How To Improve Your Grip Strength

I'm sure lots of you have seen my pictures from racing at Spartan Midlands this weekend at Marston Lodge. I took on the Sprint race on Sunday morning. It was a tough course, and I seem to have blanked out the pain and the amount of hills there were in it from last year!

My legs aren't feeling too bad which is surprising however upper body is very achy today, and it got me thinking about how many of the obstacles relied on upper body strength. 

I usually love monkey bars and the rings, but placing the sand bag carry before the monkey bars and having the Hercules Hoist after was brutal. I could feel my grip starting to fail, but managed to hold on for the rings, but the hoist suffered. 

So that got me thinking about training and different things to focus on. I already do a lot of pull up work and there are different combinations to help with your grip for your hands and finger, for example holding a weight plate and transferring it from hand to hand. You could try using a towel for holding a dead hang with your hands too. You'll find these exercises will also help improve your shoulder and back strength too. 

In this video I'll show you how to practise different grip changes one you're on the bar, to help with transitioning between obstacles but also get you using your hands in different actions.