 your hands connect you to the world. So a strong grip is like, you know, that's the last line of defense, if you will. If your grip can't hold something or your wrist is too weak to press something, I don't care how strong your chest and shoulders or your back is, your bicep, it doesn't matter. You're dropping it. You can't do it, it just doesn't work. So it's a very important part of the body, just like any other part of the body is, but it's a neglected part of the body. And people always trip out when they're grip it stronger, how much it improves everything else because anything else gets easier. It's part of the kinetic chain. One of the easiest ways to improve your performance, vitality, and muscle growth is to simply strengthen your grip. You know, this is an area that is often neglected in training programs. Overlooked, I would say. You know what this conversation reminds me of? It was, maybe Doug could look up how many years ago it was, but I remember when we were trying to figure out like YouTube videos to go viral, and we're like always coming up with ideas. Was this another time I was right? Yeah, you're talking about building your forums. I'm gonna give you your credit guy, hang tight, I'll stroke you off, relax, hang on, I'll get there. So I remember we'd all like, oh, this, you know, and we're always wrong, right? It's like, oh, everything's that we thought would go viral, never went viral, and stuff that we would never guess. And I remember Sal one time was like, we should do a forum video. I remember just this stupid, this thing, nobody cares about a forum video. Focusing on that. And it was one of the most viral videos that you ever did. I remember being like, you gotta be kidding me. Who's searching for forum videos? It's like that and like ripping a phone book. I thought the ripping phone book, that was cooler. That was way cooler, that didn't go viral. So anyways, the forearm one was one that I thought for sure. Well, you know what's interesting is you don't think about this on its face because when people are training their body, they don't typically say, like most people are motivated because they want an aesthetic change, right? So I want to look different. Almost never do people say I want my forearms to look better or my hands to look more muscular. Nobody ever says that. It's like my butt or my shoulders or my back or my abs. Even though it's like ingrained in every single exercise you're gonna do just about. Yes, however, however, when we do our, because we do every Sundays, we post a meme on our Instagram page, mind pump media, and it says Qua, Q-U-H. And that's where people post their questions. And inevitably there's at least one or two. This is for years now, it's been happening. At least one or two or more questions revolving around the grip. Like how can I make my grip stronger? I can't deadlift as much. You know, my grip prevents me from doing heavy rows. Should I use wrist straps? So it's just common questions, common problem that I think that people encounter. Now the other side of this is there's not a lot of stuff out there, right? So there's not a lot of good information out there on how to train your grip. Very few programs have grip or forearm training programmed in the workout. So it's like, well, what do I do for my grip? Do I just hold on to heavy weights? Like what are the exercises? What does that look like? So there's a lot of that. And also, I mean, the reality is, and you said this, you're basically touching on this, Justin, your hands connect you to the world. So a strong grip is like, you know, that's the last line of defense if you will. If your grip can't hold something or your wrist is too weak to press something, I don't care how strong your chest and shoulders are, your back is, your bicep. Doesn't matter, you're dropping it. You can't do it, it just doesn't work. So it's a very important part of the body, just like any other part of the body is, but it's a neglected part of the body. And people always trip out when their grip gets stronger, how much it improves everything else because it's part- Everything else gets easier. The kinetic chain. It's also, I mean, I'm surprised you didn't bring up your, the, I don't know if it was a poll or a study they did on the grip strength of like a 20-year-old man today compared to like a 60-year-old man like in the 40s and 50s. No, in the 80s. Oh, the 80s. It was in the 80s. It was that recent. Yeah, the average college aged male today has the grip strength of a 60-year-old man in the early 80s. That's how much, and the reason why they use grip strength is because grip strength is actually a quite reliable, it's not perfect, of course, but a very reliable way to test overall body strength. So if you have a weak grip, you probably have a weak body. If you have a strong grip, you probably have a strong body. And of course, it's not perfect. There could be issues with someone's hands, they could, whatever. But for the most part, it tells you a lot and it's easy to test, right? It's an easy test. You just squeeze and grip something. Grip strength also, and this was, I remember when the first study came out with this, people were blown away, but now they've repeated it. Grip strength is actually a pretty reliable test to predict all-cause mortality. In fact, it's better than most other single metrics. Like you could go do blood tests and pick like single metrics. And there's some that can really predict well, especially if they're bad. But a lot of them, you need a combination of things to have a good predictor. Just grip strength alone will give you a pretty accurate reading of all-cause mortality because it measures overall body strength. It's an easy way to see if you can really summon strength. If you can recruit muscle fibers in a way where you can produce