Grip Strength Tools

I was  recently motivated by Rogue Fitness and their new grip strength toys to look into incorporating some new grip strengthening strategies into my own arsenal. Thanks to our “opposable thumb”, we have a variety ways in which we can hold on to things. So it makes sense that if we want to have a “strong grip”, we’re going to want to challenge the hand in more than one way, because a bar, rope, rubber band, and a weight plate can only go so far. John Napier classically categorized grip types simply into “power grips” and “precision grips”. Most textbooks these days have tried to sub-categorize these two groups into roughly 5 different types of grips. Our “power grips” consist of the cylindrical grip, spherical grip, hook grip, and lateral prehension (thumb adduction). While our “precision grips” are all the variations of tip-to-tip pinching and thumb positioning for grabbing small objects.

Unfortunately, my college student budget does not have room for the high quality workmanship of Rogue’s tools at this time. So I decided to channel my inner Ross Enamait and Zach Even-Esh to build my own. Clearly, I’d recommend that you buy the real deal from Rogue [or Elite FTS]***, but I’ve been made do with the following:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l038yDOCkqw&w=560&h=315]

***Update: I was informed that Elite FTS also has a great grip kit as well.