Building a Killer Grappling Grip

When it comes to grip strength in Brazilian jiujitsu, not only is crushing strength important but so is endurance where you can hold on for a long time.

Here are some exercises proven to give you grips of steel.

To begin let's look at the most obvious one and that is the gripper.

Grippers are exercise tools of varying resistance that are small enough to be carried around. The great thing about these tools is that you can buy several of increasing resistance to build up your hand gripping strength, you can even close them and hold on to increase gripping endurance.

Pinching barbell plates. By starting off with one plate you can increase the duration you hold the plates to increase finger strength. The when one becomes easy you can always move up to two plates. This is a surefire way to increase gripping strength and endurance in a short amount of time.

Pull ups. This classic body weight exercise has been around for a long time, and for good reason, it works wonders not only on your back strength but your gripping strength as well. It's important to note that most movements and techniques in Brazilian jujitsu require pulling along with a superior grip. So pull ups are natural exercises that will help improve this movement. There are several variations, the most useful being the standard pull up with palms facing toward you and the parallel grip pull up with your palms facing each other. Remember to be pulling your elbows back when performing the movement to involve the back muscles and not focus too much on the arms. Of course the side effect of pull ups is that your grips will get much stronger.

Kettlebells; kettlebells are perfect for improving grip strength and endurance for the simple reason that the grips on standard kettlebells are very large and your hand will have to adapt to the grip with a heavy weight that will improve your gripping power. Another plus to kettlebells is that you can perform explosive movements which are very well suited and specific to the explosiveness needed in grappling movement.

Lastly, we have medicine ball catches. It's best to start off with a relatively heavy weight after you've properly warmed up. Start by throwing the medicine ball high up in the air, then catch it abruptly by using only your two hands. This will help with grip strength and also mimic the impact that occurs when someone is violently puling away from your grip. This impact training will definitely help condition your hands and fingers for that.