enough output so you can actually start moving heavy objects around. So it's a very simple way to make sure that you're staying on top of that. Yeah, it also predicts, though, it's also connected to, and what I mean by all-cause mortality is, yes, strength, that's an obvious one. But they connect it to overall mobility. They can connect it to osteopenia, osteoporosis, hormones, they can connect it to insulin sensitivity, diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia. Of course, it's one metric, so it's not perfect. But man, is it interesting that one test can tell you so much about somebody because it has to do with overall body strength. And overall body strength is very closely connected to longevity. But yeah, the grip, the grip is what they test. And incidentally, the thing that we probably, I mean, we use our whole bodies so little nowadays, but that last study you talked about, Adam, I mean, our hands are weak compared to what they used to. Yeah, I didn't realize that it was just the 80s. So what's your, what's the prevailing theory on why? Such a, I mean, that's drastic in such a short period of time. Like we know like over hundreds of years this stuff. That's a generation. Yeah, I know, for something like that's massive. So what is your theory that has happened in the last 20 to 40 years that has dramatically? We don't use our hands. Yeah. We don't use our hands for anything that's strenuous. Especially, yeah, manual labor has gone way down in terms of technology and making things easier. We used to have a lot more jobs where you really had to use your hands and grip to use on a frequent basis. And we all know that like frequency of like that kind of like manual labor or things, like you see the forearms that produces and the strength that produces and you just don't see a lot of trade type jobs where people are, you know, enrolling. Well, I mean, it was everyday life, like fixing your bike, working on your car, swinging a hammer, playing any kind of sport, right? It's just your hands are always involved. You know what's funny in that same study they showed that women's grips or college age women's grips didn't decline. In fact, there was a slight increase and this is likely due to the increase in women playing sports. So from the 80s to now, the percentage of girls that play sports has gone up because back then it was somewhat discouraged. It was, you know, masking or whatever, don't go to the gym type of deal. But with men, it went the opposite direction. So, you know, kind of interesting. So it's gotta be the fact that we just don't use our hands for anything other than texting or typing or writing. And so they're just weak, but that means that's also showing that our whole body is weak. But then to the average person who works out and they think, well, what does this have to do with me, a stronger grip makes all your exercises more effective, not just the pulling ones. Everybody thinks, oh yeah, that makes sense for rows and for pull-ups and for deadlifts. Obviously you want to have a strong grip. You know, it shouldn't be the reason why you can't lift the weight that you can lift should not be your grip. But people don't realize that a strong grip also translates to strong press, strong forearms and strong wrists translates for strong press. And if you don't believe me, watch high lifters who lift ungodly amounts of weights in overhead presses and bench presses and many of them will wear wrist support. They'll actually put braces on the wrist to support their arms so they could press more weight. Why? Because if your wrist can't support the weight, you can't press it. Now these are people bench pressing. Well, even if it can somewhat support it, if there's at all any sort of movement play or breakdown there, you're gonna lose a lot of power and strength. So I mean, and that's what I, where someone's like, oh, my wrists are fine. I can do these presses, but it's like any sort of instability there because you're weak in that grip could make a massive difference. And so there's a massive carryover to every exercise that you do. Like, in fact, I mean, many times I'd be in these long training sessions and almost always what would tap me out is my forums. I mean, just got to a point where it's like it's such a small muscle in comparison, the form extenders are such small muscles in comparison to your back and your chest and your legs and all these big movers that you're using. And then that was just so pumped and fatigued. It's like you couldn't even grab onto heavy enough weight anymore. Yeah, well, you know, what's interesting is, and you can test this out yourself, you could use wrist straps when doing pulling exercises or you could use wrist bracing devices while you press and you'll probably find that you have better technique and better connection to the weight. That's what can happen naturally. In fact, it's even better naturally when that grip is there. So a stronger grip will make your shoulder, chest, back and even leg exercises. I've known people who squat even with things on the wrist to support themselves with a heavy squat. So anything that involves the hands, any exercise that involves the hands, if your hands are strong, you're gonna be able to hit the target muscles more effectively. So this makes a very, very big difference with your entire body, not just in the obvious exercises like pull-ups and rows and deadlifts, makes a huge difference. So let's talk about some of the ways that you can improve your grip strength. And a lot of these are gonna have to do with things you shouldn't do, not just things you should do. And the first one is, don't use wrist straps. What's up everybody? Welcome back. Here's the giveaway for today's episode, MAPS Anabolic, the program that started it all. You can get it for free, but