View Poll Results: What is the largest CoC you can close with either hand individually?

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  • Guide ("G"): 60 lbs

    0 0%
  • Sport ("S"): 80 lbs

    2 2.67%
  • Trainer ("T"): 100 lbs

    9 12.00%
  • Point Five: 120 lbs

    4 5.33%
  • No. 1: 140 lbs

    21 28.00%
  • No. 1.5: 167.5 lbs

    18 24.00%
  • No. 2: 195 lbs

    16 21.33%
  • No 2.5: 237.5 lbs

    5 6.67%
  • No. 3: 280 lbs

    0 0%
  • No. 3.5: 322.5 lbs

    0 0%
  • No. 4: 365 lbs

    0 0%
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Thread: Captains of Crush Grippers: What's your grip strength?

  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Slalom.45 View Post
    As a PT by trade I would think tendonitis issues would be caused by overuse. These are far heavier than the grippers we use in a rehab setting. Low reps and moderate frequency is my plan.
    Tendonitis is a real concern, and you surely have the right avoidance program. Regarding the CoC grippers, when I do up to 5 sets of 5 reps twice a week, there is no tendonitis. For me, raising the sets or the reps or the frequency above those numbers results in tendonitis.

    Keeping grip work to twice a week sessions of 5 of 5 means I can move to the next stronger gripper after about 30 exercise sessions (15 weeks or so).

  2. #82
    Anyone have any tips or warnings for using the extensor bands? What sort of program have people followed for those?

    Right now I'm not using any grippers, I'm just relying on strength training and dryfire, but I use the extensor bands for a ~3 sets of 12 after dryfire everyday or after a grip intensive workout at the gym. I do a set with a warmup resistance then another 2-3 sets with a working resistance. Sometimes I'll do a few final reps with a higher resistance or do a isometric hold to wrap things up.

  3. #83
    I used to use the bands very regularly, and then I injured my hands last year in an unrelated way. As I built my strength back up, I failed to use the bands. I just re injured my hands last week, and my grip strength is noticeably down. Looks like I need to go back to the bands and not forget... I'm not saying the bands would have prevented injury, but I think they do a good job of balancing things out to be safer. Also, I find a warm up to be essential now, and I've been skipping that lately. I think that has a lot to do with me reinjuring them.

  4. #84
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dove View Post
    Anyone have any tips or warnings for using the extensor bands? What sort of program have people followed for those?

    Right now I'm not using any grippers, I'm just relying on strength training and dryfire, but I use the extensor bands for a ~3 sets of 12 after dryfire everyday or after a grip intensive workout at the gym. I do a set with a warmup resistance then another 2-3 sets with a working resistance. Sometimes I'll do a few final reps with a higher resistance or do a isometric hold to wrap things up.
    Quote Originally Posted by SLG View Post
    I used to use the bands very regularly, and then I injured my hands last year in an unrelated way. As I built my strength back up, I failed to use the bands. I just re injured my hands last week, and my grip strength is noticeably down. Looks like I need to go back to the bands and not forget... I'm not saying the bands would have prevented injury, but I think they do a good job of balancing things out to be safer. Also, I find a warm up to be essential now, and I've been skipping that lately. I think that has a lot to do with me reinjuring them.
    Before I begin my weight training sessions I warm up with rotator cuff exercises and some grip work via hanging off a chinning bar as discussed (as I recall) earlier in this thread.

    At the end of each session I do grip work via the Ivanko Super Gripper, a forearm / wrist roller device and lastly with the IronMind bands. I always try to use the gripper and bands in balance with each other much as I try to do a pulling movement for every pushing movement with the weights.

    As someone who has had some on again / off again nagging issues with forearms and elbows (epicondylitis), this has really worked wonderfully well for me...first as rehab, now as prevention. I rarely (knock on wood) get plagued with these issues unless I have to overuse a joint due to a long day of shoveling, chopping, sledge hammering etc.

    With the bands I'll usually just do a few sets of 15 or so...with the thumb included and sometimes only with the four fingers. Just work until I feel the extensors fatiguing.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

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  5. #85
    Okay, sounds like I'm using them similarly.

    I only ask because there's a dialogue that the tendonitis is due to some sort of flexor/extensor imbalance and that working the extensors with the bands prevents it. Meanwhile, there's another dialogue which is that the tendonitis is from overuse. I don't really see how the extensor bands undo use, and I was wondering if anyone experienced any overuse problems from working too frequently with the bands.

    I'm definitely using the bands a lot more than people say to use the grippers, and the plain truth is that the bands are using something.

  6. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by dove View Post

    I only ask because there's a dialogue that the tendonitis is due to some sort of flexor/extensor imbalance and that working the extensors with the bands prevents it. Meanwhile, there's another dialogue which is that the tendonitis is from overuse.
    Personally, I don't think the flexor/extensor argument is supportable. The hands are designed to flex. The extensors are there only as a courtesy so the hand can be used more than once. Resisting nature by trying to balance the flexors against the extensors would seem unlikely to succeed because they simply don't have the same mass: the palm side of the forearm has more muscles than the top.

    On the other hand, the overuse argument has an empirical appeal. As posted earlier, I've found that overworking CoC grippers really encourages tendonitis.

