Maximum forearm jackage

[Kevin Shaughnessy]

I have problems with wrist pain so I bought a wrist roller to build some strength. Unfortunately I dont know how to program with a wrist roller so I've come seeking the wisdom of the catalyst athletics board. My only preferance would be high frequency, for no other reason then I enjoy a good forearm pump and I think it would be fun to train the wrist roller 4 times a week. Any suggestions are welcome.

[Derek Simonds]

The wrist roller is fun, the limiting factor with the roller is usually the shoulders. The most efficient wrist rollers are suspended between a squat rack so you can really amp up the jackage.

Another great way to really work the forearms is to do 20 rep sets of BB Crush, BB Standing Thumbless Flexion and BB Extension in a row for 4 sets. I wish I could find the original writeup by one of the grip guys but he did this 4 times a week and put an inch on his forearms over 6 weeks.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Here's my favorite wrist prehab/rehab exercise:

Grab a 10lb sledgehammer by the end. Take a pretty narrow stance, then with a straight arm, simply swing your arm back in forth to make arcs that are about 120 degrees. Be sure you don't clock yourself in the ankle with the hammer. Once you can do that without fear of smacking yourself, you can let the hammer swing through to vertical in the front of the movement (bending your arm then makes it easier), then balance it for a few seconds with your grip and wrist movement before letting it drop into the next arc. Work for 25-50 reps per hand, for one or two sets.


Call me crazy, but it's good. It's a good combination of mobility work, high reps for bloodflow, smooth flowing movement (not at all like smacking something with a sledge), wrist traction (especially as the weight swings through the bottom), and fine motor coordination (balancing at the top). The only downside is the whole risky business of swinging a hammer around. Honestly though, if it lets a 200lb+ guy do handstands without hurting his wrists, it has to have some merit.


I'm a fan of the forearm roller too, but the hammer is better for (my) wrist injuries.

[Brian M Smith]

this might be relevant to your interests OP

http://www.grapplearts.com/Grip-Strength-Training.htm

[John Alston]

nice link.
most forearm "programs" advocate frequency/volume and variety.
Old school BB article... http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/09...rry-scott.html

[John Alston]

Made this from old cheap db.

[Gant Grimes]

Learn to sword fight.

[Derek Simonds]

Originally Posted by Gant Grimes

Learn to sword fight.

Flipping the channels waiting on the wife last night I saw an interesting samurai sword fight on a 1000 ways to die...

[Gant Grimes]

Originally Posted by Derek Simonds

Flipping the channels waiting on the wife last night I saw an interesting samurai sword fight on a 1000 ways to die...

That's odd. They usually pick obscure or novel ways to die. Fighting a samurai seems like a pretty obvious risk.

[Ben Moskowitz]

Since you mention pain, several ideas are mentioned in this thread, albeit not in much detail. A search here or on the Crossfit boards will produce a lot of stuff. Steven Low answers a lot of questions.


After things are less painful, consider checking out David Horn's recommended grip program for beginners:
http://www.davidhorne-gripmaster.com/basics.html

or in PDF format made by someone else:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5GP7TB9L

Originally Posted by David Horn

I seem to be seeing a lot of newbies jumping into all sorts of feats of strength's, including bending before they have got any real base strength in the hands and wrists.

This is what I would advise to the pure beginner to start with, for a good few months before he/she decides on the path they want to choose. I think this will stop a lot of injuries that are happening due to imbalances between certain areas.

I had wrist pain so I started with just stretching and icing. Then a little bit of rice bucket. Then some serious rice bucket. And now the David Horn program.

I've been doing the beginner program for maybe a month. The first few workouts I rushed through the rest periods, resulting in forearm pumps. However, I found this to be inversely related to strength gains. Proper rest periods are a good idea. Consider supersetting with other "small" exercises (I've been doing rotator cuff stuff). I've also found fractional plates to be useful for incremental loading on everything besides the finger curls.