Grip Strength Training

Grip strength as a biomarker for longevity

The episode highlights research showing grip strength is one of the strongest predictors of overall health and longevity, and that loaded carries are among the most effective ways to develop this critical capacity.

"It was funny, though, because I don't actually even identify well. I know that I obviously lift weights and train people and stuff, but, believe it or not, I don't identify in my mind as a big guy. I don't really know how other people perceive me often. Yeah, caught me off guard, but the guy behind the pastry counter, he took one look at my forearms and, I guess, the veins in them in particular and asked me how do you get forearms like that? I said absolutely. I mean, I find that a lot of things happen and I have a little bit of a sense of responsibility. Again, these are just funny to me because I've been the same person my whole life, so I still identify as a little siney from growing up, obviously, I played basketball as a sport, so nobody ever accused me of being big. I was always a little guy until I wasn't. Anyway, I'm not entirely used to it. But the guy stops me, asks me about my forearms, decided to give him a tip. He actually mentioned to me that his primary workout typically was calisthenics, body weight progressions but he was trying to improve. I don't know if this was just an aesthetic thing, I didn't have enough time. There was folks in line behind me. But yeah, I knew that he wanted to grow his forearms and since I knew that the body weight training was a big part of what he was doing, my recommendation to him was loaded carries and we're going to talk about all the benefits. But namely for him I was citing that the if he's geeking out of my forearms that the main exercise I do for that, quite frankly, is loaded carries. I don't do any direct forearm training. I don't do the curls and the roll-up things. I've done it in the past but that's not a part of my programming anymore. The only piece I have in my training that would directly impact my forearms obviously any of the pulling work that I do, but namely the loaded carries. That's where the vast majority of my grip strength and thus forearm strength and hypertrophy, if I have any Well, I guess I don't have to be so modest. It's good enough that it got me stopped at a farmer's market, so we'll just take it at face value. But anyway, I started telling the young man on why he should be doing loaded carries and again, namely for his calisthenics, his primary workout. I was seeing this as something that would improve his time up on the bar. Obviously, it follows if you get better at carrying weight, improve your grip strength, you will be better at pull-ups or anything that involves grip. So anyway, after giving him just a little rundown on some carries that he should maybe include in his workout, he finally asked me what we were going to get. And they make these beautiful little custard croissants that well, there's custard in the center and there's all these berries and that's the one my daughter picked. And then, cool guy, he actually just gave it to me for free and, yeah, just took him up on his hospitality and I still wanted to pay for the croissant Anyway, didn't want to turn it down and just acknowledge the value that he and I were sharing with each other. So, anyway, we'll be back again. It's one of our favorite spots and I look forward to catching up with the guy and see if he has put any of that to work. And reason I'm excited for that is I know that if he does it, it's going to go really well for him and maybe we'll have even more free croissants In our future. Just kidding, but not really. Anyway, without further ado, I do want to. Today, the deep dive is going to be all on loaded carries. We're going to talk, actually, about the history of loaded carries. We're going to get in and talk about some of the benefits. I've already kind of scratched the surface of that. We're going to go a little deeper. We will look at the different variations and I'll give you guys a brief explanation of each. They're all great, but we'll kind of run down why you might want to gravitate into some versus others. Couple DIY variations, if you will, that you can pull off. We'll talk about how to program these into your workouts for an array of goals, because I think the loaded carry can be used in a number of different ways. And, yeah, that's going to be pretty much how we're going to go about today's episode. So anyway, let's dive into the history first, and what's fun about this is I also get to shamelessly plug an episode that we have already done. So if you've been listening for a while, you might remember our episode on progressive overload. That was the first time I introduced you to a man named Milo of Croton. So anyway, there's kind of two really important takeaways from that story. Number one, obviously, progressive overload. That's why we did a whole episode on that. But we should also remind you what was Milo doing? Remember, milo picked up a bull every single day as it went from a calf into a bull, and so obviously, the lift that Milo chose is what we would call today a fireman's carry, but he was doing it with a bull. So there really are two really great takeaways that we can pull from the story of Milo, and that would be number one, progressive overload. And then number two, the value of loaded carries."

Grip strength is a thermometer, not a heater

Dr. Feigenbaum explains that grip strength is one of the most predictive single metrics for cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, and all-cause mortality, but training it directly is like holding a match under a thermometer to warm the room.

"If you train your grip to quote live longer, you're essentially holding a match under that thermometer to make the room feel warmer. You might see a higher number on the dial, but the house is still freezing."

Neural jitter as an early neurodegenerative disease signal

When squeezing a dynamometer, an oscillating or non-smooth signal (neural jitter) can indicate neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's years before other physical symptoms appear.