you have to do this, okay? You gotta leave a comment in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications if we like your comment. We'll notify you in the comment section. You'll get free access to MAPS Anabolic. Also, check this out. We have two bundles right now of workout programs that are 50% off. The first bundle is the skinny guy bundle. This includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Aesthetic, the No BS six pack formula, the Intuitive Nutrition Guide, and the Inclusion Training Guide. So all in that bundle, 50% off. The other bundle that's 50% off is the fit mom bundle, which includes MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Hit, and the Intuitive Nutrition Guide. So they're both 50% off. If you're interested, you wanna click on the link at the top of the description of this video. So click on the link at the top of the description below to get the discount link and then use the code SEPT50. So SEPT50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Wrist straps are those device that go around your wrist. Then you wrap around the bar and the theory is, hey, your grip can't hold the weight. So this will help you hold the weight and then you can train your back more effectively. This is a terrible tool. The only people I ever think should use wrist straps are advanced bodybuilders who've already built tremendous amounts of muscle. They're doing so much volume. They're isolating muscles in particular ways, in which case they know how to use these tools in ways that help them. But for 99.9% of people who work out, wrist straps are a detriment. They're just gonna keep your wrist weak and your hands weak while you strengthen everything else. Yeah, I've been sort of an evangelist for that for a while now. And it's mainly just because I know when I used to actually wear wrist straps and I would do power cleans and you definitely could put up more weight. You just had more stability, more security. And there was no leak of performance that way in terms of gripping the bar and like feeling any fatigue in that direction. But I noticed just grabbing dumbbells that were heavy. I was having a hard time with that then to go and translate into what I could actually lift. So I had to go through a long process and a lot of people don't wanna do this if they've been stuck on wrist straps because it does take a while for you to basically catch that up. Your muscles tend to have a lot more in them in terms of what they can produce. You know, when you have a secure wrist and you have like a secure grip, but putting the work in, grabbing the weights and just holding the weights and then kind of working your way up progressively will make a big difference in terms of then improving all of the lifts. It's so tempting to wanna use it because I mean, you can, like if you've ever tried to really increase your deadlift, normally, at least in my experience, the thing that gives out for most people is actually the grip before like their glutes or hamstrings or their back, you know, like it's normally like they get to a weight where they just can't hang onto the bar and then you do an over under type of deal and or you use straps. And you know, I've definitely been in this camp before I've used straps when I get to super heavy weight deadlift and it makes it a lot easier. Just one less thing you gotta think about too, because with like a movement like that, that's so complex, there's this, you know, oh man, if I don't have to worry about grip, I'm locked in and all I gotta think about is the hinging process. It makes that movement a lot easier. But then for what though, you know, so like I understand if you're in a sport that allows you to use those thrones. Like strongman's competitions might last. Yeah, so like there's some competitions that allow straps and then it's all about how heavy of a weight you can go. Then it's a little less important. You brought up the advanced bodybuilder who, you know, is not trying to get a massive forearm pump and is focusing on another specific area. I used them when I was competing. I haven't used them since I competed. It just, there's no point to me. And I don't really care that like right now I'm not able to, and by the way, my limiting factor, I'm deadlifting a lot right now. The limiting factor right now is my grip. You know, once I start getting above, you know, about 350 or so, it's really hard for me to get five reps without an over-undergrip. But I'm sticking to just double over because I don't, there's no reason for me right now. I'm not gonna get any benefit by saying, by other than bragging on the show that, oh, I'm back up to 550 pound deadlift. It's like, who cares? You know what I'm saying? It's not gonna benefit me that much. So I think that's where you have to, you have to understand that if you're somebody who is in the gym and you're just trying to build a great physique or if you're somebody who's just trying to be healthy or lose body fat, it's like, there is not really a place for these, they're gonna do more harm than they are good. They are, by the way, you know, when women are, and this is just for the guys out there, when they ask women what body parts on a man are found most attractive, the one that tends to shock people is hands and forearms. Hands and forearms will stand out. And I think it's because, not necessarily it's a attractive body part, but rather what we said earlier that it represents overall strength. And it's an easy way, I mean, we're fully clothed, so you have a T-shirt on or long-sleeve shirt and a woman instinctively will can tell you're physically strong by your hands and by your forearms. You referenced that all the time. I don't know if I've ever read that before. I know arms is, I didn't know hands, hands. Hands and forearms. I feel like you say