Get A Grip - Essentials for success inside and out of the gym
You'll struggle to find a more honest and impacting social media user in strength than Mitch Pike. See the podcast about how he achieved his lifetime goal of owning his own facility within 6 month of joining the RealMOVEMENT PROJECT Level 3 community.
Over to Mitch...
Often times in life we struggle to let go. Letting go is apart of life and is essential for us to move forward and continue to grow and adapt to the situations we face.
In the gym, though, holding on is not quite as detrimental as life may have it – in fact, it can propel us into a whole new dimension of thou gains.
I look at it like this, if you want to be successful, in the gym, or in life, you need a solid core and a solid grip.
In life, the core is your character, your morals, values, ethics etc. It is the foundation for which you lay your platform of decisions on. The stronger your foundation, the stronger your external walls can become.
Your external walls are held together by the density and resilience of your foundation – your core.
Yes, short term results may or may not be dictated by the strength of whatever your current situation is based upon.
However, all good things must come to an end and they will come to an end sooner, if you have neglected to initially build a solid base to handle the pressures of life. External walls collapse, your foundations are exposed and now you clear up the mess in order to rebuild.
Cleaning up is a tough job, especially for us males, and if we have a good old fashioned “boy clean” then we generally rush straight back to the erection of more external walls whilst neglecting the very thing that was detrimental to our progress in the first place.
This is where we need to get a grip – get a grip on whats happened, leave our egos at the door and begin renovating or reconstructing our foundations. In essence, we need a mindset shift.
Ok, maybe I got a little sidetracked and this makes little to no sense, but relating the gym to real life is pretty cool (I think anyway).
Stick with it.
Now for the fun stuff, how did I get from a foundation of a house, to a bunch of exercises?
Easy – these are the nuts and bolts of “functionality”.
Core strength, grip strength.
Why?
If you can’t pick it up, you can’t pick it up. The limiting factor is your grip. You can have strong legs, a strong back, big shoulders.
That’s cool, but if you can’t pick up a heavy weight, then you’re ALWAYS going to be led back to the fact that your grip is the limiting factor, much like the foundation of a house.
Time to lay that foundation – the “functional” foundation.
Want a direct transfer across to all aspects of life – you gotta pick up some heavy weights!
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Real world examples abound where your grip strength is called to account?
Carrying groceries?
Christmas?
Have you ever been disheartened after losing a Christmas cracker pull off – not a good feeling!
In all seriousness though, a strong grip is super-important in terms of being able to carry and lift more weight, for more repetitions.
More weight, more repetitions = increased training adaptations and greater potential for consistently good results.
Hypertrophy, fat loss, strength, you name it – a strong grip is ESSENTIAL for progression.
Want to kill two birds with one stone? Grip strength AND core strength?
This is easy. Most loaded carries and grip exercises, if done correctly elicit an enormous internal response from our foundation – the midsection.
Going back to the grocery example, your core is working in overdrive to help stabilise and hold your trunk upright.
Don’t believe me, or want to test this out? Go and carry half of the bags, without the other half – both double and single arm carries are in my opinion the best core exercises to build not only a super strong midsection, but to burn stubborn body fat once you manipulate training variables.
Loaded carries will also improve coordination, balance, improve structural integrity and develop REAL functional strength – not the functional kind developed on a bosu ball.
I know, I know.
Enough of the boring stuff – what exercises should you be doing for this?
Ok, here is where you can start.
Go and pick up a couple of kettlebells, or dumbbells at your gym – if your gym has farmer’s handles like the ones below, even better.
Start lighter, 33% bodyweight in each hand.
For the mathematically challenged, this equates to something like:
60kg BW = roughly 20kg in each hand
80kg BW = roughly 26kg in each hand
100kg BW = roughly 32kg in each hand
There is a whole host of different set/rest intervals, but I like starting with 30-60 second walks. Initially, it is about accumulating the volume and training your nervous system, building strength within your deeper tissues and ultimately building up the training conditioning to handle more weight, for more volume.
Use these as a finisher to your training sessions. 2 times per week to start, progressing to 3-4 times per week as you build the work capacity and recovery. Always try and change the rest/weight up each session and give your body something new.
These are starting points – progress as needed. In a few weeks, you should notice some big improvements, which will carry over very nicely to your other lifts and will have you pop-and-locking those Christmas crackers come December.
Farmers walk (AlphaFit implements - difficulty changes depending on the height, texture etc. so these are based off the gear we use in RealMOVEMENT)
3 points - 1.33 x BW - 20m
2 points - 1.15 x BW - 20m
1 points - BW / hand - 20m
Base - 0.75 x BW - 20m
(Check out ALL the RealMOVEMENT Standards)
Happy farmer’s walking!