TNT Cables And Fat Gripz

 The TNT Cables from Lifeline Fitness have been one of my favorite tools of resistance band training for years. Off and on, I kept the exercises simple and basic. Hell of a traveling apparatus as well since you can fit the handles and the cables inside your duffle bag. With the door attachment, there are many exercises you can do just like you may do in a gym. Very versatile and a great idea for training.

Every once in a while, I'd like to spice things with them and attach my Fat Gripz to the handles to simulate Thick Bar Training. Usually just keep to about 4 Exercises (Curls, Pulldowns, Rows & Chest Presses) and do one arm or two arm versions of those exercises. For a period, I would have a set number of reps and work with that and use heavy resistance (around 100-200+ lbs of resistance) depending on the exercise I do. Lately, I've gotten back into that kind of training; the exercises stay the same but the set/rep scheme has changed. I would do just one set of the exercises but do enough reps where it's a challenge but I'm not going to failure. I try to keep it around enough reps where I have at best 2-3 left in me but make that enough to stop.

This has been a very good workout to work my grip strength and achieve greater muscle activation in the exercises. With this type of training, it's important to not focus so much on speed or resting very little which in most of my workouts is a focus. This is meant to focus more on technique, hitting the muscles hard and resting as long as needed for the next exercise. It's purely more about strength than anything else. For the rest period, I'd say give it 1-5 min depending on how the set goes but that's just an idea, take as much time as you need to feel ready, have the mindset that when you go into the next exercise, you go with a vengeance. Don't hurt yourself and sure as hell don't try to break records or anything, it's not ego lifting.

You can use the Fat Gripz on your dumbbells, barbells and machines to enhance your exercise. Don't try to do so many exercises for so many sets and reps, focus your attention to simplistic exercises as best as possible and keep the amount of exercises short. The old timers knew this very well and had great success because of methods like this. If you're really ambitious, work up to the Fat Gripz Extreme which is close to 3 inches in circumference, this will test you big time. I've only done the Extreme a handful of times ever but I made it count and they're to be respected. Build strong hands for a strong body. 

Thick Bar or Handle Training is no joke and you won't do as many reps as you normally would, it cuts the reps to about from what I understand to 1/3rd of what you would normally do so if you could say Bench 315 for 10 reps with an olympic bar, with these Gripz (especially the extreme) the reps would be no more than maybe 3, 4 max so that should tell you how tough these bastards are. I like them because I don't have to spend a ton of time training and don't do as many reps because I want to dig into the muscles hard and get stronger. How often would you work with the Gripz? With consistency, probably no more than twice a week, if you're an advanced trainee that is geared toward pro ranks, maybe 3-4 times a week but that's pushing it. For beginners, if you decide to go that route, start with once a week or every 10 days because these are crazy to work with. 

Train with intent, listen to your body and make every workout count to take those steps towards your goals. Be amazingly awesome everyone.  

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. 

Thor Hammers Aren't Always Needed To Smash

Working on the grip is an essential part for building overall health and strength. I have written about why building grip is needed to succeed in many aspects of training but not all exercises are created equal. When it comes to grip strength and conditioning, very few can match the Sledgehammer. Now you don't always need to smash a tire with one or even hit the ground with those rubber ones or smash into the sand, a sledgehammer or even a Thor Hammer for that matter can be used like a Club or Mace or even a Kettlebell for that matter.

Whenever I use a Thor Hammer or in this case of it's Viking Name: Mjolnir, I love working exercises like a club or a mace because with the thickness of the hammer, it's working more than just the shoulders and core, it's hitting the grip with a vengeance. Whether it's nearly 14 lbs or 30 lbs, either way this thing will make you stronger in ways that even the gods would be impressed by. Just today, I worked with the lighter of the two hammers for up to 200 reps of various exercises that really hit the spot. Mainly in the 10-20 rep range each way or per exercise, that's quite a bit cause you're squeezing the handle with every swing and that's putting solid stress on the tendons and ligaments.

They say, the more muscles you use in an exercise, the better your overall health will be. There's a time for isolation (like rehabbing or isometric training) but from a big picture standpoint, hitting multiple muscles at the same time really gives you another perspective of strength training. Thick Grip Training has reaped many benefits and workouts don't have to take as long because when you work with a Thick implement, you're forced to stabilize your body and be in complete control otherwise you'll end up dropping the implement or falling in the case of pull-ups or something. 

Having Mjolnir in your hands is an incredible but also an intimidating feeling. You can't get sloppy with it otherwise you'll pay a price so whether you're hitting a tire or swinging it like a club, mace or even a kettlebell, be careful but also pay attention to what you're doing and treat it with respect or else it'll bite you in the ass or in this case, dropping on the foot, stabbing you with those sharp corners and hitting the legs. If you want powerful forearms and a grip like a vise, this is the implement that will get you there. 

While you're at it, to really kick things into high gear, take the Thor Hammer Formula before your workout and notice the surge of energy coursing through you. Be strong, have a blast and be Amazingly Awesome. 

Being Explosive And Powerful Using Sledgehammers

A major thing about having an implement that you can smash the shit out of a tire with is being able to load it up to a weight that makes you feel like you have the power of a god in your hands. It's an awesome and bad ass way to use progression training to develop strength little by little. The mighty hammers at Stronger Grip are the like the barbell and weights of the olden days where hard work was earned. Using a hammer is hard work whether on a job or as a training tool and it's not to be messed with. 

