Of all the feats of strength performed, the most fascinating and easily appreciated by the ordinary man are those involving the muscles of the hand and forearms. The title of “strongman” is always associated with the demonstration powerful gripping and forearm strength.

Fashions in all areas constantly change with various strength feats being in vogue at different periods. During the 1950’s for example, the new exercise, the inch press, was all the rage, with the consequence that poundages shot up in this lift. Much earlier, in the 1900’s, at the time of Saxon and Sandow, the “screw lift” or bent press was the great attraction. Even earlier than that professional strongmen attempted feats of strength involving everyday objects such as bending iron powers, tearing packs of playing cards and chain breaking. It is interesting to note that these types of stunts have survived all others in demonstrations of power to impress the strength fans. They certainly are more appreciated by the laymen who can relate to the difficulty of the operation but who would not be impressed by how many kilo’s one can squat with, for example.

Initially, anyone embarking upon a normal weight training schedule, will increase his grip simply by lifting the barbells and dumbbells during the various exercises. Later in training, however, a poor grip can actually let you down in some exercises, e.g. heavy deadlifts. The fingers will certainly give out before those stronger back muscles. This is, incidentally, why you are instructed to use the special grip of hands facing opposite ways when performing this left.

To develop great grip and forearm strength to enable you to emulate the real strength athletes, you must perform specialized exercises which I will explain later, meanwhile, let me give you some brief details of some fine feats of grip.

Featured in the world famous Guinness Book of Records, David Willoughby’s ”Super Strength Athletes” and in an earlier book “Kings of Arm Strength” is a Great Britain by the name of W.G. (Bill) Hunt form Lancashire. Bill is the only man ever to have levered six billiard cues by their tips simultaneously through ninety degrees to the horizontal. Bill, a Herculean hand balancer, specialized in grip strength and can crush bottle tops between his fingers!

Britain has had many superb exponents of grip strength. J.C. Tolsen of Dewsbury, one time Britain’s strongest youth, is reported to have once torn three full packs of playing cards into quarters. He specialized in bending nails and iron bars, later bringing out a mail-order course called the “Apollon Course”. Tolsen could bend four six-inch nails together! Another champion bar bender was Harold Cope as also was Britain’s first Professional Mr. Universe, Arnold Dyson (1953). Dyson could bend and break a six-inch nail in around six seconds.

The very first NABBA Mr. Universe, American John Grimek has practiced forearm and gripping stunts all his life, including tearing a few telephone directories. Multi Universe winner Bill Pearl usually features some strength stunts in his stage appearances including tearing two car license plates and bending iron spikes. Anyone who has seen our own John Citrone’s stage act will most definitely appreciate his grip strength. His special drinking stein has brought failure to many strongmen when they tried to raise it to their lips.

The most recent feats of grip strength come form Mike Dayton, former Mr. Teenage America 1967. At a bodyweight of 200 lbs. his normal lifts are in the area of 600 lbs. squat and 715 lbs. deadlift, but most interesting of all is his ability to break regulation handcuffs and to bend coins with his bare fingers, following in the footsteps of the early strongman, “Cyclops”, a Polish gentleman whose real name was Bienkowski, even better known as the “The Coin Breaker.” I would be very interested to hear of strength feats related to gripping power by our own current top physique stars. Editor, Dave Williams can certainly tear a telephone directory in half and I am sure that last year’s Mr. Britain, Bill Richardson must be capable of some good stuff with his wrist wrestling ability.

Now for the exercises….forearms, like calves are used to do plenty of work and must be exercised thoroughly to show improvement. On the plus side however, the exercises can be done almost anywhere without interfering with your normal workouts.

First, get the old wrester roller out. If you have not got one, just tie a strong cord to the center of a firm wooden rod about the same length as a dumbbell. Attach a weight to the end of the cord and then with pure wrist movements, wind the weight up onto the rod. Then slowly unwind, then repeat. You will, of course, gradually increase the weight by adding more discs as you improve. If you have not tried this before, you will be surprised how it pumps up your forearms. Next, while seated, hold a lightly loaded barbell with your forearms resting on your thighs and just the wrists overhanging simply raise the barbell up and down using only wrist movement. To start with just do a couple of sets. Work the wrists both ways, palms up for one set, then palms down.

Another gadget you can easily make is a “leverbell.” Just load the weights (securely, please) onto one end of a dumbbell bar and holding the unloaded end in one hand, move the wrist about in all possible directions.

Normal deadlifting is a good exercise for the grip, as is partial deadlift off racks and single armed deadlifts. Hermann Goerner of Dresdon, Germany lifted 338 kilos single-handed way back in 1920. Off the cuff, the last figure I can remember for the two-handed deadlift was John Kuc’s 400 kgs.

Try also practicing pinch lifts. That is trying to lift increasingly heavier discs by gripping their ends. Mind you don’t drop them on your toes though. It’s easily done! Try to emulate Mac Batchelor’s stunt of carrying two eight pounders over thirty feet using just a pinch grip.

Other work for the hands and fingers is to practice rolling up newspapers from one corner, into a ball. There are also many types of hand-grips sold, which, of course, will strengthen your grip if used regularly. If the grip becomes too easy using the whole hand, try squeezing them together using just two or three fingers. Shortening the handles of some types also makes them harder to close. Practice tearing up old books or telephone directories, (please note that I am not encouraging vandalism) or even packs of playing cards if you can afford it. Nail and spike bending is wonderful hand work. If you cannot, at the moment bend a six inch nail, with persistence and hard training, you very soon will. Beware of damaging your hands on the points, however, always wrap the nails in a piece of cloth when attempting this feat.

Well, there we are. Plenty of differing exercises to choose from. Nothing too much out of the ordinary, but with concentrated training and practice on one or two of these exercises and stunts, you will soon begin to see a distinct improvement in your own strength of grip and in the development of muscular forearms.
 

Tony Emmott wrist-curls a barbell as
described in the feature.

The fingers will certainly give out before those stronger back muscles.

The most superior grip machine every made - the Dan Lurie Grip Master Frame.  Better than hand springs because you can add weight.  Not many men can squeeze 200 lbs closed on it.  Can you?