Want to increase your grip strength and build more muscular and vascular (veiny) forearms?
We've got some tips for you!
Having a strong grip is an important part of becoming the most well rounded athlete you can be.
Whether you need to be deadlifting heavy loads for a powerlifting meet or need to be able to get a strong grip on your opponent in a wrestling match, chances are you'll find yourself in need of a strong grip if you're an athlete.
I know I had to have my grip strength in check for rowing during high school.
Thankfully, I knew the right tips and exercises that allowed me to build up some pretty strong and muscular forearms, even at 15 years old.
I only weighed around 60kg, but almost always had the strongest forearms in the group.
And today, I'll be sharing those tips and tricks with you so that you can learn how to increase your grip strength and build more muscular forearms yourself!
How to Improve Grip Strength (Fast)
Train Your Grip Like Any Other Muscle
I suppose the first thing that I need to mention is that your forearms (responsible for your grip strength if you didn't know), work the same as any other muscle group on your body.
They're going to grow by continually being exposed to heavier and heavier loads, or increasingly challenging physical activity.
This means that in order to see some serious strength and muscle gains in your forearms and grip strength, you’re going to want to implement some form of progressive overload.
You can do this in a wide range of ways.
If you’re a heavy weightlifter, it’s going to happen naturally.
As your body gets stronger and you increase the weight that you lift, your forearms and grip strength are going to tag along and also be exposed to heavier loads.
However if you’re not a weight training athlete but you want to increase your grip strength, then it might be a good idea for you to include some direct strength training for your forearms.
Again, there are a variety of methods that you could do this with.
There’s no need for you to dedicate entire workout sessions just for your forearms and grip strength (that’s just a waste of time), but you can include some forearm exercises here and there.
For example, at the end of your workout (whatever it may be), just do 2-3 sets of dead hangs on a pull up bar to failure.
Then, as you get stronger over time you’ll be able to hang on for longer and longer. That’s your progressive overload sorted.
Rest adequately between your sets and you’ll see improvements in your grip strength in no time.
Don’t Use Lifting Straps
Lifting straps are a great tool for serious lifters to have if they’re wanting to move some heavy loads.
However, they do draw some of the attention away from the forearms, which is going to cause them to do less work during your workout and see less growth.
Related: When should you use lifting straps?
Lifting straps do provide a wide range of benefits, but if you’re serious about growing your forearms you might want to stay away from them.
You can definitely still use then when you lift heavy and need to get the most out of your body, but you shouldn’t become too reliant on them.
Lift Heavy Often
Another way you can further help to develop your own grip strength is to ensure that you’re lifting heavy more often.
Ensure that you’re lifting heavy on the exercises such as your deadlift, rows, pull ups, bench press, etc.
Doing this is going to ensure that you’re constantly giving your grip strength a challenge, and giving it a reason to grow.
If you just go through the ranges of motion and don’t really lift any heavy loads, it’s going to be tough to increase your grip strength.
And if you don’t like to lift heavy, you need to make sure that you’re training intensely (taking your working sets close to failure).
Try Fatter Grips
Believe it or not, simply using fatter grips on your strength training exercises is a great way to shift some more of the emphasis onto the forearms and force your grip strength to grow.
Just whenever you're doing barbell curls or some sort of a back movement, consider using fatter grips!
It's not the best idea to use them all the time, because they do limit your overall ability to perform on the exercise that you're doing 9with your other muscles).
Just using them on one or two exercises during the workout is a good place to start.
The fat grips that we recommend using are the Fat Gripz Pro, which have quickly become the most popular brand and products across the world in this product line.
This is an affiliate link, and you can learn more about this is in our disclaimer.
Squeeze the Bar As Hard as You Can
One of the most simple and effective, yet forgotten ways to improve grip strength is to simply squeeze the bar a little harder.
For example during the bench press, a great way you could do this would be to try and implement the 'tear the bar apart' cue that powerlifters open use, where you specifically think about pulling your hands apart, and the bar in half.
This is not only going to engage your forearms more and improve grip strength, but also allow you to lift more weight on the bench press, for a very quick and simple fix.
Otherwise, you could also try to literally squeeze the bar harder on your strength training exercises such as your barbell rows, bicep curls, dips, and so forth.
As long as it engages the forearms more, it's going to improve grip strength.
However you shouldn't do this throughout the entire duration of the set, nor should you do it for every single set.
Attempting to do so is just going to cause you to tire out quicker and prevent yourself from actually achieving enough of a challenge to stimulate growth in the other areas of your body.
Switch to a Double Overhand Grip
This one is only going to apply to you if you do barbell deadlifts.
When you deadlift, it might pay some dividends to use a double overhand grip on the bar if you're able to hold it in place.
The double overhand is the weakest grip out of the three deadlift grips, but it's also the one that engages and tests your forearm strength the most.
A mixed grip is also fine, as you are still gripping onto the barbell normally with your hands.
However we'd recommend that you stay away from the hook grip, simply because it's effectively a natural lifting strap.
Learn more:
It engages the forearms the least, and is going to be the least effective in terms of improving raw grip strength.
Instead, try to keep yourself to either a double overhand grip or a mixed grip.
Your forearms will thank you for it in the long run.
So How Do I Get More Muscular and Vascular Forearms?
Well, the size of your forearms is going to increase as you improve grip strength.
Like we said earlier, you should treat them like any other muscle group.
They're going to grow and get bigger as you get stronger and lift more weight.
Now as far as getting more vascular forearms goes, that's going to come down to a combination of building more muscle mass, losing some body fat and genetics.
If you can achieve the first two, then you're undoubtedly going to start seeing more vascularity and veins on your forearms.
How they look will also be influenced by your genetics, but that's the case with literally anything in bodybuilding.
To Wrap It Up
Improving grip strength and building bigger forearms is definitely going to be beneficial to any athlete out there wanting to perform at the highest level.
No matter the sport that you play, no matter the type of training that you do, it never hurts to have a stronger grip and more muscular forearms.
I hope you've found value in this post, and are ready to see massive improvements in your grip strength if you implement these techniques into your training!
Do you currently train to improve grip strength?
Let us know down in the comments section below!
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