Many personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches miss out on the key to grip training. As I mentioned in my previous grip training post, the key is variety, in the tempo, the exercises, the angles, the weights, the isometric holds, the finger positions, WHICH finger is used, and which type of wrist or hand strength you are trying to develop.
At Singapore’s best gym, our personal training and sports performance programs allow for a great variety of grip training and thus grip is not a limiting factor in out athlete and personal training clients. Here are some of our grip tools shown below, these are made by what I consider the best hand strength training company, Ironmind. They sponsor the world’s strongest man contest so their stuff is tough! Not cheap for sure (but hey I’m learning to buy once and never worry again) but it should last many lifetimes, and help our many personal trainers at Genesis get the clients strong! You have, from left to right… A lifting pin (we have a couple of these and they are the best way to load grip training as well as chin-ups and dips), hand opening training, mini grippers for individual finger training, bands to train hand opening as well, finger loops to train finger closing strength, hub cap grip, box grip, grippers, finger loops so you can train finger strength, wrist roller which can attach to a power rack or squat rack so that the wrist gets the training while the shoulders are supported, and a wrist roller to train an often underdeveloped part of grip strength, moving the wrist “sideways” for anatomy nerds like me, this is called radial and ulnar deviation. Strong hands here we come!
Many of the clients at the Genesis Performance Center play a sport of some kind. Because many of these clients are highly motivated types of people, they often play these sports competitively and want to do as well as possible in tournaments. The level of the tournament can range from school leagues to professional (i.e they do it for a living).
Part of the personal training, or athletic training /strength and conditioning program is to get them to peak for the day of competition.Every sport is different, every athlete is different and if you want the program customized for you, then you need to sign up! But there are some principles that hold true for almost any sport.
1. End your training with a “strength and power” phase of training. Some training programs are for growing muscles, some are for building endurance, but the program just before your competition should be one that emphasizes speed, strength and power.
2. Don’t do your conditioning workouts too much, and don’t do them too early. You only need a few weeks to condition yourself for endurance/fitness. Don’t waste your recovery ability on that stuff far from the tournament. And when you condition – ONLY use stuff that will be used in your sport. Long distance running is useless unless you are a long distance runner.
3. Finally, taper correctly for goodness sake. 2 weeks of no training before a competition is not a taper. It’s a disaster. In most cases, drop training 20-80% in the week approaching the competition depending on how you feel. Tapering is an incredibly complex topic and needs to be customized.
Most importantly DON’T PANIC. If you have done too little and there is only a week to go before tournament, its too late! You cannot “cram” for physical performance. Do your best but learn from your mistakes.
But, more common, is that people do TOO MUCH before competition and enter feeling drained. The feeling you want is “I can’t wait to compete” when the game begins.
Things like this can make the difference between winning and losing (and for sure you don’t want to be off yoru game when your opponent is peaking). That is what our athletes training program is for.
Chains are used sometimes during a year to make the exercise different. It makes your body accelerate the movement fast because you have to “outrun” the chain as it makes the weight harder and harder on the way up. This was a simple non maximal lift done at the end of this recent training phase.
Here is my workout for today, its the end of a strength development phase of 15 days. I managed to do 125kg for 3 reps on the bench press and today worked up to 140kg for 1 fairly easy rep. I tried 147kg but did not make it. With one more strength phase using chains and partial reps I should be able to get 150kg! Which is not bad at all for a 80kg man! Stay tuned.
One of the keys to proper program design is to test the attribute you are training to see if you are making progress. In this last 15 days I have been working on strength in the 3 rep range. 5 days ago I managed a best set of 170kg x3, this week, as the “end” of the phase I am trying 180kg for 3 reps (see video below). After a phase in the 3 rep range, we need to choose different exercises in a different rep range to continue progress.
The rep range you choose should be dependent on the kind of activity you want to excel in. For example a discus thrower would spend more time in the 1-3 rep range. While a soccer or basketball player would use more of the 8-12 rep range. That doesn’t mean that no other rep ranges are used, but this should be the main one that most of your sets are performed in.
Rep ranges, tempo, rest intervals, and weight determine what kind of training effect you get from your sessions. At our Gym in Singapore – The Genesis Performance Center, these are the things in our personal training, fitness bootcamps and athlete training programs that we vary for constant, measurable progress in strength, speed, fat loss, weight loss and jumping ability.
Strength has a positive correlation to EVERY other physical attribute. That means, if you are strong, it helps you be quick, run fast, jump high, have better endurance, speed, and everything else. That is why any good training program should have phases where strength is the focus. That is part of the program design you get in our personal training, athletic training and fitness boot camp programs.
As a coach, we have to lead by example…here is a recent video of me working on strength.
It doesn't hurt, but it sure gives alot of information about how progress is going
Many of my clients have been through other training locations, gyms and fitness centers here in Singapore. It is no secret that most clients are going to aim for some kind of fat loss, but how many of them have actually had their fat measured by a professional skilled in using a set of calipers to measure bodyfat (those hand held machines are useless and I will explain why in another post). The answer… ZERO.
