I’ve said for years that Grip Training is one of the most important types of training that most people are either NOT DOING or NOT DOING RIGHT.

Grip Training Benefits

Sports Performance

A Strong Grip helps you perform better in sports by being able to hold onto the ball, bat, or your opponent better. Athletes in all sports need to be strong from the elbow down in order to maximize their play.

Strength Training

A Strong Grip also helps you improve your numbers on lifts where the hands are involved, even the Bench Press. By having a firm grasp on the bar, it helps you engage your upper body in the lift much better while also increasing your confidence in the lift, knowing you are going to dominate it with no problem.

Lower Arm Health

Finally, Strong Hands and Forearms are Safer Hands and Forearms. What I mean by that is when you have put in the work to strengthen everything from the elbow down in a balanced fashion, it makes you much more injury-resistant. You are able to take more bumps without having to worry about breaking something and you’re able to give more bumps without having to hold back.

The issue with all this is, how do you get started?

Well, here is one of the things I first began doing when starting out in Grip Training – Face-offs.

DIESEL FACE-OFFS – Team Setting

What most DIESEL FACEOFFS used to look like back in the day
Lots of trash-talking and gesturing

This might just be the simplest Grip Training exercise to perform ever.

All you do is load a bar up with some weight, pick it up off the pins, and hold it for time without touching it against your thigh.

I started doing this when Diesel Crew first learned about Grip Training and the way we first did it was by positioning one person at either end of the bar at a time and we then stared each other down until the other person dropped it.

Naturally, I always won, except for the time I ran my hand through my sweaty-ass hair prior to gripping the bar sleeve. I lifted it up and the thing ripped violently out of my hand, feeling like a giant rubber band had been pulled to its capacity and then let go inside my palm and fingers. My hand hurt for days and I could not close even a #1 Gripper for a couple of weeks.

SO DON’T DO THAT!!!! If you try this movement and one guy is so far ahead of the other people on the team, just load his side of the bar up heavier instead of wetting the hand to make it tougher.

If you are a strength coach and you want to build some excitement and competition into your strength training sessions, the Face-off is a great way to do it.

Just as the image above shows, the guys who truly think they are bad-asses will step up to the challenge.

There will be challenges made. There will be shouting. Guys will try to out-do one another. It will be intense and players will get stronger.

If you have a sizable strength training area for your team, you can set-up multiple Face-Offs at various cages, or just simply load bars up in the open areas and have them pick them up from the floor.

Face-offs can also be instituted as part of a series of lifts or a circuit.

DIESEL FACE-OFFS – Training Alone

However, I also know that many people reading this article, like myself, do not have others to train with, and they are down there hitting it hard solo.

That doesn’t mean you have to let simple exercises like this just slip by. Here is how you do it by yourself.

Start out by setting the bar up in a squat cage with one of the pins slightly lower than the other. On my set-up, I just go one hole down, but if your holes are really close together, set it up so the difference is about 3 to 5 inches.

The reason for off-setting the pins in this fashion is so you can have a challenge when training alone. Setting it up like this does that for you. However, if you just set the pins up evenly and lift one side of the bar up, it will be too easy.

From there, load up the bar. You don’t need to load both sides evenly. You can have just 45-lbs on the higher side and then 90- or 135-lbs on the other side.

Next, all you have to do is pick up the lower, heavier side and hold it for time.

Remember, Grip Training does not have to be super-complicated, but some people try to make it like that.

Bring the hand strength up and the rest of your lifts with come up too.

And if you need more help with the hand strength, then join The Grip Authority. With an unbelievable list of Grip Strength topics already covered and many more to come each and every month, it is an absolute travesty that it only costs $7 to join.

I will get you to your goals. All you have to do is join and work with me.

The Grip Authority < = Kah Kuah! Check it out right now and by the end of the day you will be blown away by the knowledge you pick up. There is no site like this on the NET. Don’t wait for everything to “feel right.”

MAKE it a GREAT day RIGHT NOW.

Jedd

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Tags: athletic training, grip for sports, grip strength, grip training, strength coach resources

This entry was posted on Monday, January 3rd, 2011 at 11:48 am and is filed under athletic strength training lift odd objects, grip strength, strength training muscle building workouts, strength training to improve athletic performance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.