Looking to Increase grip strength at home with NO gym equipment? You've landed on the right page!
With lock downs coming and going, gym closures nationwide, one thing is for sure. Those of us that can train at home, are.
Today’s blog looks into the best ways to increase your grip strength at home with little to no equipment.
We’ve added some great exercises you can easily perform at home without the need for specific equipment. They do specifically focus on grip training, but a strong grip is the key to a strong body. So time to get training.
Stretching
First up on our secrets to developing grip strength at home is... Stretching! It doesn’t sound as glamorous as some other exercises but stretching properly is the key to aiding the development of strength and boost recovery. It will also help prevent injuries in the long run, which again is key to reaching your goals.
We will run through a few of our favorite and most effective stretches:
Prayer Stretch
Really simple to perform, this stretch will mainly focus on the wrists and forearm. You will also feel a stretch in your fingers. Some people will find they are unable to press their fingers together to start. This is just due to mobility and if you stick to the stretches you'll find this much easier after just a few days.The same goes for achieving a deep stretch into the wrists.
You can perform this stretch seated or standing
- Bring your hands together in a prayer
- Aim to get your fingertips together
- Bring the elbows out, moving your hands towards your chest
- Then proceed to lower your hands slowly
- Try to keep your hands / fingers together
- Stop when you feel a good stretch at the bottom
- Bring you hands back up towards your chest
You can either perform 5 repetitions of this motion or a hold at the bottom of the stretch for around 10 seconds.
Wrist Flexor Stretch
The first variation of this stretch focuses on wrist flexion, muscles of the forearm.
Flexor carpi radialis is a muscle of the human forearm that acts to flex and (radially) abduct the hand. The Latin carpus means wrist; hence flexor carpi is a flexor of the wrist.
This stretch is generally good to perform before performing wrist heavy exercises such as, bench press, front squats or any cleans. It will help increase mobility and improve tendon strength.
You can perform this stretch seated or standing
- Bring one arm out in front of you held around shoulder height
- Wrist pointing up towards the sky
- Using your other hand lay your palm across the fingers
- Gently pull back towards yourself to stretch the wrist
- Hold the position for around 5 seconds then release
- Switch hands and perform it again.
Whether you're performing this stretch as part of the routine here or before training, we would recommend stretching twice per hand and hold the stretch for around 2-3 seconds per hand.
Wrist Extensor Stretch
The second variation of this stretch focuses on the extensor muscles
Extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis are inserted on the bases of the second and third metacarpals, extensor ulnaris on the base of the fifth metacarpal. When the wrist extensors act together, they extend the wrist. That's an important part of the action we make when we go to grip something.
Building strong extensors is crucial for a strong grip. This stretch links in perfectly to use with the flexor stretch, perfect right?
You can perform this stretch seated or standing
- Bring one arm out in front of you held around shoulder height
- Wrist pointing down towards the floor
- Using your other hand lay your palm across the fingers
- Gently pull back towards yourself to stretch the wrist
- Hold the position for around 5 seconds then release
- Switch hands and perform it again.
As above you want to perform this stretch twice per hand and hold the stretch for around 2-3 seconds per hand.
Fist to Fan
A stretch that we have recently started to add into our clients routines, fist to fan.
It's not quite as intense a stretch as the ones above, but will hit all the right areas. It’s good for preparing your central nervous system before training.
You can perform this stretch seated or standing
- Make a fist with one hand
- Squeeze tightly
- Slowly release the fist
- Fully extend the fingers outward
- Then slowly back to the fist
We usually recommend trying to alternate between doing 1 day repetitions and one day with the hold.
As with all these stretches, they can feel quite uncomfortable at first. This is perfectly normal, you want it to feel like you are stretching, there should be no pain. If it hurts, skip this one and move onto the next.
Make Use Of What You've Got
This is where it starts to get interesting. We have hand picked a few of our favorite exercises to increase grip strength at home with no equipment!
'Hammer' Wrist Curls
Quite literally, curls with a hammer.
The first variation of this exercise is safe and easy to perform. All you need is a standard hammer, everyone has one of those at home right?
This exercise focuses mainly on building wrist and forearm strength / size.
This exercise should be performed standing
- Take the hammer in one hand
- Arm by your side palm facing inwards
- Using your wrist curl the hammer up
- Release back down to the starting position
This exercise is best performed with a higher rep range of 10-15 and for 3-5 sets.
