By Danielle Bitts
It's been revealed that higher muscle mass is a key factor in decreased risk of all-cause mortality, but there’s a strength measurement that’s gained a lot of chatter in the last year or so – grip strength.
Turns out, grip strength may be a better indicator of life expectancy than blood pressure. Is it time to trade at home BP monitors for hand dynamometers? Let’s break it down.
Why is Grip Strength Gaining Traction for Health?
Grip strength plays a key piece in predicting your overall strength. Overall strength, at its highest level, will likely allude to a higher skeletal muscle mass. Higher skeletal muscle mass is a major indicator of lifespan. In theory, increasing your grip strength tenfold isn’t going to directly lead to living longer, but the benefits of lifting weights certainly will.
The Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor led a study in the last decade where linkage to strength was determined to be linked to epigenetic age. Epigenetics can signal how rapidly we’re aging. In the records of over 1,200 participants, it was found that the weaker someone’s grip strength was, the higher his or her epigenetic age. Taking a finer look at their DNA, they found that the weaker grip strength results appeared less youthful under the microscope, leaving their stronger counterparts more equipped to survive illnesses and lower risk of all-cause mortality.
Grip strength can also serve as an indication for future risk of disability. It’s crucial to keep both joints and muscles viable for self sustained lifestyles and the work matters most in your 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. It’s never too late to start on improving strength and muscle mass, but setting the stage earlier leads to higher success rates down the road.
How Do You Increase Grip Strength?
There’s a number of ways to directly target grip strength in the gym, but if you’re lifting heavy on a regular basis, you’re likely already increasing it over time. Barbell, dumbbells and kettlebells demand the recruitment of grip strength, especially as you increase weight over time.
If you’re looking for grip-specific moves (that’ll also result in fellow gym goers asking how you got ripped forearms), give these a go:
1. Carries: Pick a carry, any carry. The farmer’s carry is a simple and efficient way to promote grip strength. Select a weight between 25% and 50% of your body weight in each hand. Pick up and hold the dumbbells by your sides with straight arms. Get your shoulders down and chest up for good posture. Walk carefully, paying attention to your gait for 40-100 yards. Additional options include unilateral carries, or if you don’t have access to free weights, a dead hang. Find a pull-up bar, engage your rhomboids and lats, start with 10-20 second hang holds and increase over time.
2. Deadlifts: I repeat, pick a deadlift, any deadlift. The bar will give you the most bang for your buck. In fact, grip strength is usually the determining factor of hitting a plateau on the barbell deadlift. Oftentimes lifters will resort to a switch grip just to get the weight up. If you’re hellbent on hitting a number with a traditional grip, add in accessories, like carries, after your major sets of deads are done. Training your grip to lift more under fatigue will lead to improvement over time.
Learn deadlift fundamentals or reach for a new PR with our instructional videos and workouts in the BBCOM app.
3. Plate Pinches: A throwback to my college weight room days. Plate pinches are fantastic at targeting the tendons and ligaments in your fingers that may get overshadowed in traditional lifts. Start conservatively in weight and work your way up in timed sets as you improve.
If you’re seeking a hobby outside of the gym but are still keen on improving both grip and overall strength in an organic way, give bouldering or climbing a try. Climbing is a sport that demands the firing of every muscle, is fantastic for core strength and will give you the best damn forearms of your life. Don’t believe me? Find the nearest climbing and go stalk forearms for an hour. I digress.
The mission remains the same. Getting stronger only has an upside. Hit weights consistently to improve your health in the short and long term.
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