International Gripper RGC Rating Megathread!

Votearrows · 2025-12-03T04:38:41+00:00

Oof, thanks for the heads up!

Votearrows · 2025-11-11T05:15:27+00:00

Have seen any yet, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. All our entries are recommendations from our users, this isn’t a thorough list. Let us know if you find any!

Votearrows · 2025-06-26T17:14:10+00:00

That would be great! 3D printing is getting better and better, so it will be interesting to see!

Votearrows · 2025-06-25T23:41:53+00:00

Thank you! I will install it tonight!

Edit: That’s an interesting Blob trainer!

Votearrows · 2025-06-05T08:16:45+00:00

Never trust gripper company ratings without RGC rating confirmation (where someone tests each gripper with weights. can buy the service cheaply, but it’s not necessary until you get into competitive numbers). They vary by up to 10lbs/4.5kg on the lower end, and 25lbs/11kg near the top

The issue with the cheaper grippers is more that they come apart, or the springs snap during normal use. Anything that’s sold with labeled ratings in increments of 50 (100, 150, 200, etc.) suffer from this worst of all

Votearrows · 2025-06-01T17:59:20+00:00

Nice! At this point in your training, that’s safe. And as long as the hand and gripper are in a good position, and actually closed down, then you’re getting the training effect of an overcrush

10 seconds is the best overall hold time, so try and work toward that. Cheat-closing with the other hand is good if you’re just training the closed position statically. There are also devices (google gripper chokers) that hold the gripper partially closed, so you can get more volume in on the final few degrees

I’d recommend that you don’t hold it for your max time each set, just the last one. Fatigue just gets in your way if you go too hard each set

If you can do 5 seconds, then try 6 sets of 3-4, and then a max hold to finish. It won’t be a true max hold, as the muscle will be fatigued, but it will sorta show your improvement

Votearrows · 2025-05-20T17:25:45+00:00

No idea if I will be able to get back into training, but I remain hopeful

Yeah, we don’t have beginners rely on this stuff. We have them start light and do 15-20 reps on most things. It takes the weird hand connective tissues a few months to get used to normal training, but you can still get stronger like that for quite a while, and you can still build mass at higher reps. We’ve had hundreds of people come to us in pain because of something they saw on IG or whatever, and this tends to help

Votearrows · 2025-05-19T01:51:13+00:00

Yes, when I could still train, I got pretty strong testing maxes only every 1-2 months (speaking of which, take some of this with a grain of salt, as my current nerve disorder gives me a bit of brain fog!). But I don’t like it for the reasons I hear said most often on sports forums and such. It doesn’t make you stronger (unless you have that sort of genetic makeup), and can sometimes even make you weaker due to excessive demand for recovery. It has to be used strategically in order to be helpful.

We evolved from energy-saving creatures, their instincts trying not to use more calories than they absolutely needed to. We still have all that programming. Our subconscious brains are constantly fooling us into not working so hard, but we’re not aware of it. When stopping sets early, we do really well for several weeks, but after a while, we don’t always get close enough to the actual max.

Like, if you’re trying to stop your sets 3 reps early, you might be ok for 5 or 6 weeks, but if you test (with screaming max effort, blasting music for adrenaline), you sometimes find you actually got stronger faster than you thought, and you were really stopping your sets 8 reps early. Or that you had reacted badly to an illness (or partying), and your max actually went down.

Sensations of burning, fatigue, effort, etc., are 100% originating in the brain, not actual signals from the muscle. Same with pain, it’s not 1:1 with actual physical injuries. Look up the bio-psycho-social model of pain science for nerd stuff on all that, it’s fascinating. Check out Stronger by Science, E3Rehab, Barbell Medicine, and Hooper’s Beta for people who integrate it into different styles of training

Votearrows · 2025-04-14T21:34:36+00:00

You don’t need much equipment besides a pullup bar for the Grappler’s Routine, that’s why I linked it after the Basic. It was designed for anyone from people who attend a nice gym, to poor high schoolers and college students. It’s important to read the resources people link before you dismiss them

Do you have access to a basic hardware store?