that because Doug says you have beautiful soft hands. Yeah, no, they're not. I like this one originally. Yeah, he does say that, thanks Doug. No, but no, I've read it many, many times and look, I bet we're gonna get comments on that now that I've said it, but it's totally true. It's also part of wisdom, right? What do they say to you when you were a kid? Like, if you shake your girlfriend's dad's hand, give them a firm grip. Shake your hand. Yeah, right? Because I think it does. It shows that, right? It demonstrates that. I wanna shake hands. But yeah, wrist straps take away from that and you never allow your grip to catch up. And again, for the vast majority people, 99.9%, your grip has the capacity to lift as much as your heaviest lift, as your body can handle its heaviest lift. In other words, a deadlift. Forget rows, like if you can't hold onto a bar, you row or pull up, like work on your grip. But there are those occasional like deadlifters that are pulling tremendous ridiculous amounts of weight in which case, you know, back and legs and hips, maybe, but 99.9% of people, no, it's just, you gotta let your grip catch up. Wrist wraps won't allow that. Now I use wrist wraps for a long time working out because that's what the bodybuilders used in the magazines. And as a kid, I followed what the bodybuilders did. And I remember someone telling me this and saying, you know, in the real world, if you can't hold onto the weight, you can't lift it. And I remember thinking, oh yeah, you're totally right. This is weird. So I took off the wrist straps and it took me a year for my hands to catch up to my back. I had trained my back with wrist wraps for so long. My hands were so far behind that I had to go way lighter. It took me a year to catch up. Now my hands are there. I can hold on to things that my back can lift, but it'll take a little bit of time. It also, by the way, studies show that connections to muscles change a little bit when you use things like wrist wraps, including presses. So you can actually change recruitment pattern so your body learns how to lift more with wrist wraps, not just because it's holding the weight, but rather because it's used to the recruitment pattern. And you don't necessarily want that in the real world because you don't have wrist wraps with you everywhere. I'm gonna jump around on your list because I think that this just organically flows better here of the point that we were making about heavy singles, doubles, and triples. This was one of the best things that I ever did. I know we've talked before. I know you've done YouTube videos on building forearms, strength, and grip. One of the best things that I noticed and remember, before we all got together, I really didn't do the single, double, triple thing. Like I did low reps way back when I was a kid at like the five, six rep range, but I never dropped below five, like ever. And so I started training singles, doubles, and triples. And one of the things I vividly remember, like noticing, aside from watching my strength go up more in those big lifts that I'd ever seen, was my grip. I noticed my grip strength when I probably, just from just lifting really, really heavy weight one to two to three times. Because you know, I was giving the example earlier of lifting above 350 when I started getting above five reps in that rep range. It's just hard for that long of a period of time to hold on to, but by doing something as tense and as heavy as, you know, 400 pounds one time, pulling up like that, boy, my grip strength shot up really fast. It's because one is training more for strength endurance and one is training for just pure strength. So when I'm doing high, when you're doing, and most people, when they don't train their grip and they're like, oh, it's fine. And then they test it like I need to get it stronger. They may have okay strength endurance because they hold on to the weights quite a bit. But just like building strength in anywhere else in the body that low rep stuff will build like real low, you know, that grinding strength. And that comes from the low rep stuff. So, you know, doing a double with heavy weight builds strength differently than doing, you know, 12 reps with lighter weight. Both of them build strength. One is more strength endurance. One of them is more pure strength. That's what you noticed. You'd never train your grip with like pure strength. And boy, can that increase the overall strength of your grip through the roof. It was dramatic. Like it was, it was a made for, and because I used to, if you go further back, I was a wrist strap guy like you for a really long time. Pretty much used, it was a cool accessory when I was in my twenties, you know, it was like cool to have wrist strap. I looked serious, you know what I'm saying? That was like the idea when I was 20 something years old walking around the gym. So, and I used it for everything, which was a terrible idea. And then got rid of them. And then I remember working my way up on the deadlift. And that was something really quick. And I know of course there's some novelty there, right? I never trained single double triple. So I probably saw an additional benefit, but you're right. I mean, like how many people are training that way? I also included in there, and I know this isn't on our notes, but I would play with the axle bar too, which it was. Oh, thicker grip. Yeah. I thought that was really beneficial too, was incorporating, and same thing, singles, doubles and triples with the axle bar. And then I go back to a regular bar and it felt like I could just squeeze it. God, I haven't done that long time to squeeze it. The singles, doubles, triples, like for me, what it showed too is just like, it really highlights any instability. So like, you can kind of get away with that a bit when you do higher