Having iron grip strength is a must-have for combat athletes. Whether it’s fighting for the wrist control or holding the submission, a strengthened grip makes a difference between winning & losing the fight. The majority of the fitness world has started compromising on grip training, which isn’t good. Hand grips aren’t something essentially tied to combat athletes or bodybuilders. It’s something that you need in your daily life. Every day’s simple and small tasks majorly depend upon the hand wrist strength as our hands are the critical tools to everyday activities. Your grip strength enables you to function effectively; strong hands give you a constant sense of freedom. 

This article will describe several different workouts that can challenge and strengthen an MMA fighter’s hand strength & endurance.

What’s Grip Strength?

People often take grip strength as simple hand strength. Overall strength is included, but many other factors contribute to the grip strength. Handgrip comprises everything from your musculature near your elbow down to your fingertips. Most of your forearm & hand flexor muscles originate above your elbow, & each time a muscle crosses your joint, it influences it somehow. Moving downward, your gripping muscles pass by the forearms, wrists, & in your hands, fingers & thumbs, not only by the front side of your forearms but at the forearms. It’s important to remember.

Your grip strength involves many movement patterns. Must train those parents and arm muscles to maintain a suitable balance between your antagonistic muscular groups, including your flexors & extensors.

1. Deadlift

Deadlifts lie among the most preferred exercises practiced by combat athletes for building strength throughout their posterior muscular chain. The lower back, upper back, glutes & hamstrings all engage while performing the lifts and help in building massive grip strength. A lot of fitness enthusiasts lift straps for the same reason. However, Lifting the straps takes grips out of the same equation while allowing the lifters to pull additional weight. That can work well for powerlifters, but we won’t recommend fighters relying on them for building grip strength. Holding heavier loads induces stress on your hands & forearms, which forces your body to adapt & get more muscular.  

2. Lift heavy

Instead of training the grips by doing tons of wrist curls for infinite sets, consolidating the workout & training them to grip simultaneously with the rest of the body. By incorporating heavy lifting, one can develop full arm strength, not just the grip. It’s equally important as you get in the right for fighting after wearing your MMA gloves. You can add up the weight in your workouts and perform their variations. It will create a difference. Your forearms will adjust themselves & get adapted to certain positions, which are essentially crucial in developing handgrip strength

3. Pulls

Almost all of the pulling workouts start with the grip; basically, pull-ups make you use your hands for connecting to the resistance in each row. To maximize grip strength, change the handles used for challenging the fists, hands, fingers, & forearms. Simply by changing the handle, even a simple pull exercise can become difficult. You can mix it up, add on new things doing will to benefit your grip strength. 

4. Mid Row

For doing this exercise, secure the resistance band to a stabilized object, and take a step back with both of your arms extended at your front; hold the band until the tension starts inducing. Then pull your band back closer to the body, bring the elbow closer to the rib cage. Perform 2-3 sets of 10 reps with each of your arms, gradually increase the resistance as you progress with the workout.

5. Modified Push-up

Start this exercise by getting on all fours, with the toes raised slightly off the floor. The back should be held straight & flat. Should firmly place both arms on the ground with the hands opened slightly wider than the shoulders. After that, press onto the floor by using both of your arms, chest, & shoulders for getting back up to the position from where you started. Perform 3-5 sets to perform three sets of 15 reps.

6. Modified Plank

Start this exercise by getting on your all fours, with the back laying long & flat on the ground. Walk with the feet back, and eventually get on the toes. Make sure you keep the back flat and straight, not rounded or arched in the middle. Hold your position for a few seconds and keep the midsection stable. Then return to the position from where you started; hold it for 30-60 seconds. Perform three sets of 5-10 secs; work the way up to 3 sets of 20 secs.

7. Open Hand Training

As far as grip strengthening exercises are concerned, one of the most accessible activities you can do is choosing the implements that will force you to lift with the hand in an open position. A simple method of doing this is using the Fat Gripz, or Grip4orce handles as you begin to perform the pulling & curling movements. They should go right on the handles of implements you are using & require your hands during the exercises because the fingers cannot wrap entirely around the bar or the dumbbell.

8. Two Hands Pinch

Perform this exercise by placing two plates close to each other with their smoother sides out, like a pair of 35’s/45’s. Then, run the pipe via the center hole & keep on adding more weight through the pipe. Then grip the whole set-up in the overhand grip & try lifting it to the lockout. Then you can go for the maximized weight lifted or perform repetitions for holding at the time. 

9. Towel Training

Can utilize your towel for instant thickening & dynamic gripping of the surfaces. Make sure you use a thick and robust towel that won’t while you are performing the exercise. For example, you can loop up the towel over the bar & perform some pull-ups, similar to rope pull-ups. You can attach the end of the machine for performing the pull-downs & rows; you can also go around the kettlebell for a dynamic & metabolic training method.

10. Squeeze the bar

One of the most straightforward & powerful tools, often neglected by athletes and fitness enthusiasts, is the active squeezing of the bar that you do with the hands while performing sets that leads to greater grip activation & therefore allows more gains. Do not let the bar slide or slip away towards the fingers while you are performing a set. Instead, keep it firmly in your hand while wrapping the thumb tightly around the bar so you can hold it in its place. While you are performing a set, keep your focus on the bar and squeeze it as hard as you possibly can. By engaging the grip while performing the exercise, you will likely find your strength shooting sky-high.