What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So, who knew that your grip strength would tell you a lot more than just about the strength
of your hands or your forearms?
As a matter of fact, your grip strength could be a good indicator of how well you're recovering
between workouts.
We know as natural lifters – and I will stress this very, very much, straight to the
camera – as natural lifters you'd better have a very high respect for your ability
to recover.
Sometimes it's a whole hell of a lot more important than another half-assed workout
and the overall game plan in getting you to that next level.
Now, in spring training one of the first things we did with all of our players, every single
year was test their grip strength.
There was really two reasons why.
The first is that we know that in baseball that there's a lot of chance that you could
incur a hand injury.
If we had a baseline measurement of their hand strength we would have a better idea
of how well they're progressing in a rehab plan.
Secondly, and more importantly, we know that there's a high correlation between your central
nervous system and the output in grip strength to test how well a player is recovering.
Whether it be between games, or whether it's just trying to overall assess their basic
ability to overcome their fatigue.
We know at 162 games played out over 185 days or so there's a high chance for us to run
into fatigue.
In the gym there's a high level, again, as natural lifters who have a tendency – all
of us – who try to do more and more and more, to actually run into fatigue and have
it become a limiting factor in our overall ability to see gains.
We can test it and we don’t need the fancy hand grip dynamometers that we would use in
spring training.
We could actually use something that you probably have at home right now.
It's a bathroom scale.
Now, this will do pretty much the same thing.
It may not be outputting the same exact measurements as a hang drip dynamometer, but if you continue
to use this consistently then all that matters is comparing one result to the next.
Now, what you want to do is try to pick a time during the day that you would probably
do this consistently.
Maybe the first thing in the morning so you're getting a good baseline measurement and then
you're getting repeatable measurements after that.
The way you want to do this is you want to hold the scale up and you're basically going
to grab it here on the sides, okay?
So I've got my fingers behind and mu thumbs here on the front.
You want to hold it – not up high and not down low – but right about 90 degrees.
What you're going to do is you're going to squeeze your hands as hard as you can.
I'll let you kind of sneak peek over my shoulder as I do this.
So I'm going to take it here and I'm going to just squeeze as hard as I can, as hard
as I can, as hard as I can; almost at 200.
Right about 195 or so.
Now, what are you trying to shoot for?
There's two ways to look at it.
Number one: some of them are catchers.
So the guys with the strongest hands in baseball would get themselves to about 230lbs.
So me at 200, I'm not a catcher.
So I'm pretty pleased with that number, but more importantly, even if you're not hitting
the 200 mark, what you want to know is "What is that number?"
So you can continue to compare yourself to that because if you're in the gym and you're
not seeing progress and then you look and you test yourself each day with this and it
takes, how long?
Three seconds?
If you're seeing either no increase, or a continual decrease and your performance in
the gym is going down, now we've got a pretty good correlation of how well you're recovering.
Likely, it might be time for you to start dialing back.
Like I said, I know the tendency is to push, push, push; but sometimes the best thing for
you is to get your lazy ass out of the gym because right now, that's all you're doing.
You're just being a lazy ass there.
You're not giving your best.
So sometimes taking a step back – I know it's hard – can be one of the best things
for you in your overall plan.
Again, you can do this very, very easily with just a scale in your own home.
Guys, I hope you've found this helpful.
In the meantime, let me know what you want to see here.
I'm really happy to make the videos you want me to make here.
It's your channel and I'm happy to be the messenger to bring you what you want to see.
Just leave them in the comments below and leave a thumbs up if you've found this helpful.
I'd like to know what some of your measurements are if you go and try this.
I'll be back here again in just a few days.
See you.