Get a grip!

What would you say if i asked you how good your grip game was? Truth is, IMO we could all do with getting a better grip, including myself! Not a grip with life (or maybe!), but a better hand/wrist grip. When i started weight training earlier this year, it really got me thinking about the importance of grip strength in our movement practices and in everyday life too.

Practically speaking, grip matters when it comes to carrying shopping in from the car, picking things up, getting petrol, making a cuppa, vacuuming, driving, opening jars of food, using a knife and fork, getting up from the floor, playing musical instruments, typing on a keyboard… everyday tasks you could say. From a sports perspective grip matters when it comes to activities like weight lifting, golf, rowing, racquet sports, calisthenics…

On a bigger scale, research now suggests that grip strength is associated with healthy ageing and expected longevity, along with a host of health issues such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. I mean wow!!! I believe this is to do with how grip strength relates to overall body strength and how muscles store protein and help regulate blood sugar but feel free to research this more yourselves.

Let’s define grip strength as our capacity to maintain grip in our hands and fingers. This relates to how much power we can create from our forearms into our wrists, and all of this relates to our arm to upper back connection. Phew! Much like our attitude towards feet/ankles, hand and wrist health isn’t very sexy i know, and as a result these areas get neglected. Remember most movements are full body events-no body part should be underestimated!

How to we improve out grip game then? If we’re gonna get fancy, you can improve grip strength with handheld gadgets like a dynamometer, or by doing pinch grip strength tests with weight plates. If you have access to a pull up bar, hang from that for as long as you can-the Pilates trapeze actually works very well for this, as does a door with a thick architrave or even the climbing frame in your local playground.

If fancy isn’t your thing, carry your shopping from the supermarket door vs pushing it back to the car with your trolly. Squeeze a tennis ball or putty for up to 30 seconds for a few rounds. Hold a stick/broom/rolling pin and roll it backwards and forwards in your hands to warm up before holding it like you want to widen it and break it, then arc your arms up and down.

What about in our Pilates practice. Try bring some awareness to what your wrists, hands and fingers do in certain exercises-can you keep your wrists from bending as you hold the reformer hand straps and arc your arms? Try different grips when holding the push through bar on the trapeze. On the mat can you stand into your arms and upper back in your rollover? Can you keep more weight in your fingertips when doing the leg pull exercises? In a similar way, when you’re ‘smiling’ through the long stretch series on the reformer try placing your hands more on the top of the bar vs in front of the bar so your wrists are less wrinkled. Just make sure you don’t feel like you’ll slip!

I know it’s not massively sexy but try to give your hands and wrists a little bit of love now and again; those day to day activities which require good grip will become so much easier and your arm to back connection will love you for it in and out of your Pilates practice. You never know, you might even add a few years to your life in the process!