Now, having a fixed weight is awesome and some of the best boxers and fighters have had great success with working with fixed weight hammers and/or axes to take down insane trees. Loading up on a hammer though whether it's the Thor Hammer, Epic Sledge or the Tactic Conditioning version, is just beautiful in a productive violent kind of way. The different styles of swinging even down to the very micro addition or decrease of your footing will show you your weaknesses and your strengths through your coordination and awareness. Sometimes it can take just one thing to turn you into a testosterone fueled machine and I can't stress enough how strong you can get adding weight to a hammer.

Each version of a sledgehammer has their own perks in terms of developing your strength, conditioning, coordination and durability. When you hit the tire and the hammer bounces off, it creates a shock to your hands and if you can't keep a firm grip on the handle, I don't want want to know what could happen if that sumbitch flew right out of your hands. That's the true aspect of having insane grip strength; you can do an insane amount of pullups, crush an ironmind gripper or do brutal fingertip pushups building those Eagle Claws but the amount of strength needed to move a heavy fucking hammer is in a class all by itself. 

Some will see it as a little toy you like to play with but if you want to call it a toy, than to us crazy bastards, it's a toy of Norse Legends & Gods. A toy is a little plastic figurine or a tool that even an ant can lift, Hammers are the tools that turns boys into men and men into another form of a powerful human being. Once you get a hold of one and consistently use it, you'd probably have to control shaking someone's hand so you don't break something. Again, there's no implement more intimidating and full of strength and power than the awesome Sledgehammer. 

Some of Ryan Pitts' Hammers vary in weight (empty or completely filled) depending on the kind you get. All will make your grip a force to be reckoned with but each implement showcases different aspects of Strength: The Thor Hammers can be used as a thicker version of Indian Clubs that forces you to squeeze your hands with great intensity, Popeye will be impressed with the results that range filled weight from 30-70lbs. The Tactical Hammer is a smooth handled implement that is used mainly for conditioning purposes and bring forth the power of an old time stone breaker; this hammer has a filled weight to about 25-30 max. The Epic Sledge (the mecca of sledgehammers) is the most beastly of all of these Hammers. The head alone is massive and the handle is slightly thicker or just as thick as the Thor Hammers so imagine the strength needed just to work with. This comes in 26 lbs empty, larger than the average size hammers and can be filled to the brim weighing up to 100 lbs. Imagine the type of grip you can posses just repping that hammer at 50 lbs or more. This is a hammer that even the mightiest gods will be impressed by and bring the power of John Henry into your soul. 

Become explosive, have the grip strength of a deity, have a workload that will even have the most elite athletes gasp for air in a matter of seconds. You guys deserve to be strong and you have the right to have the right tools in your hands. With a hammer in your hands, you shall become more than you can possibly imagine.

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. 

Just less than a few days left of the BIG SALE at Lost Empire Herbs where you can get a major discount of 20% all orders using the code FALL2022 at checkout and can get FREE SHIPPING when you order $100 or more worth of bad ass herbs, tinctures and powders. 

Can You Juggle Kettlebells???

Hey Guys,

I've played around with kettlebell juggling in the past and had some fun with it.

But if you truly want to master this art than my friend Logan Christopher is your man.

He's giving away 35 minutes of video on getting started and advanced skills from a workshop people paid up to $1000 to attend.

Master Juggling Kettlebells

If you do anything with kettlebells you owe it to yourself to check out this video. You'll see all the benefits these fun skills can give you.

This isn't just for advanced people, although many people may think it is. Whether you're just starting out, or have been lifting kettlebells for years, you'll surely learn something new here.

Jump On The Bandwagon Now & Take Your Conditioning To The Next Level

Be Awesome & Juggle With Power & Might

P.S. And that's just the start. He's got some even more amazing things in store that will change the way kettlebell juggling will be done in the future.

Sneak A Peak Here

Taking Clubbing To The Next Level

    

     No I'm not talking about going out to a place of loud ass music or a high prestige gentlemen's club; I'm talking about real world-class strength and power. This type of clubbing comes from an Irish legend known as the Dagda (or Daghdha in Irish Folklore). Legend has it that a man of great warrior strength had two prized possessions; one was a cauldron that he used to cook meats and such to help feed the armies; the second was an extremely heavy club but this wasn't any ordinary club. This bad boy had two parts to and each side had a life and death entity. The top of the club was death because if it hit someone they instantly die but on the other end, below the handle it gave life. It's power within its handle gave strength and life like the legendary Thor's Hammer or Arthur's sword Excalibur.

 
    As the man conquered mighty tasks with the club it taught him valuable lessons in building strength not just in a physical macho type but within deep in his soul as he would need his wits (although he was a massive fellow) and he was a man of great heart and love but also a protector. Teaching is offspring the values of real strength, not by pure masculinity but by being a good nurtured soul and protecting the love ones you have and others. When you conquer a goal, you protect it and it has a special place in your heart, don't use it to boost ego or believe that because you made it happen you're better than the next guy, not true. When Dagda swung his club, he did with intensity and power that no man can match. In the story it took nine of the strongest men in Ireland to lift the man's club. Holding onto a club that heavy and powerful takes a special man (or woman) to harness that kind of strength.

 
    Milestones come and go in every person's life, sometimes we don't always realize what we achieve that changes the very course of your history and being. My two biggest milestones that hold a special place deep within me is surviving Meningitis and finding the strength to not only walk again but become far stronger than before. When you conquer something it doesn't matter if it's a PR in exercise or getting through a tough workout or even not in fitness, you made new headway in a sport, you got a major promotion in a company you love to work in; it applies to making yourself a better individual when you have the power to tower over what is blocking you. Hold onto those moments when something incredible happens because we don't get those moments everyday, they happen in certain points in your life that have a significance and everything happens for a reason.

