Which Muscles do Hand Grips Work?

Grip strength plays an important part of everyday life. It’s something we take for granted and may not appreciate - at least until we try to deadlift heavy weights or perform pull-ups and other weight lifting activities and notice our grip weakening and bars slipping. Yet, grip training is often not considered and failure to perform certain weight lifting activities is put down to lack of strength in other areas. And it’s not just weight lifting and other strength training activities which are impacted by poor grip strength. Many sports such as golf, tennis, baseball, climbing, football and wrestling all require good grip strength. But that’s not all. Everyday activities such as turning a door handle, carrying shopping, cutting bread and brushing your teeth all require a certain amount of grip strength. Lack of grip strength not only impacts our ability to perform tasks, it also increases the risk of injury.

Growing the forearm muscles

Many of us long to have muscular forearms. After all, these are on show more so than upper arms which are often covered with sleeves. Interestingly, hand grips are great tools for building forearm muscles. Fingers do not contain muscles. The muscles responsible for finger movement are situated in the palm of the hand and in the forearm. Fingers have tendons which attach those muscles. When you work on finger strength, you are also working on the muscles in your forearm, wrist and hand. Your forearm flexors and extensors are the muscles which control the opening and closing of your fingers. These are the main muscles working when using hand grips, so if you’re looking to build muscular looking forearms, as well as a mighty strong grip, hand grips are definitely a good choice for you. Additionally, training with handgrips will, over time, increase your grip endurance allowing you to lift and carry weights for longer which is an enviable ability both in the gym and in daily life.