Now what do I do? Man Ironmind/C.o.C do NOT fuck around, eh? This thing is serious. The craftmanship for a gripper is out of this world; thing looks and feels bad ass. I'm pretty glad I got a Trainer, I don't think I can do more than 8 reps on my right and 6 on my left. Is an actual crush/rep having both handles touch? Im definately going to have to toss thing around my chalk bag, the knurling is vicious. Anyhow thanks for the recommendation fellas, $26 well spent seems like.
I also got mine two weeks ago, along with mastery of handstrength. I am glad I purchased a trainer. What was really scary, was that I realized how much weaker I was in the left hand compared to the right. I knew I was very weak in the left, but hey ... I could close the trainer 11 times with the right, and 3 times with the left. I spent the next two days, learning what's the ideal starting position, and soon after I closed the #1 one time with the right. When I tried out the left on #1, I was nowhere near closing it ... I followed John Brookfield's 5 rep program every other day, and did some singles(it's hard laying down those grippers, when they're picked up). Now my left is SOOOO close in closing that damn #1. I think I should be able to nail it within a few days. Funny thing is, a guy I know, in his 40s closed the #2 with ease!! When I saw that I couldn't stop laughing, it was damn impressive!! Guy has never lifted a barbell or dumbell in his life. One thing he is naturally strong( I think), a damn bear imo, secondly he has been working hard his entire life. I don't think many are able to close the #2 the first time they try it. As for me, the #2 is like squeezing on a stone. My right hand can manage it pretty well, but hell, it's a long way to closing it ... I feel that I've progressed very well, using 5 reps for sets and singles. If the progression continues I think I will be able to close the #2 within months ... I don't know. edit: I've grown thick skin on my hands on two weeks, using these grippers. I still got marks of the 3 wounds I inclicted on myself. My skin has tougened now, on the cost of finger feelings. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not ... well, I'm not being a surgeon anyway, so whatever ^^
This reminds me - I need to get back on my trainer. I was closing the TGrainer for 15+ reps and the #1 for 8-10, then I stopped training grip for some reason. Heh. That #2 is nuts. I gave one a good squeeze and it barely moved. Gotta get back to work on that!
I hear that. I got my first COC a couple days ago, a #1, and the difference betwee hands is crazy. I can only do two or three reps w/ my left, which is ultra-sad compared to my right. I have renamed my left hand "Mr. Pussy".
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH!!! You foresaw the homo-masturbation jokes associated with such a statement right? I mean, if you named it pussy or said it you had vaginal hand strength, that'd be one thing, but calling it MR. pussy takes it to a whole other level...
Goddammit... you're right. I really need to put more thought into renaming appendages in the future. How the hell am I going to explain this to my wife? I may just have keep the "Mr. Pussy" thing under wraps and hope she doesn't start reading Sherdog.
Wait, no, I just thought of something -- I believe I'm safe on a technicality. I've honestly never used Mr. Pussy for... well, you know... so I'm straight again, right? RIGHT?
It's a rep when they touch. You will get used to the knurling, i just picked up a very filed #2 last week when I was overcrushing it I kept thinking the knurling didn't have much bite but the first time I used grippers a lot my hands were sore and i thought the knurling was too sharp. The best recommendation i can give you is get an account at gripboard.com they have all the information about grippers/handstrength you ever wanted to know and some. Also there's that you have pussy hands post on this forum which is pretty good too.
My advice is chill out. When you first get a gripper you see yourself closing it every few hours. You'll pick it up all the time and squeeze out many reps. I'd say don't us it more than once or twice a day. If you wanna use it, then use that energy for tomorrows workout. Also, when you start doing more and more reps you'll need to do grip less often. Just don't use it 100 times the first week and not after that.
Congrats! IronMind has the best quality grippers. You have a tendency to overtrain with the gripper, so just take it slow and methodical.
It's not just their build quality either, I ordered a rolling thunder from them and had it in 48 hours. Which is pretty crazy as I live in England. Anyway, good luck with grip training, you've just starte ddown the slope into one of the most vicously addictive pastimes you can find, its sad but the highlight of my week was when argos (a local catalogue order shop) put out a palette with loads of their catalogues and I could load up my rucksack with a bunch of them so I could rip the things in half.
I appreciate the advice. I've actually been pretty good today; yesterday it came in the mail so I had to toy around with it. I'll probably do max effort singles here and there on certain days and then other days I'll go for volume. I think I'll ask for a #1 as a present in March. As for a routine or the philosophy/methodology of grippers is there a specific article(s) I could read or should I just use the search function and sift through the material? I know there's a book about it (by Brookfield), but as for now I'm strapped for cash.
I heard that closing #2 grippers means you can crush a mans hand easily and closing #3 is just crazy, theres only a certain number of people on the planet that can close them.
Closing a number 2 has nothing to do with crushing a mans hand... It all depends who's hand your talking about. a number 2 closre could perhaps crush the hand of a man who had small, weak hands. But if the person whos hands your trying to crush is just as strong as you or stronger then there is no chance of crushing it. In my opinion most people have the potential to close a #3 if they put enough time and effort into it.
There seems to be two different fields of thought for training. Most guys either do real heavy negatives and very low volume. So you can get a gripper you cannot close, and do force closes (then a negative). If you are close to closing it many people also then just close it as far as they can. People also put grippers in hose clamps to make the handles parallel from the start to work on the close and being explosive. Things along this route are popular. Then there are people who do real high volume. Closes on the hardest gripper they have until they cannot close it, then the next lower one etc... Find out what you like best. Do a few searches for ideas. Check out www.gripboard.com but don't stay long, you can learn almost all you need to know about crushing strength in a month of looking at threads and searching (there is a lot of info there, but IMO you can learn 99% of what you need to know about crushing strength in a week). Also, FYI, it seems that most of the people with huge crushing grip strengths tend to follow along the "high intensity low volume" group, but that doesn't mean it works for everyone.
Congrats on the gripper. I just ordered mine tonight and can't wait to get my hands on it. By the way, how much can you deadlift and what's the heaviest bar hold you can do?
