I have to admit, I have only been exposed to thick bar training on a few occasions.
I simply have never trained in a gym that had many thick barbells or dumbbells.
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My guess is that 99.9% of the people reading this article don’t have access to thick bars either.
I do have a solution for this, but first, lets talk about how thick bars can significantly improve upper body development.
How Does a Strong Grip Help With Pressing Movements?
I think most people understand the idea of grip strength helping pulling movements like chin ups and rows.
It makes sense because if your grip is too weak you won’t be able to hold the weights.
This is just part of the overall picture.
The thing you rarely hear about is a principle called “irradiation”.
A Quick Outline of Irradiation
Did you know that you can contract a muscle much harder if you also contract the muscles surrounding it?
I learned about this principle called “Irradiation” from Soviet Special Forces Trainer, Pavel Tsatsouline.
Here is how he explains it.
- Try flexing your bicep as hard as possible without making a fist.
- Now try and flex your bicep as hard as possible while making as tight as fist as possible and squeezing.
- You should be able to contract your bicep much harder when making a tight fist.
- This is called “irradiation”…what is happening is that the nerve impulses of surrounding muscles can amplify the effect of that muscle.
Surrounding Muscles “Borrow” Strength from Your Forearms
Make a fist as hard as possible and try not to also flex your biceps or triceps. This is pretty hard to do.
As you flex and generate tension in your forearms, you will also generate tension in your biceps and triceps without even trying.
Gaining strength is simply the skill of generating more tension “on demand” to the muscles being worked.
If you flex your forearms hard enough you will begin to feel tension not just in your arms, but in your shoulders, chest, and back.
Gripping the Bar Hard Helps, But There Are Issues…
Gripping a bar hard while doing something like bench presses or curls and you will begin to feel the effects of irradiation.
The problem is that it is hard to grip a thin bar hard, especially if you have large hands.
I have freakishly large hands, even for a tall guy.
The problem with having large hands is that it makes gripping a regular width bar really easy.
My fingers can easily wrap around the bar and It doesn’t even feel like my forearms have to work at all when doing a lift.
I had a workout partner who was 5’6″ and his forearms would burn badly when doing curls or rows. As a result, he had some very impressive forearms and mine was just average.
Using Thick Bars Force Your Forearms to Generate Tension
If you have access to thick bars, you are one of the lucky few.
The great thing about thick bar training is that you have no choice but to grip the bar hard for a lot of lifts.
If you use a weak grip doing curls, for instance, the bar will slip out of your hands.
When you do pressing movements, you will be able to generate a better squeeze and more tension onto the bar compared to a thin bar.
This will allow you to use the irradiation principle to the max.
You will be able to lift more in the military press, bench press, etc.
How Getting Stronger at Rows Will Increase Your Bench Press
You will get stronger in the pulling movements like curls, rows, chin ups, etc.
The pulling movements will be harder at first because it will demand serious grip strength to hold onto a thicker bar…
…but the stronger your forearms get from these pulling movements, the more you can use that strength to help your pressing movements.
The stronger grip will translate to better irradiation in the pressing movements when you do squeeze the bar hard.
For Those Who Don’t Have Access to Thick Bars
I found a nifty solution for those who don’t have access to fat bars. A guy named Matt commented on one of the posts on this site where I was discussing grip strength.
I was reading his comment and liked what I read.
His name was hyperlinked so I knew he must have a website as well. I clicked on his name, which leads me to his site: FatGripz.com.
He invented a really cool solution to turn any bar or handle into a thick bar.
Here is a picture…
[I had one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments when I saw this product.]
These Can Be Used on Almost Any Bar or Handle
They work well on chin up bars, home or gym barbells, home or gym dumbbells, etc.
At first, I thought that they would only fit Olympic bars, but they work on almost any width bar.
For those of you who want to increase upper body strength and definition, this is a great tool.
One thing I forgot to mention is lifting straps. Don’t use them!
*NEW* Visual Impact Fat Loss Boost Diet
For 15 years I've helped fashion models get lean for photoshoots. Use my plan to Lose 5-10 pounds of PURE body fat in 14 days.
Lifting straps seem like a good idea on paper in that you can use more weight for pulling movements, but they weaken your ability to generate tension in your forearms and get the full benefit of irradiation.
Cheers,
-Rusty Moore
As a former fitness coach to fashion models, I can teach you how to increase muscle definition without adding size.
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