AUTOGRAPHS

8 Great Exercises for Building Your Forearms

The direct forearm grip training is something that is not all that common for the power lifters in the gym.  It is nothing fancy, but what it is, is hard work.  And yes, it does take away some time for the more viewable body parts and the training it takes to get the biggest and best results can be downright excruciating.

So if I have not deterred you by the first paragraph and you are still seeking those rock hard forearms with unbelievable strength, then I have your attention and I know you are serious about forearm strength and getting the grip strength you need.  Now let’s get goin.

Your grip strength is extremely important and useful in so many ways.  The stronger your grip, the more weight and heavier weight you can lift and the longer you can keep the position.  In a good portion of the more heavy pulling exercises, grip strength is the number one limiting factor.  Getting the thick, bulky forearm is a great physique enhancement and quite often, the forearms are your only visible.

Something I had discovered is that the most effective forearm grip exercises are not the typical wrist curls you will see the power lifters do.  Of course you get a good pump and burn when doing the wrist curls, but think about it from this position;  how practical are they really in real life gripping?

The following are the exercises, techniques and tips that are everything combined with the practicality that makes common sense.

Bucket Of Sand:  Get a bucket and playground sand, which you can find at a home improvement store for little investment.  Fill the bucket with the sand.  Then, you want to put your hand down far into the sand where you still have hand movement.  Start moving your hand all over and tightening and loosening your fingers, essentially playing with the sand.

A few minutes of this and your will feel all the muscles in your forearm and the small muscles in your hand start to tighten and you will feel the burn.  Alternate hands a few times, doing this about 3 minutes or more per hand.

Tennis Ball:  This method is often used by physical therapist and their patients for regaining grip strength after any type of hand, arm or shoulder surgery.  Common sense will tell you that if you are not trying to “regain” strength, you would be adding to the already existing strength you have.  Gordie Howe, one of the biggest Hocky legends used to do this constantly and he had some of the strongest forearms ever seen.  This is convenient as well because you can do it while watching tv.

Barbell:  This is fairly simple too.  Take your barbell with a moderate weight and set it on the stand just above knee level.  Stand beside the bar and reach down gripping the center of the bar with one hand and lift the bar then let it go down below the stand and hold this position for as long as you can.  Your resistance is gravity and balancing the bar with one hand.

Weight Walk:  Grab a pair of the heaviest dumbbells you can handle in each hand and walk with them until you cannot hold the dumbbells anymore.  You don’t have to limit yourself to dumbbells, you can use any other heavy object that you can grip with both hands at the same time, say a couple of bags of dog food or something heavier in each hand.  You can also use the EZ curl bars and load them up to the capacity that you can handle.

Thick Bar:  This is not something that is very secretive, as you will notice from your competitors; most power lifters use this to get the grip strength they are looking for.  Using a thicker bar puts a very different kind of stress on the grip and forearms, giving you vast improvement.  There are many types of commercial grips that you can buy to add to your dumbbells even, but to make them thicker, you can wrap them with tape to gain the thickest size for your preference. 

Reverse Curls:  These are actual reverse barbell curls.  This will strike the forearms very strongly and when your arms and grip start to fatigue, your grip is literally the only thing keeping the bar from falling to the floor.
Wrist Straps:  I am only including this because this is a huge no-no when you are trying to develop your natural grip strength.  As you know, the wrist straps serve as an assistant and this will hinder any progress you might be shooting for.  It is okay to use them for the heavier lifts, but if you become dependent on them, you will not gain the grip strength and forearm development that you want.

Hanging:  This sounds easy right?   Well as far as actually doing the exercise, it is easy to understand, but completing it is less than easy.  You can really only accomplish this as long as you have a chin-up bar.  Grab the bar with your hands evenly apart and just hang there until you can no longer hang there.  What I mean is not just letting go when your hands get fatigued.  I am talking about hanging there until your fingertips are the only thing holding you up and you literally fall off the bar because your hands have locked up with lactic acid.  This will also accomplish a great upper body stretch.

All of these exercises are very simple to do, so you have no excuse not to work on that forearm and grip strength to get the results you desire.

About the Author

Dane Fletcher is the world’s most prolific bodybuilding and fitness expert and is currently the executive editor for BodybuildingToday.com. If you are looking for more bodybuilding tips or information on weight training, or supplementation, please visit www.BodybuildingToday.com, the bodybuilding and fitness authority site with hundreds of articles available FREE to help you meet your goals.

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