 
    Get yourself a Club and swing yourself to power in the Dagda Program, learn to conquer not just lifting a heavy object but to learn to challenge your mind, create a strategy that will have you blasting sets/reps or whatever. Power and strength is within your grasp and don't ever let go of that power because not only is it yours but it is your duty to help others learn of its power so they can conquer their own goals and also you must protect it because only you have the power to conquer goals that are suited to you. Be a mighty warrior from within and bask in the glory of your own strength.

 
Be awesome everyone and keep kicking ass.

Take A Walk To Get Stronger

           Walking is the simplest thing in the world. You put one foot in front of the other and you’re off. Walking is both a mind and body tool. You can lose weight by walking, you can build great ideas from walking and you can get stronger both inside and outside from walking, walking while training is a powerful tool as well. A course called Muscle Reminders has one part on how to exercise as you walk. Another great tool is Lifeline USA’s PowR Walk Pro where you use cables for your arms as you walk an alternative to using little dumbbells. There’s always a way to make yourself strong as you walk.

            The one exercise I’ve been experimenting with lately is the farmer’s walk. This exercise consists of one or 2 objects that you pick up and start walking with whether it be kettlebells, dumbbells, gripping a sand bag in each hand or whatever. I like to use buckets because it’s cheap and easy to set up. You can get a bucket at just about any hardware store as big as you need it. I got my buckets at Wal-Mart for about 5 bucks each and they’re huge. I feel it up with water and a rock/stone I have around the yard. I get it set up and grip the handles then pick up and start walking around the yard. The weight comes out to 123 lbs. total and it’s brutal.

            To make the farmer’s walk more of a challenge, I use my Fat Gripz and attach each one to the handles. Now this makes things more brutal and it will get you breathing hard quick even more than if you just used the handles. Imagine picking up that much weight with the handles being thicker and needing to grip harder just to keep from dropping them. Some use a little pipe to attach and that’s great too if you want but I like the fat gripz because they’re available right there.

            Building mighty hands while walking is pretty bad ass in my book. This helps build your grip like crazy especially if you’re in sports or a weightlifter/strongman or whatever you’re into. Grip strength is essential for overall development and when you use thicker handles your body goes into overdrive and you can be breathing harder faster than usual. You don’t need weights but if you got em, go for it but using simple tools can also be beneficial and can cost you far less money and still get more bang for your buck. Take a walk on the wild side and utilize it to build strength, get in great condition and develop stamina like a madman. 

The Power Of Your Fingers

             What you may not realize is that your fingers have more strength and power in them than you can imagine. What most people do in training is they grip weight in a tight fist or lay down on a bench and lift with the hand slightly opened or they do most bodyweight exercises with an open hand or tight hand squeeze such as push-ups and pull-ups. When you train the fingers however, you're not just building your body, you're hitting a specific place at the same time.

            Our fingers are mostly in tuned with nerves, tendons and bone and the muscle is within the lower arm and the hands. When our brains construct the nerves to move our hands, it sends signals to billions of areas so we can use the hands to build things, lift, carry, throw and many other things. The strongest finger as far as I know is the thumb because it carries more padding and strength in the hand than any of the other fingers.

            When we build strength in our fingers, it helps carry over to other things we didn't think of before. Some don’t know this but I had spinal meningitis as a baby and because of this, my brain went haywire and had some damage somewhere and now I have trouble in some of the nerves in my body especially in my hands. I’m mostly left handed and have great dexterity in that hand plus have more strength on my left side but on my right side, I have trouble moving my right fingers individually. When I was little I used practically nothing but the left side of my body and my brain damage has caused me to think in ways I can't explain but that’s another story.

            Training your fingers in a totally different format can put a whole new perspective in the way you train. The next time you lift a barbell or dumbbell, try lifting with your fingers, it’s very different and very awkward but there’s a point to it. Instead of doing regular push-ups using your palms, do them on your fingers, it’s harder and requires more stability, balance and strength. I like to do animal type movements on my fingertips such as bear crawls and gorilla walks/jumps. I want to work my tendons more and be creative with it so I can do some of the strength feats I do. When you move or train the fingers more in your lifts or exercise you're building powerful grip strength, finger power and turn your fingers into eagle’s claws.

            When you become crazy strong working the fingers in certain lifts, you can lift most likely more weight using your fingers than the rest who use two hands. One of the strongest men that ever lived was Hermann Gorner who not only did great feats but accomplished some using only his fingers including his still world record of a one-finger deadlift of 727 lbs. Most men can't lift that much with two hands so you see, the fingers have more power in them than we give credit for.

            A favorite exercise of mine is doing fingertip push-ups, if you get good at using 10 fingers, you'll want to reduce more of them to add resistance. My best is using 4 fingers (2 of each hand) doing a few reps. I felt compelled to take it to another level. I've tried doing explosive push-ups where you come down and jump with enough power to have the hands leave the floor. What if I tried doing the same thing but on my fingertips? I did it and it was awesome, hurt a little but I kept at it and here’s a video to prove it.

            One of the upcoming strongmen today has some of the strongest fingers I've ever witnessed on film. His name is Matti Marzel of Ferocious Strength who’s done many feats using the fingers such as handstands, push-ups, pull-ups, v-sits, gymnastic bridge and plenty of others. These things have helped him make certain strength feats like a cakewalk such as tearing decks of cards, bending steel, ripping phonebooks, levering hammers and juggling kettlebells. If there ever was a man in the 21^st century who can teach you about finger training it’s this dude here. Build your fingers to create strength that most men can’t imagine and see where it carries to other things in your life. Shatter your personal records and build super strength using the power of your fingers. 