To make this slightly harder you can increase the weight by hanging something off the claw of the hammer.
Hammer Levers
This is the extreme version of the previous exercise. For this you will require a sledge hammer / forearm lever and a big pair of balls.
Although this exercise poses some danger, the rewards are great. This will promote huge wrist strength and power. Plus it looks awesome!
Take the sledgehammer in one hand, you can use your other hand to get it into the correct position before performing the lift.
This exercise should be performed standing
- Holding your arm out straight, hold the sledge hammer tightly
- Make sure the head is pointing up
- Slowly raise your elbow up, you can have a slight bend if you need to
- Slowly curl the wrist down bringing the hammer towards yourself
- To start aim the hammer towards the side of your head
- When you get near to your head curl back up
- When you return to the starting position- that is 1 rep
This exercise does put a lot of strain on the wrist so should only be performed a few times a week.
Try it for a couple of easy single reps to start, when you’re feeling more confident you can work up to around 5 - 10 reps per set.
Wring The Towel
Prepare your forearms, because they’re about to burn. For the first variation of this exercise all you need is a tea towel. It may feel easy at first but once you get into it, you're opening yourself up to a world of pain (good pain).
- Roll up the tea towel into a sausage shape
- Grab the towel at each end
- Begin twisting the towel using both hands
- When it gets very tight, unravel it the other way
When you’ve been doing this for around 30 - 60 seconds you'll start to feel that burn.
To take this exercise to the next level you can wet the towel. This is where the ‘Wring’ comes from.
Simply wet the towel, you would preferably do this over the sink to save any mess! The addition of water to the towel makes it considerably harder to twist therefore placing more strain on the forearm and wrist.
It's a great little exercise to do at home for a couple of minutes each day
Farmers Walks (Bucket Version)
Farmers walks are one of our favorite exercises for building raw grip & back strength. You simply can not go wrong by picking weight up with your bare hands and moving with it.
Unfortunately most of us don't have access to plate loadable farmers handles. But we do have access to buckets!
Depending on what type of bucket you have access to, you can fill your bucket with a variety of things,
We find the best and easiest way is to fill the bucket with water, it’s pretty easy and you can water the plants after training. Alternatively you can fill it with stones, soil, basically anything that's going to add a bit of weight.
To perform this exercise you want 1 bucket in each hand,
- Arms by your sides
- Squat down and pick the buckets up
- Squat back up with the buckets
- Walk a circuit of the garden
- Squat down and place the buckets down
- That is one farmers walk
You can perform this for a couple of laps of the garden, you decide, it really depends how big it is. All in you want to have completed around 50 - 100 meters per walk.
Bucket Hammers
Now for this exercise, we will be using 2 implements we’ve already used. Which makes this a perfect finisher!
You will need your bucket, still filled with whatever you have filled it with. Then the towel we were ‘wringing’ out.
As per regular hammer curls, this primarily focuses on strengthening the forearms and wrist. It is one of the best isolation exercises for the forearm
You will need to perform this exercise stood up
- Loop the towel under the bucket handle
- Grab the towel fist facing upwards
- Lock your elbow by your side
- Curl up from the elbow using your forearm
- Release back down to the starting position
- That is one repetition
You should try to do this for a rep range of 10-15 per set for 3-5 sets.
You can do both arms at the same time or alternate between them, either is great!
Pan Rotations
The final exercise in our list is pan rotations. Got a frying pan at home? Of course you do!
This exercise is great for focusing on the forearm, you should also feel a bit of stress on the bicep too if you're able to position yourself correctly.
- Take your biggest frying pan
- Hold it on the handle, pan facing upwards
- Tuck your elbow in by your side
- Lock into position then simply rotate your wrist
- Turn completely to the right then back to the left
- Keep the motion slow and controlled
When you've been all the way to the right, over to the left, then back to the center that's one repetition.
You can do this for around 10 - 15 rotations per set. It may feel easy at first but you're forearms will soon be burning.
That's a wrap for our home made ways you can increase grip strength at home. Hope you found a couple of these exercises handy. Drop us a comment with how you're getting on we'd love to hear from you! In conclusion, if you want to increase your grip strength at home with no equipment. These exercises will certainly point you in the right direction