"if that signal isn't smooth, but instead it's oscillating or waxing and waning, that can be the brain trying to tell us something. Sometimes you can see this with pathology, there's a bunch of research on this in different neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, where they have this sort of non-smooth signal when they're trying to do a hand grip strength that occurs years before other physical symptoms"

Why isolated extensor training is unnecessary for healthy people

The claim that you must train finger extensors to balance out flexion is largely unsupported. The extensors are already heavily active during gripping to stabilize the wrist and prevent active insufficiency.

"the extensors are heavily active when you grip anything anyway, that's how your wrist stays stable and prevents active insufficiency. What do you think those muscles on the backside of your arm are doing? It's not like they're just hanging out waiting to do something. They're active."

Whole-body training beats direct grip training for health outcomes

Indirect resistance training improves grip strength in sarcopenic individuals and prevents further loss of type 2 motor neurons. Direct grip training follows the SAID principle but does not confer additional health benefits beyond what whole-body training provides.

"if a person has a sort of low grip strength and they do indirect resistance training, this is particularly true in individual of the sarcopenia that their hand grip strength improves. which is exactly what you would expect. It prevents further loss of type 2 motor neurons, so kind of stops sarcopenia cold in its tracks."

Grip strength as a longevity predictor and biological age marker

Katie explains that grip strength is now considered one of the strongest predictors of overall longevity, correlating with all-cause mortality, heart disease, stroke, and biological age. Athletes with very strong grip often show dramatically young biological ages.

"group strength is now considered one of the strongest predictors of overall longevity, which is pretty dramatic and understandable when we think about, for instance, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon explaining in multiple episodes of this podcast that lean muscle mass leads to longevity"

Dead hangs: testing and building grip strength at home

Dead hangs build passive grip strength and benefit shoulder stability and spinal posture. Target at least 60 seconds, building to 90 seconds or 3 minutes. Hang time also correlates with recovery status and matches Oura ring readiness data.

"we kind of at any age want to be able to hang for at least 60 seconds, ideally 90 seconds, or even up to three minutes, depending on age. I will say I'm not up to three minutes yet. However, my average hang time daily is about 90 seconds."

Rice bucket training for balanced hand and forearm development

A bucket filled with rice provides a surprisingly fatiguing workout that trains both hand flexors and extensors by opening and spreading fingers in the rice, addressing muscles that closed-hand grip training misses.

"it is incredible how fatiguing this can be to the hand and forearm. What I like about this is most grip strength activities like hanging are training in a closed hand position. This one, you're also opening your hands, spreading your fingers and moving all the way around in the rice, which engages a lot more of the tendons and muscles within the hands."

College men today have the grip strength of 1980s seniors

The average college-aged male today has the grip strength of a 60-year-old man from the early 1980s. Grip strength predicts all-cause mortality and correlates with mobility, osteoporosis, hormones, insulin sensitivity, and dementia risk.

"Should I use wrist straps? So it's this common question, this 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? Um, 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. Um, so a strong grip is like, you know, that's, that's the, uh, 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, it doesn't matter. You're dropping it. You can't do it. It just doesn't work. Um, so it's a very important part of the body, just like any other part of the body is. is um 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 everything else gets easier it's part of the kinetic chain it's also i mean i'm surprised you didn't bring up your uh the the i was i don't know if it was a poll or a study they did on the uh 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. 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. Now, of course, it's not perfect. There could be issues with someone's hands, they could whatever, but for the most part, and it tells you a lot and it's easy to test, right? It's an easy test. You just squeeze and grip something."

Why you should ditch wrist straps and how long it takes to recover

Wrist straps prevent the grip from developing alongside other muscles. One host took a full year for his hands to catch up to his back after removing straps. Studies show straps change recruitment patterns the body learns to rely on.

"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 straps for so long. My hands were so far behind that I had to go way lighter."

Heavy singles, doubles, and triples for pure grip strength

Training heavy singles, doubles, and triples builds pure grip strength rather than the grip endurance that comes from higher rep ranges. Combining this with an axle bar amplifies the effect.

"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 than 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, you like, like when I was giving the example earlier of lifting, you know, above 350, when I start 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 my grip strength shot up really because one is is training more for strength endurance and one is training for just pure strength yeah so when i'm doing high when you're doing and most people when they 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 onto 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, 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 trained your grip with pure strength."

Farmer's walks and rice bucket training as top grip exercises

Farmer's walks are the top grip exercise, lighting up the entire body and serving as a workout primer. Rice bucket work from old kung fu and OCR training develops fingers independently and works both flexors and extensors.

"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 say, where did this come from? And by the way, this really works the hands and it works the fingers independently. It's really awesome."