We have had a lot of interest and questions about our Godlike Hand Grippers recently.
So I thought it would be useful to dedicate a post to them and hand gripper variations answering hopefully all your questions.
Godlike Grippers
Let's start off by introducing our current line up of Godlike Hand Grippers.
With five different resistances there’s a level for everyone.
Poseidon 100lb – Blue Hand Gripper
Most peoples starting point, comparable to the Captains of Crush 0.5 / 1
Tlaloc 150lb – Blue Hand Gripper
Already got some experience? This is a good selection. Compares to Captains of Crush 1 / 1.5
Achilles 200lb – Gold Hand Gripper
Starting to get tough! Most people will struggle for more than 5 reps. Compares to Captains of Crush 1.5 / 2
Hephaestus 250lb – Red Hand Gripper
Think you've got good grip? This will bring you back down to earth! Compares to Captains Of Crush 2.5 / 3
Hades 300lb – Black Hand Gripper
Good luck closing our strongest gripper! It's a MONSTER! Compares to Captains of Crush 3+
Crafted using high quality materials they have been designed for long lasting performance and feel.
What Are Hand Grippers
I'll start off by giving you a run down of exactly what hand grippers are. If you're already a gripper expert then you'll want to skip this section.
Hand Grippers are designed to mainly increase your crush and support grip.
Crush Grip
This is the grip between your fingers and your palm. Typically used for squeezing hands or crushing skulls. It plays a part in a lot of day to day activities. Simple things such as opening a jam jar, driving your car, washing up.. They are all using your crush grip.
Support Grip
This is your grip 'endurance', how long you can hold onto something. Particularly useful for hanging on a cliff edge or ensuring you only take one trip with the shopping. Support grip is something that can be difficult to train but there are a variety of ways
Coming in all shapes and sizes you can be spoiled for choice when first looking what type of gripper to get. It's best to stick to something with a lower resistance to start. Then when you start to find it easy move on to a higher resistance gripper.
Adjustable Hand Grippers
Adjustable grippers are the perfect training tool for beginners and those looking at recovering from an injury. Our adjustable hand grippers come in a variety of colors and the resistance is adjustable from 10kg - 60kg. This is really easy to change, the screw knob on the side of the gripper twists which will adjust the tension of the spring. You can do this as much as you like!
The ergonomic design of the adjustable gripper handles means they are suitable for all sized hands. You won't find them uncomfortable as the padded handles offer extra comfort when crushing!
You can take a look at our adjustable hand grippers here. We actually include an adjustable hand gripper in most of our grip packages. They really are a great item to have on the desk at work, in your gym bag, or on the coffee table at home.
We would highly recommend picking up an adjustable hand gripper if you are looking to improve your grip and build some forearm muscle!
Rated Hand Grippers
Technically all hand grippers have a 'rating' but we are specifically talking about hand grippers such as our own Godlike Grippers, Captains of Crush or Heavy Grippers.
All of these have different resistance levels of hand gripper which have a rating. This enables you to pick which gripper may be relevant to your current level.
What is Rating?
We rate our hand grippers on the tension of the spring. The consistency of our springs on the Godlike Grippers is something we are particularly proud of. They give a really great consistent feel and will not 'season' as much as others. What we mean by seasoning is, basically the more you crush a gripper, the easier it will get. This is the case with all hand grippers, but using a higher quality spring will reduce the time it takes and the amount of tension lost.
Knurling
This is one of the main differences between metal, or rated hand grippers and your standard hand gripper. The knurling on hand grippers play's an essential part of the 'grip' part. They enable you to place the gripper in your hand and stop it from slipping when crushing.
Believe it or not there are actually many different types of knurling. We can do a really quick comparison below on the different feels and looks of this.
Godlike Gripper Knurling
You can see the textured look on the handle, the godlike gripper knurling has been designed to feel good in the hands but also provide an effective grip. The addition of a little chalk takes these grippers to the next level and provides excellent feel and support in the hand.
Captains Of Crush Knurling
At the top end of the spectrum when it comes to gripper knurling, the Captains Of Crush grippers are very rough and provide maximum support in the hands with little chalk required. This means they do rub on the hands and can feel uncomfortable. But what's comfortable about crushing a CoC #3 right?
Heavy Gripper Knurling
Similar to the godlike gripper, this is less harsh than the Captains of Crush but does offer a great level of support and feel. The style looks like there are many more smaller 'knurls' in the handle and they certainly do the job.
