Bigger biceps through grip training

I'm not someone who would probably win most arm wrestling matches.

Lets face it I am a skinny guy with skinny forearms and average sized biceps.

Don't get me wrong you don't have to have arms like Alexey Voyevoda to win matches, Jon Brzenk looks average compared to most people in the sport and he is like Muhammad Ali when it comes to slamming peoples arms on the table.

I'm not someone who is to obsessed with training biceps... I got over it a while ago. The last time I tested myself in a bicep curl I was somewhere around 105 or 110-pounds.

Not terrible, but not great... and I managed to get a few reps out of it.

Regardless you look at me standing next to my friends who enjoy lifting and I have baby arms. Where I think I am the strongest is in an overhead press.

I have shoulder pressed a keg a little over half-way full over my head before I got a groin injury from heavy front squats.

Needless, to say biceps I don't care as much for training.

But, lately I have noticed them getting a little larger.

I probably haven't done direct bicep work in over a month and even then I only did it about twice a week for three weeks.

So what happened?

Well I can only guess it happening because of the grip work I have been doing and heavy dead lifts.

Watched, John Brookfield's Blueprint for Grip Strength and I started doing his wet towel squeeze and twist (it is exactly what it sounds like). Not only do my forearms get tired by my biceps are pumping.

I'm not much of a bodybuilder (I tried with little success) but I can honestly say this is probably one exercise they could benefit from.

Besides just squeezing and twisting towels I have been doing my homemade rolling handle dead lifts for grip.

Dead lifts are considered one of the best exercises because of all the muscles they recruit.

I've read it was a great exercise for biceps but I didn't figure that me pulling about 190-pounds would have any affect ( I have a lower back injury that has reduced my once unimpressive 315-pound strapless overhand grip dead lift.) Never did I think that doing deads with such a small amount would have any effect.

Sure enough though I am seeing a change.

So, get gripping if you are looking to pack on some size.

Back almost completely healed from Egoscue

Well last night I was reading through my copy of the 4 Hour Body and was looking at the section about reversing and curing life long injuries.

I figured since I am a fairly active person who currently has a bad back I might see what this section of the book has to offer.

In the book Ferriss talks about the different methods he has tried to relieve his back pain and the ones that he found to be most effective.

One of the methods mentioned but not considered to be the most helpful was Yoga. That's when I thought to myself Damn, because I was banking on this Yoga thing to get my back straightened out.

But he later mentions walking in Vibram 5 Finger shoes, or barefoot walking, this of course has been something I have been interested in trying since I read Born to Run earlier this year. Of course with it being winter in Michigan and me only having just graduated and using whatever little money I have for Christmas shopping this was an impractical solution to my problem.

Ferriss talks in great detail about this egoscue method of rehab, great, here was something I could actually do in my living room without freezing my feet.

There were about 5 or 6 rehab exercises described in the book but Ferriss said that only three should be done on a daily basis, but in my head I was thinking what the hell I'll try them all.

So, I gave them shot not really expecting great results but low-and-behold I was completely wrong. I was feeling great my back still had a slight kink in it but I figured I would test the water with a few Yoga poses.

After attempting a few poses I was convinced that I needed to put this into my daily routine, my flexibility through my back was better then it has been all year.

I woke up this morning even more surprised because my back felt even better then it did from the night before.

Anyways definitely worth checking out if you have a bad back. Look for it in the 4-hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

Self Experimentation Through Gymnastics and Yoga

As of late I have been trying to improve my general fitness and strength using both two things Gymnastics conditioning and Yoga.

I have never been a particularly large person let alone even very strong, what I am though is fairly athletic. For the last few years I have spent most of my attempts at becoming more fit in the weight room trying to get bigger and stronger to match my athleticism .

To give an example I went from 135lbs at the end of my senior year of high school and graduated college with a body weight hovering around 175 to 180lbs, with my heaviest being 185. I always thought if I could reach 200lbs then I would finally be big enough to start making some significant strength gains but through the years of trying to get stronger and bigger I have managed to get a few injuries that took me months to recover from.

The first major one that I can think of is a groin strain I suffered last year likely due to heavy front squats or pressing a beer keg half-full of water over my head.

Now I currently have a pretty bad back injury that I can't quite trace the source of but is most likely due to in one way or another trying to lift something heavy with my back.

So, needless to say I haven't really done much lifting of any sort to work towards my goals in the strength and weight department. But, that doesn't mean that I have given up working out as of late I have been putting a lot of my focus into gymnastics conditioning and Yoga.

It starts with Yoga, I took a yoga class my final semester of college to try and see if I could straighten out some of the kinks in my back for the most part it seemed to work but didn't really cure much of my back pain, of course during this time I was still lifting which was probably a big mistake.

I started rehab for my back and I would leave feeling great but would walk out of the athletic trainers room and into weight room, again I wouldn't recommend this.

One thing I learned that while doing rehab almost all of the exercises I was doing was largely done with body weight with medium sized rep ranges with only about 2 sets. Now, this way of rehab I think would be great if I was someone who wasn't very active already but unfortunately I am extremely active and fit.

So my solution was to get a book called Building a Gymnastics Body which you can buy off of the Gymnastics Bodies website and start utilizing some of the exercises out of that book.

The book has become my new bible for all thing body weight exercises and actually offers some new challenges to test my strength in and some great variations to classics like the push up and dips.

Alongside gymnastics training I have added a much bigger focus on Yoga and stretching and it has now become something I do daily when I wake up after a light warm up.

My results for the most part have been pretty positive, I'm not 100%, but I am starting to feel like I am coming closer to feeling healthy again.