Thorsmithing? What The Hell Is That

               I know what you're thinking, you're thinking why I came up with a word that makes no sense and is not even in the dictionary, I made it up and it’s meaningless. That last part is wrong and I hate to break it to you there are far more dumbass words that are used more frequently that aren't in the dictionary. There is such a word and I’m going to prove it with my own theory and experience. So sit back and enjoy the ride my friends.

            The reason why I came up with the word Thorsmithing is because it’s in combination of a blacksmith and Thor. It is the power of hitting a Thor Hammer on a tire with one hand while imagining you're a blacksmith creating something. Now Blacksmiths were some of the strongest workers pound for pound, they’re grip were just unbelievable and had some of the strongest arms in that part of town. As a strongman, the hands are crucial to your success on the feats your perform whether it’s bending steel, tearing cards, levering sledgehammers, designing steel into shapes and even driving a nail through a board; all done by hands.

          

  Now imagine having a mighty grip, you pound that hammer into the tire and you’re imagining not creating some kind of metal in your imagination but imagining you're creating the type of body you want; strong arms, powerful shoulders, punch-proof abs, sturdy legs and keen eye coordination. It’s not as easy as it looks because after a while, one hand will get tired so you have to switch to the other and keep going until you feel you're done. Just like building a sword like a blacksmith as a Thorsmith, you're building your body one strike at a time and when you're done with a workout, you're one step closer to creating something from scratch and turning it into a staggering piece of beauty and strength.

            You will develop a crushing grip and be able to do things you normally wouldn't be able to. A blacksmith’s hammer weighs close to what no more than 3 pounds, now imagine striking with a hammer 4-5 times that size; your grip will be powerful and crazy strong. Possessing that kind of grip takes hard work but it also develops your character and harnesses your mind to create something from within to show on the outside.

            As you hit the tire, imagine you're in Asgard among the Norse Gods with a hammer that can shatter mountains, knock out frost giants in the blink of an eye and be lifted almost no man can. Bring yourself to the place where strength is infinite, the glowing passion of power within your grasp and be able to strengthen your body unlike anything you've ever done before, all within one strike at a time. Get a hold of your own Thor Hammer and become a Thorsmith, creating strength and super power in your very own hands. Oh My God; it’s so ludicrous it just might be possible.

An Epic Review

          

            This is a special treat because I rarely ever write reviews for a certain product so today you’ll get an un-cut and uncensored review of the Epic Sledgehammer from Stronger Grip. Granted in this review I will not hold back how I feel about this Hammer and why it is one of the most awesome tools in no nonsense grip strength and conditioning that it is not to be underestimated.

            When you have a Hammer of this size & power and you have it in your hands; it strikes into your very soul because its beauty is without equal and its strength is unmatched. There are many great tools in the world of strongman but like with Highlander, there can be only one that hits you with ferocity and the power to take you down if you don’t have the guts to withstand it.

            It is not to be underestimated. Sure it looks awesome and has a mystic to it that even the folk legend John Henry can smile about but at the same time, you will either be handle it or you won’t and if you can’t, you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself. People believe that to get strong you need weights or machines to do the work and slug off anything else that seems to extreme or not enough for them and I say bullshit. This one tool has the power to give you crushing grip that be used in many sports like Football, Baseball, Hockey, Golf, Wrestling, MMA you name it because when you strike it at a high volume or work it in different positions it tackles the mind more than anything else.

            I've held it in my hands and did quite a few exercises that don’t require a tire and I can tell you first hand it is brutal and your lower arm will get sore. It’s not a tool for just sports but to build that functional and enduring strength with a powerful grip, hand-eye coordination, lung capacity increase, shaping the body of a man with mighty tendons and super muscle. When you begin to train with this bad boy, your body will never be the same again. It takes effort to swing it, it takes to endure it and it strengthens your mind in ways most tools can’t. This Hammer is a tool of the gods that only one man has the guts to create and does it with style and class (and a bit of nerdyness) and that’s Ryan Pitts. He has built some of the most powerful tools in the world of grip strength and if Thor, Zeus and many of mythology’s famous gods were around today, they’d look to him to build the strength for the people and the strength that we all have within us.

            It is up to you if you have the guts to take on a challenge that could very well be the most fun and powerful challenge in your quest for physical strength.

Falling For The End-All Be-All Crap

             For the most part in fitness, you read in the magazine about this workout or in sports you hear about this or that way to throw, shoot or kick a ball but in the end it all boils down to the individual. We don’t have the same structures and our bodies handle things differently than others. That one size fits all bullshit is just getting you to pay up for their little schemes.

            Who can you trust when it comes to your goals? I like to believe that we can always use a coach, a friend, mentor or someone to show us the ropes. We learn and we get to see in action what is being done, however; once we learn a thing or two, it’s up to us to figure out how to put into action according to our own feeling and how we see things for ourselves. I have been trained by some of the strongest and athletic people in the world and learn a ton from them but I don’t always do things their way because if I did, I’d just be a guy that follows yet I rather build my own style from the things I learned from them.

            I've come to learn that there is never one way to do things. A lot of what we see today is generic and not very imaginative. You learn certain things and you get a feel for how they work for you. There is always something different and it’s important to understand that but not many accept it. I love certain methods like Hindu Style Conditioning, Animal Exercises, MovNat, Gymnastics and Grip Training for example but I don’t always go by what I’m told to do and for some it pisses them which I’m fine with. Once you get to a certain point in your training or whatever where you’ll begin to see things from a different perspective, some might see it very clearly right away for others it takes a while. You are one person, you don’t have the same strength as another, you don’t have the type of injuries or setbacks they've faced and you certainly don’t have the same capacity to try and keep up with them. The only thing you should keep up is yourself and what you want to go after.

