what's up guys jeff cavaliere
athleanx.com we're kicking off the
incredible strength series because I
know you've got more strength than you
ever thought you did the problem is
you're not looking in the right places
to address it today we're going to start
by looking at one of those overlooked
areas that is critical for helping you
to build more strength in all of your
big lifts and here's the thing I'm going
to show you eight ways and eight
exercises for you to sneak in this extra
work so that you don't have to feel like
it's a separate workout in order to
address this we're talking about the
hands the wrists and the forearms if you
have weaknesses in any of these areas
your big lifts are going to suffer
think about it try to get under bench
press and lift heavy if your wrists are
very very weak or try to execute a
deadlift if you have no grip strength I
don't care how strong your legs might be
or how strong your pull might be if you
can't hold on to the damn bar you can't
lift that much weight so today we're
going to go through as I said different
areas that will allow you to sneak these
exercises in so it's not a whole
separate workout okay first up is chest
and one of the most common exercises
that you will perform in a chest workout
is a push-up I don't care if it is done
is a primary exercise or if it's done as
a follow-up exercise to your primary
exercises the idea is the push-up
usually makes its way into a chest
workout here's how you can change it to
start working on your weakness if your
weakness is more in your wrist you can
do a knuckle push-up as I'm showing you
here the idea is to keep the wrist in
neutral in other words keep the wrist
locked out in this position here I don't
want too much flexion this way I don't
want too much extension this way try to
keep it locked out by resting on the top
of your knuckles and perform your
push-ups this way rather than on your
hands if you're trying to work more in
your grip strength and finger strength
hand strength perform a fingertip
push-up again it's just changing the way
that you do the exercise you're still
going to work on your chest you're still
going to do the exercise as you would
normally but you're getting this added
benefit of doing this now in this
version for your hand strength next up
is a very cool way to start adding some
more hand wrist and forearm work into
your back workouts and all you have to
do is take another common exercise and
make a slight little change to it this
time it's the pull-up so let's say
you're working on your pull-ups which
you should be
any back workout by the way as you
approach failure when you get to your
last rep as opposed to just dropping off
the bar work on that forearm and hand
strength hang from the bar do what we
call a dead arm hang this will start
burning in through your forearms through
your fingers it's going to test also
your mental fortitude and toughness
that's great that's all things you can
benefit from as you're trying to get
stronger stronger mine is just as
important as stronger muscles but try to
hang from this bar as long as you can
until you have to drop it's just a
slight little tweak an already-existing
exercise that you should be doing in
your back workouts next up is your bicep
so we all know that a lot of times when
people train their biceps they are also
training their forearms too but there's
a really simple way to hit the
brachioradialis which is going to be one
of the bigger muscle groups right here
that's going to add to the size and
strength of your forearms and it's so
simple to do because all you're going to
do once again is take an existing
exercise a curl and just flip your grip
turn it to an overhand position and do a
reverse curl you'll see from this clip
and footage here that obviously this
area gets targeted a lot more when we
just turn our grip over and you can just
add a couple extra sets to the end of
your workout and hit this area
adequately to start making an impact if
you're a follower of athlean-x you know
it's important not just to do strength
work but to also pair that up with
conditioning work and for me one of my
favorite all-time conditioning exercises
is a jump rope for a lot of different
reasons one we can get our heart rate up
very quickly we can burn a lot of
calories we can become more athletic
doing it but also we get a heavy dose of
forearm work here as well you can see as
I jump rope here I have to work my wrist
matter of fact the majority of this
skill is how quickly and how coordinated
you can be with your wrist rotations
you're going to get that turnover you're
actually getting forearm supination and
pronation as well as just getting some
of that general range of motion through
the wrist it's going to help to improve
the endurance of these muscles here that
you're going to need that will pay off
as you start doing more of your heavy
lifting of course all this applies to
your ab training as well there's so many
different exercise options as anybody
that even has our 6-pack promise would
tell you hundreds if not thousands of
exercises you can do for your abs but
there are some that you can do to
preferentially hit this weak area again
and the first will be a
of hanger plank so don't just do a
regular plank especially if it's not
even that hard for you increase the
difficulty of exercise so you can get
more benefit for your abs but at the
same time place a lot of the strain and
work on your hand strength and your in
the flexors of your fingers try to stay
in this cliffhanger position while you
do the plank again it's kind of a
two-for-one benefit better abs and
better hamstrings at the same time if
you want to work more on those weak
wrists of yours here's another option
where you can keep your hands in that
neutral position the wrists in that
neutral position knuckles down and try
to do this seated tuck hold this is an
incredibly tough ab exercise but at the
same time you're getting the benefit of
getting that extra added risk work that
you wouldn't have to really schedule out
