I'm being held back by my HANDS

[StevenNevets]

When holding dumbbells or resistance bands for an extended period of time by hands get weak and hurt. This ruins whatever exercise I'm doing as I have to stop and wait for about 30 seconds to feel like I'm in control again but then it happens again and again.


It's making excercises such as this impossible for me to benefit from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5mE3yAUre8




How common is this? What is it? What can I do?

I'm really interested in lifting/fitness now and am working hard but this is a huge annoyance.

 

[KoolDrew]

Throw some grip work in your routine. Farmer walks with more weight than you use for step-ups would be a good idea.

 

[brikis98]

Sounds like you need to strengthen your grip. The good news is that for most people, the static strength involved in grip develops pretty quickly. A few pointers:

1. Continue doing whatever exercises are challenging your grip. In my experience, building grip strength as a side effect of some exercise has been the most effective method. For example, the deadlift and pull-up increased my grip strength more than all the grip specific exercises I had done before that. If you need to lower the weight initially on the exercise, then check your ego and do it. It won't be long before your grip catches up and you can go back up in weight.

2. If #1 does not work after a few weeks, consider adding grip specific exercises. These include wrist curls, the wrist curler, and farmer walks.

3. Take care of the skin on your hands. Very often, grip strength is not always limited by muscle failure, but also by pain on the skin. Just like your muscles, your skin can adapt to the extra stress by becoming thicker and tougher and forming calluses. This simply takes time. However, you need to be wary of blisters. They are painful and can tear and seriously hamper your training. Make sure to take proper care of your hands by filing them down. This page has a good tutorial.

4. Consider using chalk. This dries out your hands, helps prevent blisters and gives you a better grip.

5. Make sure you are holding the weight in the proper place. For most exercises, you want the bar you are holding to be as deep into your fingers as possible. Most people initially have the bar partially on their palm and the result is that a large chunk of the skin on the palm gets caught underneath. This is very painful and should be avoided. Instead, force the bar deeper into the fingers and avoid getting that skin flap under it. It will be more painful at first, but better in the long run.

6. Avoid straps or other artificial aids. Although they will help you hold much more weight, they will completely prevent you from developing grip strength. Grip strength is extremely useful in the real world and is necessary to allow you to apply most of your other strength in the real world, so take the time to develop it.

 

[paulxcook]

Get some chalk to dry your hands out, and a pumice stone to grind down calluses in the shower.

 

[StevenNevets]

I have a few calluses but they are really flat as I've had them for probably near a year. I'll try to remove them though. Blisters or pinching havn't been a problem any time recently.

If it makes a differnce I've done around 12-17 pull/chin-ups at a time and my grip felt fine. It only seems to be for dumbbells and bands. My whole hand gets weak and gives out. It feels like doing push-ups to failure, that point where you can try as hard as you want but you can't do it. That's how my hands feel, except it happens so quickly.


I'll keep doing what I'm doing and push myself (to keep holding on) and think about throwing in a few grip exercises.

 

[irishScott]

What's wrong with calluses? I don't know about weights, but for rowing/erging calluses perform their natural function of saving the skin on my hands. If I sanded them down or removed them, I'd get bad blisters every time I rowed.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: irishScott
What's wrong with calluses? I don't know about weights, but for rowing/erging calluses perform their natural function of saving the skin on my hands. If I sanded them down or removed them, I'd get bad blisters every time I rowed.

Usually, they start to become trouble when they get pinched between your hand and the bar. If I didn't clean my calluses off, my deadlifts would continually be painful. Usually that's the main reason why. Oh, also, if they pinch off, they can bleed. A lot.

 

[Deeko]

I've had some grip issues myself.

For many people, grip strength develops quickly, so you can just ignore it and sooner or later it will catch up. If you have smaller hands like me, this won't happen, and grip will perpetually be an issue for you. If that's the case, I'd recommend adding grip-specific training to your routine. Chalk helps a LOT if your gym allows it.

The issue of using straps is a divided one. There are those that are against it, as it is not "pure", and there are those that are for it, as it allows you to continue your training until your grip catches up. I am in the latter camp. For a long time I used straps on my heavy sets, that way I could continue training the exercises as hard as I could while I worked on my grip. Eventually, after a long time, my grip with chalk is better than my grip with straps, but it was a slow road - took about 4 years. I don't regret using straps during that periods, I was doing the same exercises and same amounts without straps, just with heavy sets on top where I did use straps.

So my recommendation is chalk + grip training + straps until your grip catches up, but plenty will disagree with the last part.

 

[enwar3]

Something that's really helped my grip is doing squats with heavy dumbbells. I really wanted to do the squats but I only have dumbbells and I suspect the exercise has done more for my forearms than for my lower body.

Am I right in saying that forearm strength plays a large role in grip strenth? When I do squats until I literally drop the weight because I cannot hold it anymore, it's because my forearms can't keep my hand clenched anymore.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: enwar3
Something that's really helped my grip is doing squats with heavy dumbbells. I really wanted to do the squats but I only have dumbbells and I suspect the exercise has done more for my forearms than for my lower body.

Am I right in saying that forearm strength plays a large role in grip strenth? When I do squats until I literally drop the weight because I cannot hold it anymore, it's because my forearms can't keep my hand clenched anymore.

Why don't you try cleaning them onto your shoulders so you don't have that problem? That is, if it works out for you (ie you can clean the weight).

 

[chess9]

This could be due to a slight impingement when exercising. I'd guess the wrists, but it could be the elbow, shoulder or even the neck if you are tensing your neck muscles. If you play tennis or have a job that involves repetitive straining of the wrists or above, then you could have some tendonitis. If you are new to lifting, it will pass, probably.

-Robert