Running and grip strength. Can training for an obstacle course race be as simple as working on those two things? Well probably not, but these are two big areas that many still struggle with.
I remember as a kid joking with friends about man strength or dad strength. This was the idea that no matter how strong you were, once you had kids, all of a sudden you develop this freakish strength. And it revolved around grip.
In reality, it probably was just that we were small and when we would shake our friends’ dad’s hand, it would feel like a vice grip. But who knows, maybe my grip has improved since having kids of my own now.
The truth is there are many grip related obstacles you will see in a race, and many will continue to struggle with them. So here are some essential points you will want to consider if you are tired of failing these types of challenges or just want more confidence going in.
There are two key areas that should be obvious, but have to be stated. First, if you are overweight or not at your ideal body composition, this should be your focus. Not that you can’t work on your grip too, but what will get you through something like monkey bars easier. Doing a few grip exercises or losing 20lbs?
Dropping weight will make all of these obstacles, including running, seem effortless. So start using your energy to find ways to drop the unneeded body fat.
The other point is to just get strong. I know this if vague, but start by getting stronger than you are right now. And by strong I mean at bigger total body movements. For example, deadlifting, squatting, pushing, and pulling. These major movement will help your body be functionally strong. Stronger to work as a single unit.
Your body does not want to work in isolation. So simply working on grip strength only is incredibly limited. It is like trying to drive with the emergency brake on. Sure you may move, but why not just release the break. Start working on getting strong overall. Guess what happens when you get stronger at things like deadlifts and pull ups? You got it. Your grip will start to get better.
Ok now that we got that out of the way, I know you are looking for the money exercises that are going to build your grip strength. But not so fast. What type of grip strength are you trying to improve?
We generally see grip broken down into 3 areas. This includes crush strength, pinch strength, and support strength.
Crush Strength:
This is the type of strength you use when trying to crush someone’s hand during a handshake. This is essentially the strength you have between your fingers and palm. This type of grip comes in handy when trying to squeeze something tight like a bar or handles.
Pinch Strength:
This is the type of strength you have between your 4 fingers and your thumb. This is usually incredibly strong with rock climbers. The ability to pinch something may save you from falling off obstacles like the Z wall for example.
Support Strength:
This final type of grip strength involves you ability to hold onto something or hang from something. This is wear most traditional grip exercises fall. This type of grip will be trained during farmers carries or monkey bars.
Now you may use one of these types of grips more than others during a race, but they are all important and they will all need to be trained. You may struggle with one type more than others. This is important to see. If this is the case you will want to spend some extra time where you are weaker.
It is time consuming to train all of the different types of grip all the time. And over training often leads to issues like elbow pain. So plan out your grip training appropriately. You may do support exercises one day and pinch exercises another. Just don’t over do it.
Many of the different types of grip strength strategies will overlap too. For example, when going through the monkey bars you may need work on both support and crush grip to help you out. So you may want to incorporate exercises that train different areas at the same time. This will be a much more effecient way to incorporate it into your training.
With this in mind, here are my top three go to grip training exercises.
Bottoms Ups Carries or Holds
Simply holding a kettlebell upside down does incredible things for your grip. One of the most important things is it will reveal any major asymmetries. Try a weight with your dominant hand and see how it compares to your nondominant. You will be shocked at the difference. This is a great place to start your training. Simply hold the weight or go for a walk.
Plate Pinch Rows Or Lunges
These are just two examples, but if you are already doing lunges or rows, try using a pinch grip to change it up. You get the benefit of the traditional exercise with the added grip work. Yes you may not be able to hold as much weight here, but it is still a great addition to work on your weakest link.
Sandbag Squat With Pressout
This may not look like a grip drill, but when you do it right you will see why. First, this is a great drill to clean up your squat. But if we just look at the grip component, crushing a sandbag during an exercise is a great addition to it. With this drill you will squeeze the bag, but also you will pretend like you are going to rip it apart. You won’t need much weight to feel this one.
While it is hard to narrow it down to just three, I feel these three get a lot done in just one exercise. They aren’t only training your grip, but they will definitely improve it, plus other things too. Give these a try and see how they help with your grip work.
These drills are really just scratching the surface on all you can do for your grip training. There is so much more I want to show you about grip training, but I can’t fit it all in one post. So to help you out I created a free course. The Essentials In OCR Grip Training is FREE online program filled with 11 modules of videos and lessons to show you exactly all of the steps you need to develop bone crushing grip and never fail another grip related obstacle.
To get access to your free training click on the link below to get started.