reps. And you can get that sort of a muscular pump that goes with that, but with strength training, pure strength training and that higher reps with a high load, you either can do it or you can't. And it shows you sort of where those weak points are that need to be addressed. And so like with your grip, it's like it's very visibly obvious, you know, where that disconnect is. Yeah. The next one is to use chalk, powder chalk or liquid chalk. So most gyms don't allow powder chalk. So they sell liquid chalk, super cheap. And most gyms are okay with it. You might get the occasional gym that won't use that, let you use that as well, but I've gotten away with it at every gym I've ever worked out at. And chalk helps because you're connected to the weight, right? When your hands are sweaty and a bar is slippery, it changes the connection. You don't have to worry about something. You have to worry about the bar slipping or moving in a particular way. Chalk for all lifts, not just pulling lifts, but pressing lifts as well, curls, laterals, press downs, doesn't matter. When you have a more tight grip on the bar and chalk helps with that, because it gets rid of the slipping, you feel more connected and it also allows you to strengthen and train your grip without having to use an aid like wrist strap. So chalk is a huge, and there's almost no lift I don't use chalk on these days. I'm always using chalk. You just feel more connected. Gym owners love you. Well, the liquid one's not a big deal. The liquid one's not that bad, but yeah. It is, I know, I love getting into chalk too. It gives you that added bit of, so it's like that friction that you can now, you know, feed off of. You just feel more connected to the weight. Just feel connected and secure. Yeah, even with isolation movements. I mean, even when I'm doing movements that are light, where I'm trying to target and isolate a muscle, when I use chalk, it's like I'm, you know, it's like when you drive a sports car and you feel connected to the road versus floating on top of it. I'm connected to the weight in a different way and I can actually isolate those muscles a little bit better. So chalk is super valuable. I mean, I have to use chalk, especially when I get heavy weight. If you're not using straps, to me, and if you've dead lifted a couple sets, your palms get sweaty, which in the past, that was my excuse for using straps. Oh, my hands are getting, as I get into multiple reps. Everybody just slips. Yeah, and it just rolls right out. And chalk will dry that right up. So having some chalk or liquid chalk, I think is a game changer. The next one, and this one, I remember Justin talking about this and he made a big deal about this, but I also remember reading about this in Powerlifting Magazine. I don't remember the name of the Powerlifting Magazine, but I had subscribed to it when I was a kid. And I remember some of the top benchers on there talking about squeezing the bar. Like rather than letting the bar just sit on your hands, which a lot of people do when they press, to crush the bar with your hands, and increasing the amount of neural drive or force into the bar. So, and this strengthens your grip as well. So when you're doing exercises, almost any exercise, use a firm grip on it. Even if it's something you don't necessarily need to grip on too tight, grip that bar tight, grip the handles tight, and it'll connect you to the weight a little bit better, and it'll continue to train your grip. I used to get a little bit of pushback on that because some clients would think they're using too much energy, like, you know, it's gonna take away a little bit from, they might fatigue a bit more. But in a sense, it's got that irradiation kind of effect where now, all of a sudden, all the rest of the joints feel secure. You're able to actually kind of like really connect and generate more force that way, which then contributes to the overall lift. Well, it's actually really interesting because it's very different than a bodybuilder's mentality would be when they lift. A lot of bodybuilders will break their wrist and open palm. So I had a habit of doing that for a really long time where I would just let the weight rest and I wouldn't grip at all. And I'm just thinking about the chest the entire time. Now, the theory or the logic behind that, why a bodybuilder does that, is all I care about is feeling the chest. You're picturalistic. I don't care if I get stronger and now I can bench press 50 more pounds or whatever like that. I don't care if my grip strength is better or not. I want to feel the chest the entire time and so I actually wanna relax almost the wrist and think that way. So that's the thought process. And I trained that way for a really long time, but ironically, my best bench, when I got to this place where I started really gripping the bar and my forearm, when my deadlift went up, my bench press went up. So I watched my barbell bench press go up when my deadlift went up and a lot of that had to do with just being able to hold on to the bar. And I get the value in taking things out of the equation so you can feel and isolate a muscle. I get that. And there's a role, there's some value there in getting a muscle to be able to activate the way you want so that you can build it. However, the biggest muscle builders aren't those exercises. They're the ones where you're typically moving the most weight. So I would use those with clients to teach them how to feel the muscle, get to the point where they can feel it and squeeze it. And then we can get to the point where we can go heavy, irradiate the whole body and now we're generating a tremendous amount of force and we're building a lot of muscle. So there's value in what bodybuilders say. However, I think the average person or at least with media, it gets communicated