I waited until after I was injured to see a PT. Not only was she able to correct the injury in short order, she also taught me how to prevent it from happening again.
My advice? See a PT; don't wait until you're injured.
I waited until after I was injured to see a PT. Not only was she able to correct the injury in short order, she also taught me how to prevent it from happening again.
My advice? See a PT; don't wait until you're injured.
I'm not a PT but I think there is a lot of truth here. I did the CoC things while I was lifting, but I treated them like any other workout. Most people don't do sets of 50 reps on the bench, so why do them with your hands? I also think Pablo is right on. The guys I've know with killer grip strength were all guys who worked hard but didn't do any grip training. Think brick layer, carpet cleaner (fighting that vac all day), etc. So now I'd either do real work, exercise simulating real work, or go with GJM's plan and train on the gun.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
The original shooting grip strength trainer:
Jesus paid a debt he did not owe,
Because I owed a debt I could not pay.
The other consideration is - how much do you really need? When Karl Rehn examined this, he concluded that 80-100 lbs of crush grip strength was sufficient for males. Karl is a USPSA Grand Master and this is where his strength measures out. I'd measure to see where my current grip strength is and determine if I need to build or sustain.
One of the research pieces I read found that grip strength improved shooting scores up to a certain point but found drops in performance beyond a certain level. I suspect strong weight lifters who never learned to isolate the trigger finger from the rest of the hand.
I realize that Vogel has some crazy grip strength but most of us are not Vogel and we can find more efficient ways to improve our performance.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
Don't take this the wrong way, but from your description you have no idea how to program a physical activity routine in such a way as to not injure yourself.
Especially the high rep fixation.
Look, grip strength is dead simple. It will come as a pleasant side effect of any structured, comprehensive weight lifting program (which IMO, every able-bodied man should be doing SOME weightlifting). It can be supplemented, if necessary, by isolation exercises such as grippers or bands. It can be targeted by more pullups, farmer's walks, deadlifts, etc. Basically any time one wraps his hands around a bar.
The surest way to injure one's self is to do high volume grip isolation work by itself.
The best rehab for tennis elbow IME is to start working out again. Curls, pullups, bench press, etc.
I want all the grip strength I can get.
One doesn't use maximal grip strength while shooting (hopefully). So talking about how much maximal grip strength is sufficient for shooting is missing the point.
Let's say for the sake of argument that it takes 50# of grip strength to effectively manage recoil. If my maximal Grip strength is 50#, then I'm using 100% of my available grip to control the gun. Obviously that's unsustainable. If I train up my grip and get it to 60# max grip, then while shooting I only have to use 83% of my max grip. Better, but not optimal. I'm still going to get tired. Let's suppose then I train diligently and get my max grip to 100#. When I to the range, I only have to use 50% of my potential grip strength to control the gun. Now we're in a good place.
Since gripping a gun requires sub-maximal grip exertion, I still want my grip to be a beastly as possible and drive that percentage lower and lower. The lower is gets, the less energy I have to exert to get the same effect on the gun and the more endurance I will have.
Last edited by JV_; 02-16-2016 at 10:22 AM.
I went down the same path and found that the theory works out better on paper than in real life. I don't think it has any actual relevance to shooting. It took me a long time to figure out that I can't out muscle a pistol. Once you get to the point that the pistol not moving in around in your hand under recoil, what are the actual benefits of a stronger grip versus the muscular tension that created through the upper body by gripping hard? I think it's the latter, not that I have the scientific background to back it up, there are better ways to develop than focusing on grip strength.
Last edited by pablo; 02-16-2016 at 01:18 PM.