I know… I know… but let me explain before you all mob together with torches and pitchforks for saying something that must borderline on heresy.
I recently watched a recent video of a man who is well known for his knowledge on grip/hand strength. He writes many blogs, eludes that he has a great wealth of first hand information from knowledgeable sources and does a TON of name dropping.
In his video he closes the #3 Captain of Crush gripper.
Hey… NO small feat, that takes SERIOUS hand strength.
But, for all his “knowledge” and grip based routines and for as long as he has spoken from the vantage point of a “grip” authority… you’d have thought he’d have closed the number #3 years ago.
Now, I can close the #3 myself, so I know what kind of accomplishment that is, but it got me thinking.
I began to look into the type of training this guy advocates, the books he mentions, the people he quotes, and I have to say what I discovered startled me.
Like I said, I can close the #3 and own one, and in fact I have an Ivanko Super Gripper, but do you know how often I use it? Twice a week, one day for maybe 4-5 singles and the other day, very quick chain reps of descending weight sets. Where are talking BREIF gripper work.
Most guys will tell you they commit full days to JUST grip training and like this guy, they have either JUST closed the number #3 or have yet to do it… Why is that? And why can I who barely touch the grippers close the #3 and WILL eventually close the #4?
Well… before I get into that, here is something else for you to chew on.
Grippers train grip strength, but outside of that, very little else. So while these guys have great grip strength, they have it at the expense of lacking comparative strength in other areas. Too me, grip strength is a very dangerous weapon, you can almost always guarantee you will have an edge… well that maybe USED to be true. Now days so many people have figured out the major importance of grip, just like a college degree… just about everyone has one. You NEED to start thinking doctorial degree and truly be a rarity.
Hardcore grip against a guy with hardcore grip AND a POWERFUL everything else, is like bringing a knife to a gun fight…. Grip just isn’t enough anymore and sacrificing full body strength FOR grip… that’s just senseless.
This is my point.
I DON’T sacrifice one for the other… FULL body and I mean FULL BODY strength is absolutely available to you… you just need to change how you train.
I can close the #3, but so can others, so what makes me stand out? I can swing a 100lb macebell, I’ll be honest, unicorns are more common than the number of people on the planet who can do that. I one hand 45lb clubbells like almost nobody else and manhandle and lever the 80lb Challenge Club like NOBODY else. AFTER all that, I then spend a minute or two focusing on just grip.
Do you see what I am talking about? My grip strength is a BI-PROCUCT from developing a FREAKISH level of full body, combat focused strength. Hands that can close the #3 are impressive, the same hands attached to arms, shoulder and the upper back that swings a 100lb macebell… now that’s like the Kraken from the sea scary strong.
So you want it all, strong, powerful everything? You can have it, and you can have it in under an hour, three times a week, and I’m going to TELL you how to get it… for free…
Why would I do this? Well ONE, it’s my absolute HATE for elitism, and second, with so much BULLSHIT on the internet I know what it’s like to want to be strong and be just overwhelmed by the information you will find… and through my own battle with a SEVER and near crippling injury that I for a great number of reasons had to heal and over come on my own and do so near completely penniless.
I knew re-building my strength was my only hope of survival and with only courage and will power began a very PAINFUL trial and error process, and my accomplishments speak for themselves.
I am not about to charge you for information. My information will be absolutely useless unless you put it into practice, and if you do, you will pay for it in sweat, blood and skin, and once that price is paid, what you have achieved is yours… forever, no one can take it away from you.
Want the secret? Get ready to take notes
Strong hands come from strong legs. The stronger you legs, the potential for stronger hands is increased, in fact the stronger you legs… the stronger everything else “can” be. It’s all testosterone release and increase that comes from HEAVY leg work. That’s the reason Hindu wrestlers did high rep squats, body weighted, then weighted squats, they warmed up the body, opened up the lungs, got the heart pumping and the testosterone flowed through the system, and THEN they did club swinging, sand bag training and finished by swinging the gada or macebell, full body exercise and full body circulation oft hat testosterone.
Here is the OTHER secret, Clubs, sandbags and maces are ALL grip-centric. You HAVE to work you grip through a WIDE range of motions, angles and weight while swinging, tossing, hefting and levering clubs, sand bags and maces. So not only did they build AWESOME strength through their entire bodies, they where developing POWERFUL grips as a bi-product and in conjunction with their training and not only strength but grip endurance.
Swinging clubs and maces forces your grip to make subtle and sometimes not so subtle shifts in grip to hold on to them, your grip becomes TRULY functional in ALL areas of hand strength.
Now some people have began calling light clubs “Indian clubs”. I call BULLSHIT! Yes these 1 to 2 lb clubs are VERY good at warm ups, rehabilitation and mobility, but Indian, Persian and Iranian wrestlers routinely used clubs that weight from 10-30kgs, the 1 and 2lb clubs where more popular with the anal retentive and socially repressed Victorian culture, and really has NOTHING to do with Indian wrestlers all that much… it’s just laughable to show pictures of the Great Gama holding a 40lb club next to a set of small 2lb clubs and try and make any comparison…
Now, as for grippers, yes I use them, but mainly it’s for neurological-muscular training. If you have never used a gripper, even powerful hands will have to train to become proficient, to “learn” how to “crush”, but past that, that, and believe me, that is a very, very important “that”, it’s all I use a gripper for.
Confused? It’s really very, very simple.
Squat, and squat a lot. Yes it sucks… for about 3 weeks and then you CRAVE it. Body weight squats followed by weighted. I prefer timed segments, so 5 minutes of bodyweight and then 5 minutes of weighted, record your reps for each and try and beat them by at least one rep each work out.
SWING MACES AND CLUBS! You will thank me for this. YOU NEED TO GET A MACE AND SOME CLUBS. Dumbbells and Kettlebells are awesome, and you should use one or the other too… but, I promise you, you will never know true strength until you begin swinging maces and clubs, you will never really know what strength/endurance training is until you have a mace or club in one or both of your hands. Buy them ONLY from Torque Athletic. NO other company has anything as well made and durable as Torque Athletic.
Lastly, get a gripper, but use it intelligently. Use it has a training tool as the cherry on top of your training not as the focus, and you will have hands that are well suited to represent the rest of you.
If you are interested in the exact program I use, e-mail or call me, I will be happy to do my best to help you tailor this type of training to your specific needs and to what you have available.
I know some people will have a have sour taste in their mouths after reading this and for a number of different reasons. Some will be angry they won’t get your cash and some will be upset that I call grippers overrated ONLY in comparison to more fully body training that is grip-centric and not grip based and place them where they really should be, has a neurological-muscular training tool and not the “strength” building tool by themselves.
But, I don’t care. It’s about time someone cut through all this silly bullshit and championed a simple and direct path.
Just because a path is available doesn’t mean any more people will actually follow it, it’s a simple path, but in NO WAY is it as easy path. It takes a fiery heart, an iron will and steely determination… something sadly in short-order these days.
So there is room on this road, believe me, and if you think you got what it takes pick up your supplies here.
Maybe I’ll see you later on down the road… I certainly hope so.
-Kevin Wikse
