hands differently than what I was attempting during therapy sessions. It opened up a new world to me that was unbelievable.

As I got older and shifting away from the strength feats, (is a comeback in the works?) I had put my effort into a more movement based type training and for the last 10 years or so, working with sledgehammers has been my go to for hand strength and conditioning. I also found the Fat Gripz useful as I use them from time to time with my resistance cables to really dig into the muscles and build grip strength at the same time. I've used them also on machines, barbells and dumbbells. Slowly but surely overtime, my hands just kept getting stronger and rarely if ever got injured. 

Because of the sledgehammer work, it has even helped me in arm wrestling; faced all three generations of my wife's family (father, brother and grandfather) as they all challenged me and I won. This family also comes from several generations of loggers and heavy laborers so they have incredible strength in their blood. Neither of them were easy either especially her grandfather who tried to pull my arm off for a second or two but to didn't let up. That was a defining moment where they were like "ok this guy is good for the girl in our lives" in my opinion. Gramps still has that "old man strength."

In a nutshell these days, hammers, fat gripz, occassional fingertip pushups and walking like a gorilla has kept my hands pretty damn strong and healthy. Keeping the wrists limber as much as possible and fingers just keep getting stronger. I have also kept an eye doing joint loosening exercises especially in the hands and wrists for a while now because as we age, we won't always be able to do the crazy shit we did but if we kept our joints healthy, that's what makes living the more important. Be strong, build strong hands and be amazingly awesome. 

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