Hand Gripper Benefits
There are so many benefits to using a hand gripper. We will try and list as many as possible!
Let's start off with a good one! Looking like Magnus Samuelsson. Well, maybe not exactly like him, but Magnus is actually one of the few people to ever close a Captains Of Crush No4 hand gripper. This is an insane feat of grip strength and one that has not been followed since 2004.
Back to serious gripper talk now... They really will help increase your forearm muscularity, as well as increasing wrist strength and developing muscles you didn't even know you had. The key is just being consistent. Putting in the work and keeping the reps going!
Grip Is Everything
You use your grip every day! When you actually think about it you are constantly using your hands for pretty much everything. So why wouldn't you want them to be as strong and healthy as possible. As well as building up grip strength, long term using a hand gripper will help reduce the risk of arthritis and wrist pain.
Having a strong grip is actually indicates a healthy heart and reduced risk of cardiovascular issues. In a recent study of over 4,600 people showed that people with stronger hand strength were found to have a healthier heart structure and function. However, that's a post for another day!
Fear Me
So you're going to a new job interview and the usual protocol is an introductory handshake. You don't want to strike fear into your interviewer and crush his hand, but you do want him to know who's boss!
Another good example of this is being introduced to your daughters boyfriend for the first time.. You don't want to be greeting him with a soft handshake!
Handshakes are seemingly a thing of the past now as people can just send emojis instead!
How To Use Hand Grippers
Hand Grippers are a versatile piece of equipment and you can really use them however you want. We will run through a few different ways you can use your gripper and how to do it.
We have written 3 detailed hand gripper training guides.
- Hand Gripper Heaven Part 1
This guide will introduce you to the basics of hand gripper training, similar to what we have done in this blog but it goes into more detail. We begin with set training which is how to position the gripper then give details on a few training exercises and accessory movements.
- Hand Gripper Heaven Part 2
The second part in the series ramps up the training schedule a bit. Including a number of different rep ranges and targets. At this point of training it's best if you have a couple of pairs of hand grippers so you can progress quicker.
- Hand Gripper Heaven Part 3
The final and toughest guide in our hand gripper collection. This includes a number of training routines for you to complete. You will make the most of this training guide by having access to multiple grippers of varying resistances. This will enable you to grow support and crush grip efficiently turning you into a crushing machine!
Regular Closes
The 'regular' way to close a hand gripper is basically just placing it in your hand and closing it.
To perform one full close you will want to have the gripper fully open, then touch the two legs together
If you are looking to progress through the hand gripper rankings then we would recommend one of our hand gripper training packages. They include everything you need for growing your grip strength. It also includes one of our most popular training guides - Hand Gripper Heaven. This guide is basically a much more in depth and detailed write up on how to train with hand grippers!
Inverted Closes
When I see people using hand grippers for the first time. Quite often people will use them this way thinking it is the normal way to use them. There's nothing wrong with that, these are a great way of training.
Inverted closes are to be performed with the gripper upside down. This does make the resistance feel easier as you are able to get the gripper into a better position in your hand.
This variation of training will focus more on the index and middle fingers, enabling them to close the gripper further than they would the regular way. This is why it feels easier, generally your index and middle fingers are stronger than your pinky and ring finger.
Negative Closes
One you probably haven't heard of! A negative repetition focuses on the time under tension. This exercise will really help develop your support grip, as mentioned above.
You'll want to set up the gripper as you would for a regular close. Crush it, then once closed, slowly open your hand up taking around 10-15 seconds to open fully.
This is a great variation and accessory movement to grow your hand gripper strength.
When To Use Grippers
We often get asked.. How often should I use my hand gripper? When should I use it? Well the answer to those questions is, whenever and wherever you want. That's the beauty of hand grippers, they are such a versatile easy to use training tool.
When your obsession kicks in, and it most likely will. You will end up having hand grippers everywhere! I have them in my gym bag, at home, on the desk at work, in the car. Who knows, you could be travelling on the way to work and you find yourself stuck in traffic. That's the perfect time to release some anger on the gripper and get a bit of training in.
If you are looking to just improve your grip to a decent level, help prevent wrist pain or deal with current pain then you are fine just crushing throughout the day whenever and wherever you like.
But if you are looking to grow a good level of grip strength and move on to higher resistance grippers then it is definitely worth checking out how to set your gripper or following a training guide.