            There’s always a challenge in training and in life no matter what. If everything were easy it be (in the words of Danny McBride in Your Highness) tedious and boring so find the right challenges for you and don’t try to compete with anybody else. Be creative and utilize what you have learned into forming your own personal quest and not following someone else’s. It can be demanding at times but it’s more rewarding when you set something apart from the general population. There are things I've seen friends do that I would never attempt to do but there are things that I can do that they can’t, that doesn't mean either one of us is better than the other, it just means that we have different views on our goals an we set them to what can be achieved just for us.

            If you have practiced a variety of methods, you’re on the right track to expanding your mind and learning how body handles itself in certain situations. If you just focus on one thing and that’s all you know and ever want to do more power to you but you’re also narrowing your mind set and you’re shrinking the plethora of knowledge that is out there. Some people are just full of themselves and think only their style is the best and everything else is crap. Be objective and expand your horizons. You’ll be surprised what you might find. 

Evolution Through Mythology

My Judo sensei once said to me, “a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or else what’s a heaven for?” He was telling me about his old training schedule, the weights he used to lift, and the body weight exercises his sensei would demand that he perform. I was awestruck, doing 500 pushups, or bodyweight squats in one day? At the time I could not conceive that such a thing could even be possible.

His Judo sensei was a member of the Iroquois nation of native peoples, and while they would train he would tell them the stories about mythical warrior Hiawatha. Hiawatha is said to have wrestled the unconquerable Bear of the West the gatekeeper to the realm of the dead to a draw. Hiawatha is supposed to been able to paddle a cannon with such ferocity that he could change the course of rivers, outrun day light so he could continue speaking with the spirits of the night, and shoot twenty arrows into the sky before the first one came back to touch the ground.

Was my Judo sensei actually supposed to believe that Hiawatha preformed such supernatural feats? Well, no, but also yes, within the appropriate context. His sensei was doing from him what the Iroquois elders did for the young up, and coming warrior-braves; inspiring them to forever keep their reach exceeding their grasp. By telling the stories of Hiawatha the young warrior-braves felt encouraged to test themselves over, and over again. They sought to become as fast as the wind, and as strong as a bear. Like Hiawatha, these represent subjective units of measure. How fast is the wind? How strong is a bear? How powerful is Hiawatha? The answer will always be faster, stronger, and more powerful than you are currently. So you must always seek to improve, be better, and achieve greater.

The heroes of mythologies are meant to spark something deep within us, to light a fire that we could use to courageously explore the depth of our souls, and inner recesses of our minds. As we immerge from our own dark psychic forest, we return from what Joseph Campbell termed the “hero’s journey”, and we now have been remade more in the image what we individually believe heroic to be. These heroes are symbols and as such are mutable. They can be changed to fit societal needs, but still represent the values deemed virtuous by an entire collective, and heritage of peoples.

In my own studies of mythologies, I began perhaps intuitively, to feel as if the writers of these sagas where speaking not only across time, but speaking to more than just ancient superstitions. I started to see a deep, if not hidden wisdom within the stories. Thor’s magic glove which translates to “Iron Grip”, and his belt which literally means “earth’s power”, are what enabled him to wield his famous hammer. In order for a man to be mighty like Thor, he would need to train his hands into possessing a vice-like grip, and obtain a well develop lower back, and legs. In reading the works of old-time strongmen I found this confirmed many times. The key to superhuman strength is found in grip strength straining, and focusing on heavy lifting exercises such as dead lifting, squats, and swings.

What transpired next was an immersive study into the mythologies, and hero legends from around the world. This was the impetus of Heroic Evolution and its strength training programs.

However I wanted not only to share quality strength training, but also to promote the qualities of having good character, or at least an examined character. What is the purpose of being strong in the first place? That is a question that has a dizzying amount of potential responses, and is for the trainee to explore for themselves if they wish, and certainly worthwhile if they do.

The stories of heroes like Hiawatha, or even King Arthur, set forth a code of conduct, as well as I believe, contain physical training protocol that where meant to be discovered by young members of different warrior societies. These stories are laced with clues in not only how to get strong, tough, and fast, but also what to do with that formidability in their society, and how to act appropriately.

Embodying one of these mythological heroes is a life changing process. The hero exists only inside you, and to go within to find them is actually to find your greater potential. The exploits of the hero can never be matched; but the hero doesn’t care, as the point is that you attempt. It is in the fierce attempts at the impossible that we discover just how amazing we can be. The hero can’t ever judge you, and thereby this places all the responsibility back on you. How do you feel about your efforts? Do you feel you are meant for something greater? Do you believe you can, or should, do better in whatever endeavor you have chosen? 

Your answer to these questions can be sobering indeed.

Mythologies allow us to glimpse into our own lives, the roles we, and those around us fill. We all live out a certain “personal” mythology whether we are conscious of it, or not. The simple truth of the matter is that if we don’t like the story we are living we need to change it. The strength to change it comes through becoming our own greatest hero, by moving past our own perceived limitations, and reaching into our infinite potential to grasp at something we never dreamed we were capable of until we found the courage to try.

-Kevin Wikse

www.heroicevolution.com

Grip Your Way To Power

            You are one powerful human being; we all are in one form or another. We have certain strengths, weaknesses and we find some way to use a talent we posses. A lot of what we do physically contains within our hands. Our hands are the very essence of what we create. Grip Strength is one of the most important foundations a man or woman should posses. Being able to handle groceries, carry your kid, defend your family or if you’re a sports athlete, your hands are the very foundation of your talent; can’t shoot a basketball, throw a football, swing a bat or coordinate a hockey stick without having good solid hands. You can have very powerful hands not just in crushing strength but many other ways.

