The Best Way To Train Your Grip For Obstacle Course Racing

If you have run an OCR before, you know how important grip strength is for your success. Learn the keys to stronger grip and better race performance.

You are ready to step up your OCR Training and you keep hearing about how important grip training is.

Just about any article or post you see on obstacle course race training will talk about improving your grip as the key to race day success.

This is completely true, but often not fully explained on how to improve your grip strength. It seems simple enough. You might purchase some grip trainers and start squeezing away. This is a great start, but not the big picture on what a stronger grip really means in terms of OCR.

Training the muscles and joints of the hand and wrist are no different than training other muscles and joints in the body. The key is to train these joints in different positions to maximize their strength.

If you were trying to improve shoulder strength, you might do some type of pressing exercise like a bench press. You could also do an incline press and overhead press. There are also pulling exercises you can do. So in reality there are many exercises that should be included to build shoulder strength and there are many exercises that should be included to build grip strength.

To help simplify we can break it down into the different types of grip strength we will need.

Crush Grip:

This is just like it sounds. This is the firm handshake grip. The ability to crush something between your palms and fingers. This type of grip strength is used when you open a jar, squeeze a bar, or hold onto a rope as you climb it.

Pinch Grip:

Again just like it sounds. This is the force created by squeezing between the thumb and fingers. This can be using all fingers or just some. It is often a good idea to miss it up. You will use this type of grip when turning a key, rock climbing, or pinching a plate and holding.

Support Grip:

Support grip relies on your ability to hold onto something for prolong periods of time. This not only requires strength but endurance of the muscles of the hand and forearm. This type of grip is displayed carrying your groceries, performing a farmers carry exercise, or hanging from a bar.

Holding Grip:

You don't often see this one so I created the category. Sometimes we have to hold on to things or hang from things without using our squeeze grip or support grip. Think if you have to carry a big rock how you would have to hold it. It will involve muscles of the hand and forearms, but often involve other upper body assistance like the pecs and biceps. If you have done a bucket carry or atlas carry you will understand what this type of grip strength requires.

Extended Grip:

Finally, we have the often neglected piece of grip training. The extended grip. This involves the opposite of many of the drills we have discussed here. This is opening the fingers and extended the wrists. Often times we spend too much energy on closing the fingers to work on grip and this develops imbalances that often lead to problems like shoulder pain. Just like any joint of the body, we need balance. So it is important to use exercises like work on opening the hand as well.

There are many other details we can focus on to incorporating grip exercises into your program, like shoulder position, but I think this is a great start for most.

Each workout should have 1-2 dedicated grip strength exercises. You can often incorporate these into many of the exercises you are already doing.

Here are a few exercises to get you started

Towel Row:

Pinch Grip Lunge:

Bear Hug Carry:

Handmaster Plus Extension:

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZKM...

Try adding some of these into your routine to maximize your grip. If you want to take a deeper dive into grip training and see more great exercises you can include, check out my free grip training mini course. This 3 part series will give you a great foundation for improving your grip for any obstacle you might struggle with.

Click here to get access to the free course.

Categories: : Grip Strength