like this is how you should train. It's not. It's just another classic example of something that we address on the show all the time which is the nuances. It's not as simple as the bodybuilder has it wrong and the powerlifter has it right. It's that. Different intent going in. That's right. They both have different intents. They both have value to overall training and your pursuit to strength and muscle hypertrophy and longevity. And it's like understanding where each camp is coming from and then how do I apply this to improve my place? And so my biggest takeaway in that being that I've been in the bodybuilder camp but then also cared about getting stronger is that they both had tremendous value for me. I mean, the ability for me to connect to muscles and training that way for so long has obviously benefited me in shaping and sculpting a physique but then boy has learning to generate as much force and power and having forearm strength and fire that CNS has totally compounded my abilities to build more muscle because I understand the strength, the strength importance of grip strength, CNS and all that stuff. Yeah, and squeezing the bar. I mean, you could test this out next time you work out. Do your normal workout and with your heaviest sets, just squeeze the bar, squeeze the bar and see how you feel and the weight actually will move. It'll move up a little faster. You'll actually generate more strength and force. Well, that brings right to the next point which is the practicing the isometrics. I mean, that's what you're basically teaching is the entire body to communicate together before you do a movement like that and squeezing the bar would be a type of an isometric. Yeah, so there's different kinds of strength when it comes to muscle contractions and they all, there's overlap, right? But they can be pretty specific. So you have the ability of a muscle to contract. You have the ability of a muscle to lower or lengthen with tension. So in other words, I can curl a weight or I could slowly lower a weight. Those are both different types of contractions. And then I can just hold the weight which is isometric. Most of the many I should say of the demands on the grip involve isometric strength. Now, we need to have squeezing and crushing grip. We need to have the kind of grip that allows us to lower something with control when we're carrying things, when we're grabbing things, when we're working with things. But usually when we work out, the grip tends to serve and the hand and the wrist, I should say tends to serve as an isometric stabilizer. Most exercises require me to hold and stabilize. So isometric exercises have a lot of carryover and isometrics are holding onto a heavy weight, hanging from a bar, instead of doing a reverse wrist curl, holding away and supporting it in this position so that my wrist gets strong in this position or in this position, right? So the isometrics have a lot of carryover for the rest of your lifts because your lifts tend to require that kind of strength. Like strength and endurance. So yeah, it just carries over well because with grip, you are doing, like say you're doing compound lifts and but you have to hold onto the bar the whole time. Basically, like gripped and glued to it. So you need that endurance to be able to sustain the same amount of force to hold on and grip throughout the duration of the exercise. And this is just a common practice for me is to grab either, I mean, dead lifts are obviously like kind of an example of that, but like holding it the bar an extended amount of time at the top. For me, I like to grab kettle bells and just hold them and I'll literally do it until fatigue for reps. So that's just something I constantly do just to make sure I'm addressing my grip, strength and endurance. Now, how would you guys specifically program these types of isometrics for the average person? So I imagine I'm running one of our programs and I'm consistent with the days and then I also mostly in this episode, I'm like, oh, I really want to focus more on that. Oh, I don't do any isometric type of work for my forums or my grip strength. Where does that belong in your opinion and how frequent is it that I do this? Oh, so that's actually one of the next points is literally at the end of your workout, every workout just add one, you can add one or two sets of grip or forum exercises and they can both be isometrics. So just at the end of your workout when you're done and the reason why you want to typically do it at the end unless grip is really a focus for you, but the reason why you want to do it at the end is you don't want to fatigue your grip before you do other exercises. Before you do your dead lifts in the way. Because of what we said earlier, it's connected to every exercise that you do. Yeah, it's the example that would be like your core, fatiguing your core or your back before you go do squats. Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense for the most part. It'll really hamper the rest of your workout. But when you're done, one or two sets of forearm or grip exercises and they can both be isometrics. So like hanging from a bar would be an example or holding onto heavy dumbbells. And you can do it to fatigue or you can do what I do, which is I tend to stop a short of fatigue and I'll say, okay, you know, oh, 30 seconds is up. I think I do 10 more seconds, but I'll let go. Now, because it's isometric, do you recommend that someone could do this every single workout? So every time I train in the gym. Oh yeah, or you have to be just isometric. You could do, you know, full range of motion. Just one or two sets every workout. In my experience, that's all you need for most people because your grip is already involved in so much of your workout. That adding that extra one or two sets at the end. So if