            One of the best ways to develop superhuman grip strength is increasing the strength in your tendons and ligaments. How many injuries can you count where an athlete or the average person had to wear a brace on their wrist because of a tendon pull or break? A form of training called Partials where you only lift a short distance is one of the most fun and brutal ways to increase your tendon power. Think of lifting a weight you could never imagine hitting at full range; you can almost have twice as much strength to lift at short range. This not only builds dense muscle but take your tendons into the stratosphere.

            In combat/contact sports, you must find a way to take down an opponent whether you’re a football player or even a MMA athlete, your grip can change the very facet of the match and it either make your or break within less than a few seconds. You’re on the defensive line in football and a running back or a receiver has got his hands on the ball, if you have strong hands, you can take him down and squeeze the very life out of him and he’ll think twice of getting in your path. You’re in a fight against a great Mixed Martial Artist or Wrestler, he’s fast, he’s agile and knows how to slip out of holds, but you have some mighty mitts and you end up one way or another getting him in a lock or have a good hold on him for a takedown. You have him in your grasp, you put your heart into this fight and you even put in the time to train your grip to the core, you get a hold on him, he has no choice but to tap out, he can’t fathom how strong and supple your hands are on him. Want strong hands, you’re going to have to build them.

            You are one strong person my friend but it’s important to continue getting stronger. Like lifting weights, use fat gripz for your upper body movements like pulls, presses, curls, cleans, snatches anything that you can put your hands on, even pull-ups, these will make your hands super strong. One type of implement that will take your grip to a new level is sledgehammers, think of the old-time laborers and how powerful their hands were doing hours of taking out rock and stone with a heavy hammer, think of being Thor and tackling the frost giants with thunderous power and superhuman strength. Build your eagle claws by doing exercises on your fingertips like push-ups, pull-ups and even Animal Exercises; think about that, being able to walk in the steps of a big and powerful bear or the super strong gorilla on your fingertips, that will build tendon strength like an extreme few can ever be done.

            How would you feel if you had the grip power to knock home runs, bend steel, tear decks of cards in half and destroy your competition on the gridiron taking down fast runners and receivers and even taking out the quarterback? Your grip will be a major factor whether you realize it or not and the stronger you make your grip, chances are the stronger your entire body will be. Our hands are not just these little bitty muscles and tendons; they are one of the most powerful energy sources in the human body. Create energy in your hands and you’ll see how powerful you can be. Stay hungry my friends and be strong and smart.

You Are Your Best Trainer

            Over the last 8 years or so since I've succumbed to the Physical Culture bug, one thing has stretched in my mind more than anything else in my search for great training and that’s being your own best personal trainer. What does that mean being your own trainer? Simple really, it’s not allowing those who tell you to do something and go with creating your own way of training, being self-reliant. It’s not very easy to do because there is so much info out there that you don’t know what works and what doesn't.

          We have a plethora of programs to choose from, like bodybuilding, strongman, 8 days a week, the super programs of crossfit, the next gadget in the infomercials, how to build bigger arms, getting 12 pack abs, grip strength you catch my drift. The secret is finding what works for you. Experiment, do different programs at the same time, piss off the establishment who don’t know a lift even if they had a gun to their head (exaggeration I know but it’s a good metaphor though). Those who try to tell you what’s superior, what’s the coolest trend, how to build a program that has nothing to do with your progression; they’re the ones who keep you from making something of yourself on your own. Trust your instincts, be bold and question things.

            Nobody really just trains and has fun anymore, to quote the joker “why so serious?” We pay to go to the gym and do all these crazy programs and eventually after a few weeks we just give up and quit. It’s not how hard you push yourself, its how much fun to do something you love to do. If you don’t love training but just keep running through the motions, sure it’s better than nothing but you won’t find the results you want. Train and have fun with it, focus on what you want, use your imagination and create something for yourself. Yes I believe if you have a goal you should be focused on it, be determined and willing to go beyond it and strive to excel at your challenges but don’t become a mean asshole to get there, play a little and make it an adventure.

            There’s always someone that follows specific programs and for some it’s the end-all-be-all for others it’s temporary and the rest think outside the box. Mix things up, draw outside the lines. Here’s an example, I’ve learned from many different guys and even some women and yet I don’t worship their craft and take all of them as a god/goddess of the fitness world. I respect what they do but I don’t agree on everything they do, if you agree with everything then you might as well not have a brain of your own. I love some of these people, some as if they’re my family but I also love being creative. I take chunks out of their craft and mold it into my own thing, kind of like Michelangelo carving out David; I take chunks of concrete to create a masterpiece.

            Love what you do, be creative, feel what you want to do. Think outside the box, be weird, be a dork whatever you are who you are and should train according to who you are as a person. Be safe but don’t be lazy, progress at your own pace and train smart. If you happen to get hurt, then you need to change things around and don’t ever stop learning. Think and Grow because eventually, you’ll find something someone doesn’t like or does but only you will love it the way it is and no one can take it away from you. That’s the heart of being your own trainer. 

The Stronger Your Grip Is, The Stronger You’ll Be

           Why is grip strength so important? It’s essential to our everyday lives and not just for training or getting in a good forearm workout but it has the ability to save a life or help someone in need. A surgeon needs his hands to construct, repair or save another person’s life, a massage therapist needs strong and supple hands, an athlete needs strong hands to throw a ball or tackle someone, even in soccer at one point you need to throw the ball out into the field to get the best advantage of scoring a goal. A parent has to have some strength in their hands to carry groceries, help keep their baby up, play with them and so on. Catch my drift here?