or carve out a separate time for because
we all know when you're busy you're
going to forget that part you're going
to work on the ABS you're not going to
work on your wrist or hamstring but it
obviously is so important to that
overall goal that we're trying to have
here of increasing our strength now
let's get back to the workouts again
let's say triceps are on board okay no
problem
tricep pushdowns again very common
exercise I'm trying not to create a
zillion different exercises for you guys
that you have to now start figuring out
how you're going to do matter of fact
this is an exercise you're probably
already doing but with this tweak you'll
be able to incorporate now some of that
extra added work that we're really
stressing here so on a tricep pushdown
instead of going straight down and
ending it at the bottom of that rep try
to go for that a little additional wrist
curl to get those forearm flexors
working now so again push down at the
very bottom against resistance you're
going to do a little bit of a risk curl
it's going to work that underside here
at the bottom of the forearm you want to
work the opposite side the extensors no
problem a lot of times you'll probably
do a reverse grip push down to hit your
triceps in a slightly different angle a
slightly different way we could do the
same thing here
do the underhand version of the tricep
pushdown at the very bottom extend those
wrists down just like this we're getting
that extra added work in it's the
importance here of this entire video
extra added work without a lot of extra
effort or without a lot of extra time
carved out of your day to do it moving
right along to shoulders again another
common exercise that we can tweak
slightly to start accumulating some more
added volume and this time all you're
going to do is set your wrist and to
slight extension that's it so when
you're doing your side lateral raises or
you're doing them
bent-over raise no matter what exercise
you're doing here showing the side
lateral raise you're going to just
increase the activation of your forearm
extensors get more strength in their
build more endurance in your forearm
extensors get a stronger grip because of
it by just changing the way you do the
exercise I'm not talking about
abandoning the whole idea that I've
preached here so many times I'm ditching
the concept of pouring the pitchers
that's not good for your shoulders I'm
talking about continuing to have your
thumbs raised higher than your pinkies
at the top except the wrist positioning
is now more into this slight extension
that's what you're going to need to
build more of that forearm strength and
still get an effective workout and a
safe workout for your shoulders last but
certainly not least when we get to our
leg training you probably knew I was
going to go in this direction if you're
dead lifting try to do deadlifts without
straps I know this might be a shock to
some especially those that start out
dead lifting with straps is one of my
biggest pet peeves before you even try
to lift the bar you're wrapping straps
all around it how about you do something
different how about you deadlift which
is a great thing but you do it without
straps so that you're building your own
ability to hold that bar as you get
stronger you're forcing your hands and
forearms to become stronger as your legs
become stronger and as your ability to
do that exercise becomes better that is
one of the best ways for you to
naturally increase the strength and I'm
talking about vise grip strength of your
hands as you do this exercise that will
translate to not just the deadlift
virtually every other exercise that you
do wait there's more I got a bonus one
for here and it's going to make a lot of
personal trainers that watch this
channel happy and for those that use
personal trainers it might be a little
bit of a wake up call but I promise you
it's the truth and it's one of the most
effective things you can do and that is
start racking and carrying your own damn
weights I promise you if you start
taking your dumbbells out yourself and
putting them back yourself in between
every single set and changing out your
plates putting them on the bar taking
them off the bar all that extra work as
you can see me doing here is a lot of
free added work for your forearms and
your hand strength it is this extra
volume that you can accumulate that
you're not right now because you're
letting someone else do the work for you
that will allow you to do a lot more for
your forearm and hand strength a lot
faster I promise you this will help you
a lot and trainers you're welcome
there you go guys there's eight
exercises and one bonus to help you to
start getting that strength you've been
looking for by starting to look in
places maybe you never looked and that's
the idea here
you cannot overlook those areas that you
deem unimportant by focusing on the only
things you do think are important
because those important lifts
those big lifts will betray you if you
don't start looking into places you need
to in this video I am just starting to
scratch the surface of those areas that
we need to start focusing on one thing
I'll never do here guys is just tell you
the things that you think you want to
hear I'm going to tell you the things I
think you need to hear and this is just
one example that if you found this video
helpful make sure you leave your
comments and thumbs up below if you're
looking for a complete training system
that never overlooks the things that you
may never think of because I know how
important they are to the overall goal I
know where you want to get to I know
where you might be starting and I know
where you're trying to get I'm going to
make sure that I don't BS you along the
way I'm going to fill in the gaps with
the things I think you need to have in
here and do in order to get there you
can find that over at athlean-x for with
our athlean-x training system meantime
tell me what else you want to see me
cover here in our strength series and I
will do my best to do that in the weeks
ahead alright guys see you later
you