You want fat loss to get rid of those jiggly body parts…
But you don’t accurately measure body fat? Sounds a bit insane to me!
Want to lose fat, well, you need to TRACK that along with your training and nutrition habits so we can see whats going well and what isn’t. If we don’t track, we are esimply guessing. But since we do track, our clients results are guaranteed!
I just got back from Halmstadt in Sweden yesterday night. The seminar was good. We trained 2x/day and for a resonable fee, the Eleiko Sports Center where the course was held even provided good quality food. Wonderful and I actually gained 3kg of muscle in a week (1kg was probably fat and water retention). As you can see, hard training + quality food + a lower stress environment means bigger muscles!
There was a variety of people at the course, from a Canadian Naturopath, a very fit Swedish chiropractor lady, a norwegian weightlifter, a Hungarian track and field coach and even the owner of Poliquin’s Chicago franchise.
The main areas of knowledge that I gained or refined were…
How to select reps and sets for different sports according to an athletes needs
How to improve my program design for rehabbing injured shoulders back to full health
How to choose tests of performance for different events or sports
How and when to integrate advanced training methods into a program
When to focus on different aspects of physical preparation (when to focus on fat loss, or size, or strength)
Overall this course really clarifies the finer aspects of program design and I feel even more confident that a program I design for one of my atheltes or personal training clients will be what is best for him or her.
Here are some pictures of life and training in Sweden.
It’s no point knowing. Knowledge is useless till it is applied. And that is where the art of coaching meets the science of training.
There are 4 general types of clients that we see, either as kids, children, youth or adults. And each type requires a slightly different coaching style to get the best possible response from them.
Type 1: Low Motivation + Low Skill
These clients may be shy, quiet, perhaps lacking confidence and ability (probably interrelated). Excitable coaching methods will probably not work with this kind of person. We need to be more quiet, personal and careful so that this person doesn’t feel targeted by our questions or coaching.
While these clients may take more patience to work with, and may not be the most “gifted”, there is great satisfaction is helping them achieve things they might have thought impossible for themselves. I believe the important coaching style for these clients is to “enable” so that they are encouraged that they can do it!
Type 2: Low Motivation + High Skill
These clients are technically or physically gifted, they are just good at all the things we ask of them. Things just come naturally for them. Sometimes they may not focus enough, or pay enough attention. Perhaps they and kids who were forced to come by their parents, perhaps they are just no longer interested in the current exercise.
The problem for many of these children and kids is that things are not hard enough! the coaching style I like to use is “inspire” or “challenge” for these kids.
Type 3 is High Motivation + Low skill
These kinds of clients are a great joy to work with. They have great attitudes, want to get better and try their best. They just need extra guidance on technical skills. We need to be energetic and eager as coaches to help them become technically proficient and boost their skill level. The key word for the coaching of these clients is “Guide”.
Type 4 is High Motivation + High skill
Of course this is the aim of all our programs, to get our clients, both children and adults, into this “high motivation + high skill” category. From a person lacking confidence and motivation, to one that is both intrinsically motivated, and high in skill.
One thing I try to be careful about is to overly shelter these clients. Instead, high motivation high skill clients need to be give more ownership, more discussion, more feedback, and more “empowerment” for their own development. That is not lazy coaching, that is teaching a man to fish!
There we have it, part of my learning as a (still learning) coach and personal trainer/fitness/sports performance professional. This is what works, and this is how we treat our different clients.
I was thinking about this recently. Most of us have degrees/diplomas/certifications in many things. But when it comes to the true value of education, I find many people lacking.
The love for life long learning is WAY more important than the degrees we hold. Nothing wrong with having degrees! In fact many of my best friends have PhDs to their name. But don’t lose sight of the journey that gets us to the degree.
The education where correct habits and character are learnt is more important and ensures more success in life than the degree itself.
Same thing with fitness. Im proud of the clients who lose 17kg a month (he was very overweight or else this would not be safe!), jump 50cm more in their broad jump after training with us for a few months, lose inches in weeks and fix their posture and movement problems quickly with the right corrective exercises. In fact, with some of the acupressure and muscle stimulating techniques we use from Coach Charles Poliquin’s Instant Muscle Strengthening Techniques (PIMST), clients can gain 20 degrees or more of flexibility, or up to 50% more strength within a FEW SECONDS.
But those are “degrees” are simply a client’s short term results. Important yes, but not as important as the life and habits that they find. These they take with them forever and are worth way more than more chinups, a leaner waistline or a better broad jump.
I’m far more interested in education. The love for learning can be grown with the right coaching and the right environment. So can the love for making wise and healthy choices in life!
Type 1: Low Motivation + Low Skill
The problem for many of these children and kids is that things are not hard enough! the coaching style I like to use is
high in skill.
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