            Your grip is a major key and I’ll get into different types of grip strength in a second but let me point a few things out. In the world of the strongman, your grip cannot be neglected because if you’re going a specific feat of strength, the majority of the time you’re going to be using your hands. You can’t bend steel if your grip isn't up to par, you can have strong wrists but you need to keep a lock on a bar a spike, if you’re Ryan Pitts at Stronger Grip you can’t swing another human being on his human swing set without having a solid grip and if you’re like Dennis Rogers, there’s no way in hell you can lift a fridge with one finger without training your grip. Now the majority of us aren't strongmen or a specific athlete or really big with genetic gifts of strength; most of us don’t realize how important our grip is, to hold onto a child, to carry a gurney to put in the ambulance to take someone to the hospital, to rescue someone from a burning building, to fight in combat as a soldier. The stronger your grip is, the stronger you’ll be.

            There are different types of grip strength; there’s pinch gripping which is having that alligator type snap, crushing strength like from grippers and thick bar lifts or using fat gripz, working the fingers like fingertip push-ups, twisting strength, working the wrists, playing an instrument like playing the piano or guitar hell even the drums, for carpentry you need precision and accuracy in your hands to build and carve things and also lifting something like the blob; there are many ways to develop your grip but focus on the ones that geared toward a specific goal. The more you focus on a particular type of grip strength, certain things fall into place where your whole body becomes apart of the exercise. A lot of people think isolating the lower arm will make them stronger, which is true in certain cases but when you engage your whole body as you focus on the lower arm, bigger things arise like your conditioning, strength in other place, muscles being used that aren't normally used. Think of Arm Wrestling, its not just slamming another guys arm down, it’s a full body effort.

            Mighty hands build mighty things period. A key thing to remember is to focus on the tendons and ligaments when you’re training your grip, this is where it’s most neglected because people mostly focus on the muscles and only do half the work. The more you focus on the tendons the more you realize that’s where your strength falls into place and will prevent you from getting injured. Using different implements like Sledgehammers for example to strengthen the tendons will help you succeed in your life. The most common injuries in sports and the work place are torn tendons/ligaments and carpal tunnel, you can prevent these if you focus on your tendons. Isometrics work very well with this because it gives your body the maximal effort without moving a single muscle. Steve Justa makes this very clear and it keeps things in perspective. Make it a habit to include grip strength in your training and you’ll see how much stronger your body will become just adding a good amount of tendon work. 

A Powerful Grip Goes A Long Way

         The joy of having a strong grip is a lot to have. Many opportunities arise when your grip can handle many things like carrying groceries, helping someone move, twisting off a tough jar, climbing, carry someone and holding onto them so why not develop a mighty grip? It’s a lot of fun because our hands were meant to be strong for the things we need to have in our lives. The stronger our lower arm is, essentially the stronger our whole body is. It’s not just a pump you get in the gym or squeezing someone’s hand.

            Most people who start out with developing anything, get all excited and can’t wait to jump in but as they move along, most of the time get really bored and don’t want to progress any further or they just keep up the same old crappy routine and never make any headway. It’s all about the three P’s; Pacing, Progressing and Patience. We start out weak in some area or another so we begin with the simplest things plays around with them, we progress in order to advance ourselves. Don’t just push yourself all the time, pace yourself; do a little more each time. It’s the journey, not the destination that is the key; the smallest things can have the biggest impact. Be patient, if you get stuck somehow, find a solution, change things up and use your imagination to get better. We all have different ways of progressing, some are faster than others but we share a common goal and that’s getting better. It’s like math; you don’t start out with calculus right? We start with Arithmetic and work our way up, same thing developing your grip strength.

            One of the greatest modern Physical Culture authors Brooks Kubik said to Master your exercises. Doesn't matter what you’re shooting for but to progress with the best intentions, you must master what you want to develop. For grip strength, you don’t need to master a million things; you just need to focus on a few things. Do no more than 3-4 things to master because this helps you focus on what you can do to progress to a higher level whether it’s adding sets/reps or advance to a more difficult exercise. For me as an example with my Thor Hammer, I started out just lifting up, down and side to side. Next progression, slamming it with a tire 1000+ times often, next one was pressing it up using only the ball of the hammer, after that was juggling and flipping it. There’s more to progress to but you get my drift. It doesn't have to be a hammer, you can add in Fat Gripz onto your barbells and dumbbells to make your exercises harder, the effect is much different when you curl a 40 lb. dumbbell the regular way, slap on a Fat Grip, you’re in a whole new world of lifting my friend.

            Some of the strongest men in the world don’t always have the biggest hands. Yes big hands give a distinct advantage and that’s awesome if you have them but there are some of us who don’t have that luxury. Don’t fret though, there’s still hope and don’t ever let it stop you from chasing your dream from having strong hands. Want an example; Dennis Rogers is one of the strongest men pound for pound ever yet he’s no more than 5’8 and weighs no more than 170 yet he’s been able to do things most men twice his size can’t even fathom. He was also a champion arm wrestler at a point in his life and took down some of the best there was and some of them were far bigger than he was. So you see, there’s no excuse for you, you have the power to have some mighty mitts and you can have them if you want them bad enough. Train with intent, think big, think powerful, use your imagination and make it happen for you. Grip strength is very important, it can even save someone’s life, think about that. Don’t ever give up chasing your dream, don’t just chase it, thrust through and take a chance. It’s within reach, go get 

Why Old School Is Superior

             Back in the old days of the early 20^th century, you had workers in mining towns, quarries and other places where things needed to be dug up, barreled out and transport heavy equipment or rock/stone that weighed more than you can imagine. These men were extremely strong from this back-breaking work and can topple just about any modern strength athlete today. You want to talk about hard times, try being underground for 10-12 hours a day, cutting, toppling and carrying out rock, stone and coal for a living. It’s a point to learn what real strength is like.