you work out four days a week, you're doing four to eight sets a week with a little extra grip work. But man, does that carry over. Now, what you don't wanna do is listen to this and go crazy and over train the shit at your hands and forearms. Because contrary to, I guess, popular mythology around grip training, you can over train your grip. A lot of people are like, no, you can't. Yes, you can. You can over train your grip. Believe me, I've done it. No, it tends to, it's a much better approach to be a frequently added low amount of volume type of training with grip training because it's, again, it contributes to everything you're gonna be doing in terms of holding weight. So in order to build strength, obviously you're gonna do it in doses where I'll do the same thing where I'll just add one or two exercises every day at the end of the workout. Or even if I'm just doing my daily rituals of anything, I'm grabbing something and just holding it for a while. Yeah, which brings us to another point. And this one's often neglected, which is to train the wrist extenders, not just the flexors. So when you're talking about the forearm, everybody thinks of the muscles that flex the wrist. Over the top. But there's also the muscles that extend here, right? That pull the wrist back. And you need to have balance on your wrist and your forearm. There's also muscles that bend lateral. You can't just train one and then keep the rest weak because that creates instability and can cause problems and wrist issues. And this is a very neglected part of the body. So wrist extenders. So I like to throw in a set, because I mean, how many times am I training this particular muscle here? I like to put in a set of like reverse curls or reversed wrist curls, or even just holding my arm at the end of a bench with the weight for a little bit into fatigue the top of my forearms. And I notice when my wrist extenders are stronger, my grip is so much stronger because of the balance of stability. I mean, I wanna touch more on even the, what you started to lightly talk about, which is very common when you see somebody with a golfers or tennis elbow. Many times it's the extenders that are weak because their flexors are so strong. They pull a lot of weight, deadlifting or they curl really good weight, but they spend no time doing the extenders. This was an issue for me. And it was as simple as that. Like I kept trouble. I remember like working on this a while. This was just a couple of years ago. And I was looking at like all shoulder stuff and wrist mobility. And I'm like, I'm messing with all the things. And I'm like, God, it's still bothering me. And I was heavy deadlifting at that time. And what I realized was like, God, when was the last time that I had really focused on my extenders and they were so weak in comparison. And so when I started doing that, it completely alleviated the elbow pain. So this is a common area that I think people neglect. And a lot of times you see it express itself in the elbow. Yeah. Now by the way, the elbow pain, the reason why you feel the elbow pain is cause these muscles, you know, like the brachioradialis here, I mean, it covers the top of the elbow here on the top and on the bottom part of the elbow. These are wrist flexors. So it's the attachment of these forearm muscles. And people think elbow, they tend to think tricep or bicep. But I mean, eight out of 10 times, it's the forearm and grip muscles that are inflamed and weak and keeping those strong. And this is a very pain on either side of the elbow. Painful. Super common. Super common. And a lot of times it's overworked one side and underworked on the other side. So keeping both kind of like similar to like shin splints. Yes. The tibialis is weak. Yes. And the tibialis is weak. And just by simply working the tibialis, you get rid of these shin splints. I think it's really similar when you see people that are suffering from the elbow pain is they have got one side is overworked or super dominant and the other side is super weak. Yes. And last point here is typically don't train to failure, just like we recommend for most body parts. Now there's some value in failure training if you know how to do it right. But for most people, training to failure is just too much intensity and it results more in this kind of my body wants to heal more than it can adapt. So if you're training, if you're throwing one or two sets of some kind of grip or forearm training at the end of every workout, don't do it to failure. So what does that look like? Well, if I hang from a bar rather than hanging until I fall, I hang until I feel like I have about, you know, seven to 10 seconds left and then I let go. And then that's a set. You'll find that your strength gains will come faster that way versus the, I'm going to train the crap at them to fatigue at the end of every workout. That tends to result in overtraining. I like that one. And I like that's actually such a great one to slowly progressively overload with time. Like, so I actually liked doing hang. Like you talk about at the end of a workout, you do a hang and the first time you do it, you do it till, like you said, till like, oh, I'm almost going to get out. I don't think you fall literally, but it's like, oh, it's getting so pumped. And then you just keep track of your time. And then every time you do that, the next, the every day that you incorporate that, you just try and hang for a few more seconds, a few more. And before you know it, you go from adding five seconds to 10 seconds to 15, then 20, then 30, you're adding. Then before you know it, you're adding 45 seconds to a minute to your hang. You could get nowhere near that just a couple of weeks before it'll get there pretty quick. Absolutely. So let's talk about some of our favorite exercises for grip strength. Farmer