Grip strength is generally defined as the ability to exert pressure with the hand and/or fingers. It is a vital part of everyday life that most take for granted. Think about how much trouble you would be in if you couldn’t grab, grip or hold anything?
From turning a doorknob to tying your shoelaces, deadlifting a barbell to carrying groceries, we all depend heavily on good grip strength. Without adequate grip strength, we would be rendered practically useless.
Weight training is a great way to train your grip. Most traditional strength training equipment such as dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells will help to improve hand, wrist and forearm strength. But none of these tools will train your overall grip strength quite like a SandBell.
5 Reasons to use SandBells for Grip Strength Training
1. Fingertips to Shoulders
A strong grip starts at the tips of the fingers and goes all the way up the line to the shoulder. It incorporates the hand, wrist, forearm and upper arm along the way. The SandBell is one of the only training tools that target all of these areas with each exercise. Just to hold a SandBell requires you to dig your fingers into the neoprene and sand, which also activates the hand and the forearm, upper arm and muscles.
2. Unique Shape
Certain sports require the athlete to grip a solid handle such as a bat, racket or stick. But in many other sports, the athlete needs to grab and grip clothing or odd shaped objects (think martial arts, football or anything that involves climbing). SandBells, made from exceptionally, durable neoprene, most closely resemble these situations. Again this requires you to dig your fingers into the neoprene and grab a handful of sand and material just like if you were grabbing an opponent’s uniform.
3. Live Weight
While the handles of dumbbells and kettlebells require a good degree of grip strength, they are unchanging. They are round and solid and aren’t going anywhere. The dynamic shift and instability of the moving sand inside the SandBell, on the other hand, provides a unique training effect. This “live weight” of the sand not only hits the targeted muscles but also requires greater engagement of the fingers, hand, wrist and forearm with every move.
4. Grip Endurance
The shifting sand in a SandBell requires you to frequently
5. Greater Muscle Activation
When you grip something you are working the hand, forearm and upper arm muscles as well as also activating many other muscle groups like the shoulders, back and even chest. Because the SandBell requires you to grip it differently than dumbbells or kettlebells you not only have to activate more muscle fibers per muscle group but you also experience deeper muscle activation.
So next time you can’t open that jar of pickles and decide you need to work on your grip strength look no further than the SandBell.
Hyperwear Director of Education