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In the general fitness community, we come across variety of equipment - dumbbells, barbells, machines, cables, different handles like V-handle, straight bar, lat pull down bar. The common thing among all of these is the standard diameter of the handles which our hands could easily grip and bang out reps.
Yes it's good to practice general compound movements like the bench press, squat, deadlift, overhead press etc and get stronger at them. But what happens when the load gets heavy.
Do you feel your wrist moving back and causing pain during the bench? What happens if you try to deadlift a heavy ass weight off the floor and the bar slips off even when you know your body has the capacity to handle the weight?
"Heck! then what are straps for? Won't they assist me in lifting heavier weights when my hands give up?"
Sure they will, but there will be a day when you are required to pull some odd shit off the floor or throw a heavy ass weight in a sport and there are no straps allowed there. Even if you could pull a 400 lb deadlift with the straps, a 315 lb without the straps gets embarrassing doesn't it? Your knockdown punches are just a jab for your opponent, how does that feel?
Grip strength is highly essential in strength training and sports, even in life in general. Your hands are a medium through which you showcase strength and power. If your hands are weak, you cannot express your strength in ways you would like.
There are five ways which can help you strengthen your hands and grip : Crushing, Pinching, Supporting, Wrist postures and Dexterity of the fingers and hands.
What is fat grip training ?
It is essentially using a barbell with a larger diameter than your standard barbell, or maybe using thick rubber grips like Fat Gripz with dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells and what not.
The average diameter that you currently work with is approx. 1 inch, whereas with the thick bar/fat bar training you will train the same exercises with a diameter of approx. 2 - 2.5 inch.
With the fat bar training, we train and build the open handed crushing grip.The fat grip will make you open your hands and apply force.The force you apply will be akin to grabbing or crushing something which are real world applications esp. in combat sports, gym of-course, building total body strength and muscle building.
Using thick rubber grips on the bench press setup
Thick Bar for pull ups
Following are the benefits of using Thick handles or fat bars when training :
Increase neural drive : When you grab a thick handle, your hands apply a strong crushing force to the handle and thereby become tighter than usual. This tightness is then transferred to the muscles that you are training and activates them in a much better way than if you were to use a standard barbell or a dumbbell.
Train the grip from different angles : Since fat grips can be used with any exercise, you can train the crushing grip from various different angles thereby developing your hands holistically for real world activities.
Reduce joint stress and injuries : Since holding a fat bar provides a larger surface area to lift, it greatly reduces joint stress from adjoining muscles. For example while pressing a fat bar overhead, rather than bothering the nearby wrist and elbow joints, it will directly work the shoulders that you are training. The stress is shifted from the joints to the muscles that you are working. This heavily reduces the potential for injury. Since in most cases with the standard barbell/dumbbell, the weight pin points down on the wrists while pressing and thereby bothers the wrists and elbows which the body first needs to compensate and then contract the working muscle. Whereas, with thick handles, you tend to apply pressure with your entire palm hence it works both the wrist flexors and extensors and balances the strength.
Increase sports specific performance : Once you get accustomed to thick handle training, not only will you build strength and muscle with compound movements, but the crushing strength that you build will in your hands and forearms will be a direct carry over to the sport that you are training for. Esp. in contact sports where there is a lot of grappling involved like wrestling, MMA, rugby and NFL, punching with a stronger clenched fist with a strong wrist is lethal esp. in boxing and MMA. Even in sports like basketball, baseball, cricket where a stronger grip does wonders with control of the ball and bat
Your hands tend to feel bigger : Once you train with a fat handle and then you grab the standard barbell or kettlebell, the weight tends to feel lighter since your hands are now capable of handling thicker shit.
Grip strength is highly important in contact sports
Since your hands are now capable of handling larger surface areas, you can show more control and efficiency in your sport
How to use Thick handles/Fat grips ?
Even though the thick handles can be used with almost any exercise - pressing, pulling, curling etc, research has shown that far greater grip strength benefits have been achieved using pulling exercises like deadlifts, rows, shrugs and bicep curls where you literally squeeze and pull against gravity. Although you may not be able to lift a lot of weight with the thick handle as opposed to a standard equipment, gradually you become better in those those lifts and increase your numbers.
A point to be noted here is that fat grips/handles should be used smartly in your programming because it taxes the nervous system and your grip and we all know that both of these factors are interrelated and impact the other lifts. Hence, to start off, use them sparingly, maybe one accessory move in your upper body workout - could be curls, tricep extensions or could be loaded carries as a finisher. They are sure to develop a lot of muscle even with lighter weights and free of injury.
Use them for 3-4 weeks for a certain lift and then go off them and lift with the standard equipment. Once you get better at thick handle training, you can increase the frequency and maybe use them for two lifts in a day and so on.
You will surely see a rise in your standard lifting numbers and real world strength after training consistently with thick handles/grips.
Try these out and let me know how they felt in the comments section below.
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