Captains of Crush Grippers – Avoid Overusage

Useful for increasing grip strength, more pistol shooters have been using the Captains of Crush Grippers during the last couple of years with positive results. However, some have mentioned injuries causing short term damage to tendons that end up taking a couple of months to heal.

Why?! Most of us are not bodybuilders or have a career lifting heavy objects where those folks have built hand strength over time. Overuse is common if you’re not following a program or starting out gung ho with too strong of a set of grippers. Disclaimer: I’m not a physical trainer that has experience with strength training, but here’s a couple things that work for me in the past.

Training with Captains of Crush Grippers

In particular, the How should I train with CoC Grippers? section. Here’s a snippet:

• Warm-up gripper: do 1 or 2 fairly easy sets of 10 to 12 reps; these prepare you physically and mentally
• Working gripper: using a gripper that you can do 5 to 10 reps with, this is where you make progress; depending on your own level, do 1 to 3 sets of 5 to 7 reps to all-out failure
• Challenge gripper: this is the gripper you are trying to close next; after 6 weeks or so of consistent, progressive training with the working gripper, start doing partial reps, negatives, or holds for time with this gripper, and use a CoC Key to measure your progress, if you like

Expand Your Hand Bands

From the Ironmind site:

… our Expand-Your-Hand Bands are the fun, dynamic way to work your extensors, achieving the sort of muscle balance that will both boost your strength and prevent, reduce, or cure the sort of pains associated with arthritis, overuse, abuse, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

I like these a lot as they seem to help offset some of the grip training. I’ve used a #64 rubber band or two prior to getting the bands.

“The worst thing you can do is to come in and start to do it really heavy” – Magnus Samuelsson closing the Captains of Crush #4 for two reps and discussing grip training with Svend Karlsen.