  7. #87
    banana republican blues's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duces Tecum View Post
    Personally, I don't think the flexor/extensor argument is supportable. The hands are designed to flex. The extensors are there only as a courtesy so the hand can be used more than once. Resisting nature by trying to balance the flexors against the extensors would seem unlikely to succeed because they simply don't have the same mass: the palm side of the forearm has more muscles than the top.

    On the other hand, the overuse argument has an empirical appeal. As posted earlier, I've found that overworking CoC grippers really encourages tendonitis.
    DT, I would only like to recommend that you try it before you throw it out as a viable technique to help mitigate and reduce overuse injuries. Simple and inexpensive enough to try out just using simple rubber bands, inner tubes etc cut to the right size and width.

    I don't think that the two sets of muscles would ever be equivalent in strength, it's just that they seem to support the system better when the extensors aren't neglected. Anyway, I can only speak from my own personal experience over a number of years rock climbing, lifting weights, and participating in various athletic endeavors.

    I grant you that YMMV.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

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  8. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by dove View Post
    Okay, sounds like I'm using them similarly.

    I only ask because there's a dialogue that the tendonitis is due to some sort of flexor/extensor imbalance and that working the extensors with the bands prevents it. Meanwhile, there's another dialogue which is that the tendonitis is from overuse. I don't really see how the extensor bands undo use, and I was wondering if anyone experienced any overuse problems from working too frequently with the bands.

    I'm definitely using the bands a lot more than people say to use the grippers, and the plain truth is that the bands are using something.
    A strong crush grip is impressive because of how rare they are and how hard they are to develop.

    Traditionally the people with the strong grips do manual labor and usually start at a young age (usually it's support grip and pinch grip). That grip isn't something that happened over night or in a gym twice a week, it's decades of hard work. Playing with heavy grippers is getting to that strong grip end goal in a hurry, but skipping out on paying dues. IMO this is why most people end up with problems when they work with heavy grippers. Tendons and ligaments adapt, grow, and repair at a snails pace compared to muscles. You can develop the muscle for a strong grip in a very short period of time, your tendons will need years of consistent work to develop. You can mitigate and reduce some of the impact of grippers with flexbars and bands, but if you're not building off of that base of years hard work, you're probably going to have problems. Personally I think tendonitis with grippers is an undevelopment problem not an overuse one, or it's overuse of underdeveloped tendons.

    If your worried about developing or aggravating tendonitis with grippers, it's probably best to just leave the heavy grippers alone. You can build a strong support and pinch grip, that will carryover to a respectable crush grip, with a lot less risk.

    Bob Vogel is not a great shooter because he has a superhuman crush grip. He's great because he's disciplined and he's always looking for a way to take his game to the next level. He's spent years refining his craft and paying his dues, what makes him great is that he doesn't stop and settle. If he had an average grip he'd still find a way to be great. He grew up on a farm, that should be a clue about when his grip "training" started.
    Last edited by txdpd; 01-16-2017 at 11:57 PM.
    Whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right.

  9. #89
    Site Supporter JohnO's Avatar
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    Sorry my bad posted here in error.
    Last edited by JohnO; 01-21-2017 at 02:03 PM.

  10. #90
    Necro post

    So I took txdpd's advice (and wtturn's elsewhere) and avoided the CoC's after starting this thread, instead I just focused on building strength. For the last few years I've been lifting very regularly, mostly under the guidance of a good trainer. I also took up gymnastics and was doing that up to 4x a week. Then, last year around this time, I dislocated my strong-side shoulder and tore my labrum. Surgery and rehab brought me to New Year's. Then, I broke my weak-side wrist. For the past few months I've been rehabbing that. The only time I got to see a therapist for the wrist (a few months ago), they measured my crush grip at 116 lbs strong side and 90 lbs weak side. The strong side number matches up with my memory and journal from around the time of this thread. They gave me a plastic gripper, some theraband, and told me to buy a powerball. I got the NSD Titan and have been working with that and the plastic gripper since then. After the pandemic started, I got a set of rings for my pullup bar, since I haven't been able to return to gymnastics since my injury.

    Discouraged that my measured crush grip didn't seem to have improved, I decided I'd probably give the CoC a shot. Now that the plastic gripper has gotten easy, I bought a set. The 0.5 through 2 arrived today, and I'm waiting on the G through T. My plan is to start with the G and work up very slowly. Nonetheless, when I got the 0.5 through 2 today, I couldn't help but give them a shot. I was shocked. Right out the gate I closed the 1 with each hand. After a couple of failed attempts, I'm pretty sure I closed the 1.5 strong side, and I got extremely close weak side. I tried the 1.5 again strong side to confirm but failed, tapped out. I haven't tried the 2, and I'm satisfied for now to quit while I'm ahead....my weak-side wrist was already bitching a little after each attempt.

    I definitely think there's a bit of technique involved, particularly for the last little bit. I had one or two failed reps on the 0.5 out the gate, but after being totally sure I closed the 1 (and having warmed up properly) I went back to the 0.5 and closed it. I find the positioning techniques described in this video help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJcRDSqOIs, but I'm not setting them at all, I'm starting completely open, and I can close the 1 right after picking up the gripper and grabbing naturally with some sticking out the bottom. So, I don't know, maybe I'm "cheating" a little by moving low on the gripper, maybe the ones I got are a little weaker, or maybe something was off in my technique 3 years ago, but hand on metal today...it does seem to me like getting stronger over the last few years has made a difference.

    Thanks again to everyone who chimed in and the various people I've gotten advice from on PF about strength training!

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