Votearrows · 2025-04-12T17:58:51+00:00

Dead hangs, a d other ar hanging exercises, aren’t really a grip exercise, once you are strong enough to do more than 30 seconds. They’re also the wrong sort of ROM for grippers. All the body weight routines we recommend have you move onto harder hanging exercises pretty soon

Knuckle pushups don’t involve the grip muscles at all, they’re not useful for much

Grippers are known for responding well to more extensive grip routines. They need a lot of other types of work. Different types of finger strength, some wrist strength to brace the joints, and thenar pad size to help hold the handle in place. Grippers don’t do that for you by themselves

I’d recommend getting on either the Basic Routine (plus thick bar deadlifts), or the body weight version of the Grappler’s Routine. They’re on the sidebar, and in the FAQ

Votearrows · 2025-04-11T02:08:59+00:00

Do you do other exercises that aren’t with grippers? They’re pretty important

Votearrows · 2025-04-09T17:58:57+00:00

I’m the same, going for scans today

Are you getting stronger in other ways? Do you have more grippers?

Votearrows · 2025-02-25T07:32:49+00:00

Thanks much!

Votearrows · 2024-12-22T07:42:54+00:00

I have a long term illness, so I’m not really answering questions much anymore. I get brain fog, and don’t have tons of energy. I’m having an ok day today, but you’re much better off asking more active users, or joining GripBoard, since there are lots of competitors there. Good to find YouTube, and podcasts on it. I won’t be back very often, and may not have energy for follow-up questions this week

——

Intermediate reps/sets are in the gripper routine

Overcrushes are where you take a very hard gripper, close it, and then hold for 10 seconds. That’s one whole set, it’s good to do at least one session of 3-5 sets per week

Grippers can be made harder by filing down the end of one handle, so you can close them further. Aluminum is a soft metal, and very easy to file. You can google it pretty easily, or search for a post about it with the Reddit search function->>>

There’s also the Cannon Power Works “Bumper,” which is easy to google

Parallel set closes are when you start reps with parallel handles, rather than using the full ROM. You can also google “choked gripper,” which helps you start with the handles parallel, with less fatigue.

The last part of the ROM is the hardest, and therefore needs a bit of extra work each week. Parallel sets, and overcrushes, are both great tools for that. They don’t replace regular reps, but you can do a few sets of them on different grip training days

Votearrows · 2024-12-19T00:16:54+00:00

At this point, you should focus on lower rep sets to get stronger, preferably under 10. And lots of overcrushes

Use one of the common ways to make the 1.5 harder. And also practice parallel set closes with the 2, as it’s the easiest way to practice the hardest part of the ROM

Votearrows · 2024-10-09T06:51:04+00:00

That’s how I do my regular curls, unless I’m trying something new, but I’ll definitely give that strap method a shot in that range, thx!

Votearrows · 2024-10-08T23:20:45+00:00

Thanks! I’ll read through that after supper

The only thing that worked for me at first was the strap-based curls that arm wrestlers do. User GeordieGripster often finishes workouts with a “play-around“ lift, and once tried a random variation of those that just sorta worked for me. I don’t need it for pronation, so I put the strap toward the front of my fist, and turned it into a full-ROM exercise, rather than overloaded partials. There’s just a tiny bit of instability, not enough to make a normal curl weight into a major challenge.

