Hand grip benefits

One small study published in April 2016 in the Journal of Biology of Exercise evaluated the effectiveness of the PowerBall and the Shake Weight as training protocols for arm strength in females. For 18 days, they asked the participants to do arm-specific exercises using one of the two pieces of equipment. At the end of the 18 days, the researchers found some improvement in grip strength in both groups, which led them to justify the effectiveness of the training. Athletes who require grip strength, such as rock climbers and baseball players, often do specialized exercises to target the muscles in the forearms, wrists and hands. Unfortunately, not everyone includes this type of training in their routine. And as an October 2016 study in the Journal of Hand Therapy found, grip strength is on the decline, especially in men younger than 30. Researchers discovered that compared with their counterparts in 1985, guys today are weaker when it comes to their grip and hand function. While the normative data is from 1985, the authors did point out that it is an interesting discovery that this group of males have statistically lower strength scores than men the same age in 1985.

When it comes to building muscle, everyone focuses on the arms and chest. Probably no one gives a damn about their hands, but take a second to think about how misguided that is. Your hands allow you to Believe it or not, the most limiting factor in your workout may be your Paul Biryukov/Shutterstock Stronger lifts are just one of the benefits you’ll earn by targeting your gripping muscles. Below, we touch on six benefits of grip strength and outline some ways to Benefits of Strong Grip Strength • Lower Mortality Risk • Improved Quality of Life • Predictor of Cardiovascular Risk • Lift Heavier Weights • More Endurance on the Pull-up Bar • Improved Sports Performance A strong grip won’t make you immortal, but it may help you increase your lifespan. A 2015 study measured the correlation between grip strength and potential health benefits, including a lower mortality risk. This is due to the correlation between grip strength and bone, cardiovascular, and overall health. Grip strength was not only “inversely associated with all-cause mortality,” but every five-kilogram decrease in grip strength was associated with a 17 percent risk increase. ( Having a strong grip not only improves our performance in exercises like This is especially important as we age because, as a study from 2015 suggests, grip strength can be a predictor of “decline in cognition, mobility, functional status and mortality in older community-dwelling populations.” ( A strong, You can only lift as heavy as you...

Believe it or not, you have a tool that can strengthen your grip sitting in your room, and you probably use it for everything but grip training every single day. What’s this magic exercise implement? A towel. One of the most underutilized tools for challenging and building a stronger grip. More than likely, you’ve probably seen a towel used for pull-ups or other movement variations before, but have you ever tired structuring a workout around it? Grip is incredibly important in strength sports, as it’s relevant for literally almost every movement you perform in the gym (sans some leg movements). Training this limiting factor can be frustrating at times because the grip is a little more complicated than simply just grabbing an object and squeezing tight. Like everything else in the gym, we should approach grip with progressions, variations, and differences in intensities. In this article, we’ll discuss types of grip strength, muscles needed to strengthen grip, research that’s been done on types of towel exercises, benefits, towel variations, and provide a sample workout. Consider this your towel grip training handbook. Grip and Back Muscles Types of Grip Training Three Types of Grip Before diving into towel-specific training, it’s probably a good idea to understand the different ways we can train our grip. In terms of grip training, there are often three ways described that we use, • Pinching — The use of the hand and fingers to produce a force that’s held outside of heavy f...

Grip strength can limit our performances at the gym, and even our ability to perform daily tasks. I encourage my clients to work on their grip strength, not only to progress in their fitness journey, but also for the sake of their overall health (especially with age). In this article we will discuss the many benefits of hand grip exercises, look at what is grip strength, and review the most effective hand grip exercises. No matter your age or fitness level, I made all the research so this post will help you find answers to a pertinent question : What are the benefits of hand grip exercises ? First of all, we need to make sure we are talking about the same thing when mentioning grip strength. Grip strength is essentially a measure of the force generated by your hand and forearm muscles. In other words, it's a measure of the maximum force you can apply around an object that you are holding in your hand and reflects the muscular strength of your hands and forearms. Types of Grip Strength There are actually 3 types of grip strength: • Crush Grip: The crush grip is the grip between your palm and fingers. Crushing your boss's hand during a handshake for instance, is a crush gripping exercise since the object being gripped rests against your palm and fingers. • Support Grip: The support grip is the grip allowing you to hold unto something for as long as possible. Hanging from a bar is a type of support grip exercise. • Pinch Grip: In a pinch grip you are holding an object between...

Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Keeping up a regimen of strength-training exercises is important to counter these effects. But one part of your body you may not consider actually matters more than you may think. It turns out, your grip strength — the amount of force you have when you clench your hand around an object — is a huge indication of your overall health. That’s right. Your grip strength is important for more than having a strong handshake and being able to open a pickle jar. Researchers call grip strength an “ “Grip strength naturally begins to decline around age 50, and maybe even earlier,” says geriatric medicine specialist Dr. Hashmi explains why that is, as well as how your grip strength is related to your well-being, and what you can do to improve it. How grip strength is related to your health Grip strength is measured by a device called a hand dynamometer. It’s a handheld device you squeeze as hard as you can. It’s generally understood that a higher grip strength is associated with better health, and a lower grip strength is associated with poorer health. The exact cutoffs are still up for debate and differ based on age, BMI and other factors. Researchers in at least one study define • Less than 26 kg (57 pounds) for men and • Less than 16 kg (35 pounds) for women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB). Until you begi...

2 min For most of life we tend to take our handgrip strength for granted. It is an indication of our general muscle strength, necessary for many of the functions we perform daily – opening bottles, turning handles, lifting and carrying objects, grasping a steering wheel, etc. As we get older, both grip and overall muscle strength decline. Research has shown that the weaker your grip, the greater the risk of having a Evidence from another study including more than 20,000 seniors indicated that weak grip strength in men age 65 and older predicts lack of mobility. And recent research from Korea found that handgrip strength among 1,773 women was associated with their lung capacity. The researchers suggested that testing seniors’ handgrip strength could be an inexpensive and simple way to determine risk of future lung problems. They noted that losing muscle strength with age could undermine lung function, increasing the risk of A series of British studies published in 2014 found – not surprisingly – that, on average, males were stronger than females from adolescence on. Their peak median grip was 51 kilograms between the ages of 29 and 39, compared to 31 kilograms in women between 26 and 42. More recent research published in the Journal of Hand Therapy in October 2016 suggests that grip strength has been declining in both men and women. It showed that women between ages 20 and 24 have weaker grips today than women of the same age in 1985 and that men under age 30 have weaker ha...