            In my opinion Blacksmiths are some of the most underrated artists in their profession. There are paintings in Paris that are as beautiful as a smoking hot woman but when you assemble a weapon or a crafting tool by your very own hands, the labor, the grip strength, the mind and precision is just off the charts. Blacksmiths are very rare today because you have machines that cut down the object making to a 1/3 of the time. These guys were very good at what they did and the strength of their hands was second to none. I wouldn't doubt some of those guys would be able to bend tough steel or crush your hand by shaking it or squeezing it. There’s a lot we can learn from them.

            If there was the type of athlete we should strive to learn from is that of the ancient athletes of the remote past especially the original Olympic athletes of Greece and Rome long before the modern games came into play. You had guys that can most likely destroy athletes of today. In India, wrestlers were the best soldiers the old empire had because of the discipline, the conditioning and the level of strength that came when they were called upon for war. Milo of Croton would lift and carry a calf everyday, as the calf got older and bigger, Milo would still pick it up and carry him on his shoulders, when the calf matured into a full-size bull, Milo was still at it carrying this massive animal. This was one of the first documented ways to progress to a heavier weight. In the middle ages, you had to be tough as a knight because of the armor you wore was pretty damn heavy and still had to have precise accuracy and strength to fight in battle.

            How can we learn and use to create certain methods for old school strength and fitness? For starters, want to get an idea of what it’s like to work in a rock Quarry, get a tire and a sledgehammer and hit that tire for as long as you can. To simulate moving and carry something heavy, lift odd objects and/or sandbags and carry them a certain distance. Learn the ancient traditions of Indian Wrestling by swinging the Clubs and the Mace, when you’re doing them right you’re carrying on a legacy that has lasted for centuries. Don’t have equipment, learn how to handle your body in awkward positions by moving like an animal in the wild, or learn how to use natural movements that the very first men had to learn; sprinting, jumping, crawling, lifting/carrying kind of like moving like Tarzan. Push-ups and Squats are great foundational movements if you’re in a closed-in space or learn how to handle your body similar to a gymnast or wrestler. These modern fads in fitness today really cannot compare to those who actually had to bust their ass back in the day, training can be fun as I've always emphasized but to really get to what you want, it’s training hard and smart that gets you the best results. 

Forearm Development

          

             One of the most neglected part of the body is the lower arm. If you trained it well you have developed a powerful grip, strong tendons and your lifts can become much easier to handle. Developing the forearm can be done in many ways but not always what you think. In the magazines you see the wrist curls and reverse wrist curls and that’s just about it. Bodybuilders pump up the muscle to make it look bigger but in the end that’s all it is a pump. In the world of old school physical culture however you can develop the lower arm in ways that make bodybuilders look like little chumps.

            There are a lot of ways to get a strong and developed forearm and some of them have nothing to with isolating the muscle. Want to develop a powerful grip, work your hands in different ways like Fingertip Push-ups, Bending Steel, picking up Odd Objects and moving Partial Lifting. For Bodyweight type training, work your fingers in different exercises like pull-ups, chin-ups, Isometrics pulls and pressing into walls all of these work the lower arm like crazy. Some people like using grippers (and I’m not talking about those dumb little colored ones that has 5 pounds of pressure) which you can close for a number of reps but one of the things I've experimented with is just closing and holding it locked. If you can close the trainer/#1/#2 relatively easily it can get boring just repping it out all the time, instead, close it and see how long you can last, developing that crushing strength in a different way.

            An important look at how the forearm is developed is not always through Muscle Building. Just doing that alone is just a closed minded way to build your body and you can only build so much muscle till you get injured. However, if you work the tendons and ligaments of the hands, wrists and elbows, you’re building strength in a way that makes you more powerful and far stronger in the long run. Arm Wrestling Training really works well for forearm development because you’re building on tendon power as well as muscle. When you train in this manner, work on high repetitions somewhere up to 50 reps per arm per set. The stronger your tendons are, the stronger you will be.

            One last thing to look at for building a super strong lower arm is to use a thick bar, this puts more stress on the lower arm because you have to grip hard enough to hold on to it. Thick bars make you work far harder than a regular bar. Say you’re doing a bench press with a weight that you can do 10 good reps with a regular bar, put in a thick bar with the same weight; your reps will be cut down to about half the amount. Since thick bars are very expensive, there’s another way to make a bar thicker, grab yourself some Fat Gripz. These babies you can take to any gym and put on any normal bar or dumbbell, you can even put them on your in-home pull-up bar whatever you’d like to do to make it a little more challenging.

            With Fat Gripz and the way you train hard, you can build up more natural growth hormone and develop muscle and strength at a more rapid rate because the more of the muscle fibers break down, the more muscle gets developed and because you’re working the body at a different pace and difficulty, your strength grows later on as well. I love building strength in my grip and its fun doing something that’s out of the norm and you develop muscle an strength in a way most will never get. Take your time and remember, even Popeye wasn't born with those big forearms; he had to develop them someway. These are just ideas to give you a sense of how to create your own style of forearm development and help you achieve a level of strength that’s just insane.