Anyone else really into forearm and grip exercises ?

[chingaling]

I’m older than most of yall at 52. I’ve been in the game since the age of 25 Ish. Was doing TRT Way before it was cool. Curious if anyone is really into grip exercises and foreign work like I am. Powerful forearms makes a big statement if you ask me. Send a good message. I do a lot of reverse curls and I’m loving standing a rubber dumbbell on its head, chalking up the hands and just gripping them by the smooth side and walking around the gym.
I try to do dedicated forarm and grip workouts about twice a week. It’s funny a guy at work was talking randomly about people you don’t mess with and he said that’s one of the first thing he looks at is forearms. It does make a statement so start incorporating it and let me know how you like it .

 

[dfresh333]

They were awesome. Plate pinches, reverse curls, hammer curls, behind the back wrist rolls, seated wrist rolls, towel pull-ups. But for me it all lead to the worst tendonitis where I couldnt even hold my phone to my ear or brush my teeth.

 

[buck]

Back in the 70's i found wrist rollers were much more common then now. Had one at my high school gym. When i wanted to build my forearms once i joined a gym i targeted them just like other part. Hammer curls, 200 lb wrist curls, reverse curls etc. But that was long ago. Now that i am old i started working them again as they were shrinking more then i wanted. I do some work for them though out the day to get the volume up. Keep some grippers next to the PC. They can handle a lot of work just like calves i find.

 

[dieselbuilder]

From 2007-2013 I trained a lot of grip with IronMind equipment and I did some nail bending. I got into BJJ in 2011 and it really came in handy… as did my neck training lol.

Anyway yea I really enjoyed grip training and I maintain it pretty well from what I do. Now my fingers are pretty destroyed from BJJ so idk if I can get back to it but I do miss it.

And the first thing I look at are peoples ears but forearms are a good way.. ears are more indicative of mat time imo

 

[TheOtherOne55]

im still a fan of Iron Mind stuff. Still have the CoC#1 and 1.5 laying around that i do at random times during the day. Back in the day i worked up past the #2 but in reality, i dont want strong forearms, i want BIG forearms. I mess around with plate pinches and that stuff too.

I just think having giant forearms, traps, and calves were always the telltale sign of a huge MFer...even when covered up.

 

[kadafi2]

In my opinion, this is one of the best forearm exercises.

 

[chingaling]

View attachment 248972
In my opinion, this is one of the best forearm exercises.

Hell yeah/ I love old school shit.

 

[Sectør]

I’ll throw some forearm work in eod, usually ends up being like 3x a week

I remember when I first started lifting, seeing frank McGraths forearms and always thought it was a great look.

I feel like training them directly does help with increasing vascularity in them, and just makes your arms look nasty (in the best kind of way)

I mainly just stick to 3-4 excersises. Db wrist curls, overhand wrist curls with an ez curl bar, overhand seated preacher curls with an ez curl bar, and behind the back wrist curls with a barbell.

They’re kind of a stubborn muscle similar to calves, feel like high frequency works way better for them, although you don’t really need to do a crazy amount of sets. 4 per session usually works great

 

[Dog-Slime]

From 2007-2013 I trained a lot of grip with IronMind equipment and I did some nail bending. I got into BJJ in 2011 and it really came in handy… as did my neck training lol.

Anyway yea I really enjoyed grip training and I maintain it pretty well from what I do. Now my fingers are pretty destroyed from BJJ so idk if I can get back to it but I do miss it.

And the first thing I look at are peoples ears but forearms are a good way.. ears are more indicative of mat time imo

As a former MMA practitioner with plenty of experience training and fighting, the ears are not actually a good indicator of skill (IMO) as to get them you have to get injured.

I kept my hips back and dodged most take downs so very little rolling on the mat took place.

Also I "answer the phone" when someone threw a hook or high kick so only have a tiny (I would likely have to point it out) amount of cauliflower ear with a lot of years into the fight world

 

[TDeck]

I have captains of crush grippers, 1 and 1.5. Been slacking lately, but try to hit them 2-3 times a week. I do hammer curls and reverse curls once weekly. I typically do wrist curls on my universal with a d handle. Kind of like it better than using dumbells.

 

[td]

View attachment 248972
In my opinion, this is one of the best forearm exercises.

You can actually do this with just a barbell in a power rack. You'll likely need to add weight to the barbell because it's just the frictional resistance of the bar in the catches, instead of the weight acting down.

You can do it for time because it doesn't have to unroll.

 

[dieselbuilder]

As a former MMA practitioner with plenty of experience training and fighting, the ears are not actually a good indicator of skill (IMO) as to get them you have to get injured.

I kept my hips back and dodged most take downs so very little rolling on the mat took place.