walks has to be up there for me. Constantly do those all the time. Yes, heavy farmer walks. I'll do, you know, if I go real heavy, I'll use the trap bar and I've gone up to as heavy as 450 pounds and I'll walk for maybe 20 paces. And man does my grip get strong. And it hurts my hands and yeah, the whole thing, but it toughens everything up to a tremendous degree. So that's gotta be one of my favorites. Yeah, I like to the pinch grip. So you take the plates and then you just grab them and then hold them in that direction too. And I mean, I do the same thing between pinch grip and then also with just because the kettlebells have kind of a fatter grip to them, holding the heaviest kettlebells I can find for time is another great one for an isometrical. I'm gonna say the reverse curls just because again, I think that's just a neglected area that I think that that's an area that you shouldn't and of course you're directly hitting that right there. So I like that as an exercise. Although the farmer carries, I think we probably might all agree is our favorite. And a lot of why I think that's so amazing is because you're lighting the entire body up and it's rooted in your grip, right? First, because it's hanging on to the weight, but then it's connecting you from your toes all the way up to your neck and shoulders. Dude, you could start a workout with Farmer Walks and it's got a different effect than if you end the workout with Farmer Walks. I love to start them because it just, I mean, the other day, everything just turned up. Yeah, and then I feel really strong going into all my lifts. And you can reinforce your posture position too with Farmer Walks. So maybe you're not doing quite as much load, but you know, you're really like getting in that retracted, upright position and reinforcing good posture. You know, this is kind of off topic a little bit. It's talking about the Farmer Walks, but for different reasons. I find it a really cool hack when I don't want to work out. Like it- Just do that. Yeah, because it totally, like to your point, turns me all on, then now all of a sudden I want to lift. Like I'm like, oh, I feel like lethargic. Kind of, I'm not in the mood to go train. Sort of work out to you, yeah. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go over there, go grab them 100 pound dumbbells or go grab a trap bar and just I'm going to walk, you know, 40, 50 yards real quick back and forth a couple of times and it just turns my whole, now all of a sudden I want to lift. So it's a cool little hack to kind of get me in the mood too to lift. I think it's interesting. Yeah. Another one that I learned, this one's more advanced, but I learned this one from Judo players because I did, you know, I did Judo as a kid, some Jiu-Jitsu and you would grip and use the gi quite a bit. And let me tell you, if you have a weak grip and those sports, you're dead. I don't care how strong the rest of your body is, you're done because Is that a crush grip? Just crush stamina. Like you go with a good Judo or Jiu-Jitsu guy and their hands are three times as strong as their size shows. It's just incredible stamina and strength. But anyway, one thing that they did is they would do, they would use really thick towels like strong stable towels. They'd hang them over a bar and grip the towel and do pull-ups or you put it in a cable and do rows or you would do curls with them. So with a towel, cause it mimicked the gi. But let me tell you, you grab a towel versus a bar, it is totally different on the hands and it works the grip like nothing else. It's more advanced. So if you have trouble doing pull-ups, don't throw a towel around the bar and try to do pull-ups, you're gonna hurt yourself. Oh, you feel every little muscle in your hands. Like, can it affect it from that? No, it's totally different than just grabbing a bar. And then there's, we included this one in our OCR program. So we have a program called Maps OCR for people preparing to race in obstacle course racing. And one of the weak links in obstacle course racing, which we would constantly hear from competitors, was their grip. It would just give out, right? And there was one movement that where you take a bucket and you fill it with dry rice, put your hand in the bucket and you open and close your hands in that rice. And this, you know, I did some research to see where did this come from. And by the way, this really works the hands and it works the fingers independently. It's really awesome. It's great for people with wrist and hand pain as well. But you could see old Kung Fu practices would do this. And they would do it with sand, then pebbles, then rocks, in terms of, you know, progressing resistance. You know, I'm glad you brought that up because I know we just did a whole episode on giving away a lot of the information as far as like how you could go about programming this yourself. But that program really was geared towards that. I mean, we looked at like what we saw as one of the biggest- Stamina and grip strength. It's like, it hits both the- So if you're listening right now and you're like, oh, this is a major focus for you. That's why you clicked on this to listen to it. We actually programmed MAPS OCR specifically for that to come up. So if you wanna see how we wrote and all the things we're talking about is pretty much incorporated in that routine. So I think that's a great program to follow if this is something that you're looking to get better at. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump, Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump South. The rules that apply to somebody who is going from a man who's going from 20% body fat to 15%. The rules that apply to that person are the same as the rules that go from 10% to 5%. The difference is everything that we talked about.