4 Tips to Increase Grip Strength for Better Rock Climbing

Having the hand and forearm strength to hold on to a rock wall is critical to surviving your great day of climbing.

If your arms are getting tired long before they should be, you need to start exercising them to be more able to increase endurance and help support you. There are a lot of exercises that you can use to strengthen the grip that are beneficial to climbers.

1. Hang: Being able to get access to a pull-up bar or something similar, you can use it to hang by just the tips of your fingers. Allow your full weight to hang on the bar and try to hold on as long as you can, it would be best to hold on until you are unable to hang anymore and your fingers slide off the bar.
2. Elevate: Pull-ups should also be a part of your training. This is the best upper body exercise you can perform that closely mimics climbing.
3. Add Weight: If you have been doing pull-ups and you feel you have adequate upper body strength, you can start doing weighted pull-ups and hangs to increase the intensity of hanging. While holding a weight in one hand hang by the other for added difficulty, then switch to the other arm.
4. Squeeze: You need to make sure to exercise your thumb also. If you have some hand grippers, squeeze them with the tip of your thumb on one handle and the finger tips on the other. This will make it more difficult to squeeze them and will condition your thumb better than using them the common way.

You should do grip exercises at least two times a week and you will see your grip strength come pretty quick.

Fitness Training has been Tim Archbold’s life long interest. To discover more info on improving your grip strength go to Grip Strength.