Also I "answer the phone" when someone threw a hook or high kick so only have a tiny (I would likely have to point it out) amount of cauliflower ear with a lot of years into the fight world

You definitely don’t have to get injured. Shit just gets banged up. Mine popped up seemingly overnight as a white belt after a year. Some guys don’t get it.

I typed “indicative of mat time” not skill*. Still - If I *had* to choose a feature to detect someone having fought MMA/wrestled/trained BJJ/grappling etc I would have to pick ears. Go through the UFC roster and look at all of their ears… I am sure you understand

anyway my point was that I look at peoples ears first. It’s not a perfect system but I didn’t say everyone who trains gets it. What is funny is the other day I was talking to someone who has been training BJJ since 1999 and his ears were fine.

Did you fight pro? Ammy? Pro-ammy?

 

[Dog-Slime]

You definitely don’t have to get injured. Shit just gets banged up. Mine popped up seemingly overnight as a white belt after a year. Some guys don’t get it.

I typed “indicative of mat time” not skill*. Still - If I *had* to choose a feature to detect someone having fought MMA/wrestled/trained BJJ/grappling etc I would have to pick ears. Go through the UFC roster and look at all of their ears… I am sure you understand

anyway my point was that I look at peoples ears first. It’s not a perfect system but I didn’t say everyone who trains gets it. What is funny is the other day I was talking to someone who has been training BJJ since 1999 and his ears were fine.

Did you fight pro? Ammy? Pro-ammy?

Amateur which turned into underground professional, was lined up for both(say both I had to pick one of them) the UFC and BKFC but suffered an injury (work related) which forced me to retire from fighting but I still do a lil coaching when asked to

Here is a popular health clinic's definition of what causes cauliflower ear: The main cause of cauliflower ear is blunt force trauma. When an ear injury occurs, the blood vessels that supply nutrients to your cartilage can tear. This causes blood to accumulate between your cartilage and your perichondrium. (The perichondrium surrounds your cartilage and is made of connective tissue.)

Says injury as I bolded and matches my experience perfectly.

To get back to the topic forearm and grip strength is quite crucial for defending and implementing both wrestling and jiu-jitsu skills, my coach said strength didn't matter and I said prove it: he then changed it to technique is highly important and left out the strength comment after I muscled out of every single submission attempt of his.

 

[PA088]

Reverse Curls and Hammer Curls for me. Also only use straps when I need them

 

[Growthman]

View attachment 248972
In my opinion, this is one of the best forearm exercises.

Thanks for the reminder, we had one of these in our football weight room back in the 90’s, going to find/order one now!

 

[alfresco]

I changed, built all my barbells and dumbbells and pull down bars to 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches in diameter (hand size dependent), fatter is better. Do ALL your exercises with these bars and I guarantee your grip strength will go through the roof.

Also do dead hangs off a chin bar. 2 to 3 minutes is fairly good hang time.

Wrist curls, range of motion exercises are OK but the top two things will contribute more to your grip stinks then all the other ones put together.

I wrote a huge very, very long post on forearm building, grip strength training article here. You can dig it up. It’s probably over 10 years old so you gotta go way back.

 

[D2]

when i first started training in the mid 80's this pic inspired me to train the forearms regularly

 

[AllLoadedUp]

I’m older than most of yall at 52. I’ve been in the game since the age of 25 Ish. Was doing TRT Way before it was cool. Curious if anyone is really into grip exercises and foreign work like I am. Powerful forearms makes a big statement if you ask me. Send a good message. I do a lot of reverse curls and I’m loving standing a rubber dumbbell on its head, chalking up the hands and just gripping them by the smooth side and walking around the gym.
I try to do dedicated forarm and grip workouts about twice a week. It’s funny a guy at work was talking randomly about people you don’t mess with and he said that’s one of the first thing he looks at is forearms. It does make a statement so start incorporating it and let me know how you like it .

I'm same age as you. Had started doing more grip stuff in the past year. Have read its the number one reason people fall as they get older. Try to grab something to prevent the fall and can't keep your grip. Makes sense. Unfortunately of course about 2 weeks ago I developed tendinitis in my right forearm, my dominant arm, so now I'm on a break from the gym. I hate tendinitis. Nothing you can really do but just wait. It fucking hurts like hell to even mash the damn button down on my deodorant spray can each day.

 

[AllLoadedUp]

They were awesome. Plate pinches, reverse curls, hammer curls, behind the back wrist rolls, seated wrist rolls, towel pull-ups. But for me it all lead to the worst tendonitis where I couldnt even hold my phone to my ear or brush my teeth.

Dealing with that shit now.

 

[AllLoadedUp]

View attachment 248972
In my opinion, this is one of the best forearm exercises.

Those things are hard as shit. They will be on fire quick doing that thing.