Can Grip Strength be Improved?

Having a strong grip is important for many athletic endeavors as well as day-to-day activities. But can grip strength actually be improved through training? The answer is a resounding yes. With the right exercises and progressions, you can absolutely increase your grip strength over time.

How Can Grip Strength be Improved

Ok so we know grip strength can be improved, but how do we do it? Grip strength has many forms and because of that, a multitude of ways to increase it. It’s all about what kind of grip strength you're targeting and what tools you’re using. There’s a laundry list of different formats and tools but here’s some of the simplest ones to measure.

Using Hand Grippers for Simple Progression

One of the most straightforward ways to build grip strength is by using hand grippers or grip trainers. It doesn’t get much simpler than our GG griper system. The difficulty goes from a GG1 to a GG7. It starts at 100lbs and goes up in 50lb increments. By starting with a lower resistance gripper and progressively moving up to harder grippers, you can gradually increase your grip strength over weeks, months, and even years.

The gripper is one of the most simple visual forms of progression. Did you or did you not close the gripper? If not, keep training. If yes, go up a level and keep training!

Adding Weight for Progressive Overload

Another highly effective grip training strategy is to use a grip tool on a loading pin or cable stack. A loading pin gives you a stable and universal device for loading weight. If the lifted weight goes up, you’ve made progress. Here are some loading examples.

• RGT: Adding Weight to a Rolling Grip Thing attached to a loading pin
• Plate pinches: Grabbing a weight plate by the smooth sides and lifting it off the floor
• Forearm Grower: Adding weight to a forearm roller attached to a cable stack

What makes these exercises so valuable is that you can linearly increase the weight over time for progressive overload. Start with lighter plates and gradually move up in 2.5 or 5 lb increments as you get stronger. If the weight or reps go up, you’re progressing.

Mastering Advanced Grip Training Techniques

As you build up a base of grip strength, you can take things to an even higher level by mastering more challenging grip exercises and feats like:

• One-arm hangs from a pull-up bar
• An iron cross on the olympic rings
• Overhead lever lifts where you hold a bar upright at one end and elevate it
• Lifting the infamous Inch Dumbbell and other thick handle dumbbells

Obviously these feats of grip are all very different and require different strengths. That’s the beauty of progression in grip though. You can specialize in one area or branch out as you please. These specialized and advanced techniques can take years to truly master. The potential path is nearly endless.

Making Grip Gains Over Time

As with any aspect of strength training, improving your grip takes dedicated effort over an extended period. Be patient, persistent, and keep pushing yourself by incrementally increasing volume or resistance. Over months and years, you'll develop a grip that gives you a noticeable edge in athletic pursuits as well as everyday life activities.

With a smart combination of grip tools like hand grippers, pin lifts, thick bar training, and odd object lifting, you can absolutely take your grip from average to elite level. Even if the competition is just with yourself, grip can be your vehicle for endless growth.