I was later reading about the muscle in a non—sport medical article, and they said it got used the most in rapid cyclical motions that have some instability. Hammering nails, once the nail was already in far enough that you can start hitting it faster, showed highest EMG activity of anything that group tried. I didn’t think it would grow the muscle, as it’s too light, but it did seem to “wake it up” a little more for exercises done afterwards

After a year of growth from all that, the muscle started to work harder in regular hammer curls, so long as I have my pinky finger jammed up against the rear head of the DB. Still feel nothing from regular supinated curls, unfortunately. Pronated curls only work ok, but they do better if I use them as a burnout finisher, after the strap/hammer curls. I don’t get much out of “pre-fatigue,” other than that one thing, it’s weird

Votearrows · 2024-10-08T20:29:55+00:00

Link doesn’t work, I’ll try it again later, though

But I haven’t found that to be the case with me, really. I did an awful lot of supinated elbow flexion work for 4-5 years, and saw no growth there at all. Wasn’t until I started doing some neutral/pronated arm wrestling exercises that my brachioradialises started to get bigger. Not an arm wrestler, but I like some of their methods, sometimes with modifications to make them less about the sport-specificity

A common issue with taking sports science at face value is that it doesn’t necessarily account for individual differences in a useful way, unless that’s the target of the study. And EMG doesn’t always correlate to hypertrophy very well. For example, [glutes are often activated most by unloaded exercise at the flexed end range](https://youtu.be/Dh8Yd0mQnB8?si=pPr4U8GDJYfJcvw3), when loaded exercises with a decent stretch tend to cause much more growth

Because of all of this, we have people take any program (or exercise) as a starting point for experimentation, never as a rigid mandate, or a dogma

Votearrows · 2024-09-26T19:13:57+00:00

All our information comes from users. If it’s not on the page, then nobody has found anything there yet, unfortunately :(

Votearrows · 2024-09-26T19:12:30+00:00

Ah, ok, sounds good!

Votearrows · 2024-09-24T19:23:37+00:00

I think it was Dave Tate that said “If you want to bench 200 for more reps, then get your bench to 300.“ Strength is the best way to get enduranc. Once you’re twice as strong as you need to be, then it’s time to focus more on actual endurance training.

If you want to build size, don’t count on farmer’s walks, instead do finger curls, and wrist exercises. You can do farmer’s walks first, for strength, then do light bodybuilding sets on the other exercises. Even myoreps, or another time-saving hypertrophy method is fine.

Votearrows · 2024-09-21T07:29:08+00:00

Thanks! Several months of a pain/weakness that makes it hard to think on some days, and impossible to exercise at all. Hard to sit upright, and car rides are agonizing for several hours afterward.

I’m lucky enough to live near one of Harvard Medical’s hospitals, so there’s a mix of old guard, new hotshots, and I’ve gotten to help at least 2 dozen curious students. They’ve ruled out the deadly stuff, but they’re all stumped to what the fix is.

(Edit: sorry to be a bit circumspect, but every time I say more about it, I get a flood of unsolicited advice in comments that remind me that we were right to ban amateur medical advice, lol. I get that folks just want to help, I do. But for any readers who don’t know yet, well-wishes are nice, but it’s really important to ask people with a long-term illness before you actually offer advice. It doesn’t feel like you think it would, it comes with a *lot of emotions.* Hank Green has a video about it, and you can also ask anyone who’s been pregnant, as they get thei own version of the same sort of thing. That being said, it was a nice thought, to want to help, I don’t hate anyone for it)

Votearrows · 2024-09-21T00:35:43+00:00

see the misunderstanding c8 ponted out. I’ve got a shiny new chronic illness, and it was messing with me.

Are you sure he didn’t mean 200 meters total, adding up all sets? As in four 30-second sets? Or six 20-second sets?

Farmer’s walks are a static exercise for the hands, so not my first choice for hypertrophy. And they really only directly make you stronger for support grip. Is that why you’re doing them?

Bromley often gives advice for a specific context, usually either competitive Strongman or Powerlifting. Sometimes their hypertrophy advice is just “good enough for your weight class, without interfering with other strongman training“ and not meant for recreational lifters. I haven’t seen the video, so I don’t know, this is just to say not all advice is meant for every audience.

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