Why Is Good Grip Strength So Important?

Lots of guys in the gym don't spend very much time on their forearms and on their grip. It's an overlooked area, but it shouldn't be, because it can have a huge effect on how successful or not your training sessions are. With good grip strength, you can more completely and successfully train the rest of your muscles, and to get that strength, you need the right kinds of grip strength exercise to help you get the job done.
 
The Importance of Good Grip Strength
 
Good grip strength is important for a variety of different reasons. And no, crossing your arms and seeing nice, big forearms, or offering up a great, firm handshake, aren't the primary reasons. Instead, grip strength is so important because whether you know it or not, it's coming into play during all of your workouts.
 
It can be holding you back because you might find yourself unable to hold that weight, literally, because of your grip. If you can't use heavy weights, or use them for enough repetitions to adequately train your major muscle groups, then you're stopping short on your sets and the muscles you're targeting aren't even getting trained. Your body is forcing you to stop and you didn't get done what you needed to do.
 
Times When You Need More Grip
 
There are many different exercises where you really need good grip strength in order to complete the movement to the best of your ability. One of the greatest examples is the deadlift, where you have to pick up and hold that heavy barbell in your hands with weights heavy enough to effectively target your quads, hamstrings, glutes, lower back, and core. When your grip fails here, you can't use enough weight or perform enough reps to really get the job done, and it's a problem that will hold you back in your training.
 
Another great example is the pull-up, once again your grip can give out here and leave you unable to complete more repetitions even though the muscles you actually want to be targeting haven't even tired out yet. It's a major problem, and it's one that most people don't even realize that they have, and therefore bypass instead of working on immediately.
 
Grip Strength Exercise For Better Grip
 
The good news is that there is a grip strength exercise out there that will be perfect for you. One of the best is the farmer's walk, which is designed for nothing else besides good grip strength. Hold a pair of heavy dumbbells and walk around in an open space for as long as you can, using a weight that you can hold for about 60 seconds before your grip gives out.
 
 
Good grip strength is often what separates the really fit from others who are only average and are struggling to move beyond plateaus and achieve their objectives. It's certainly useful for more than just an impressive, firm handshake.

Instead, it's the key to making sure you can perform all of your exercises in the right way. To make sure that you have good hand strength and don't fall short because of your grip, use the links and resources below to give yourself an edge.

By: AaronM

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I'm Aaron McCloud and I run Complete Strength Training, a site devoted to providing quality information about strength training. Go there to get more info about hand grip exercise. - Copyright: You may freely republish this article, provided the text, author credit, active links, and this copyright notice remain intact.