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What made you start working out? Some might have done it for the looks, some for a new years resolution, it may have been requested by the family doctor or it might be purely for health gains. Whatever your reason, no matter what, resistance training can and will make a big impact on the way you look and feel. < This is where training your forearms becomes so important! > The forearms are often an abandoned muscle group when it comes to a workout, even more so than the calves or traps! If you think about it though, apart from the mechanical benefits of its condition, it’s the one body part that is more than often showing and visible to others, especially in summer!
That for some can be a good enough reason to get serious with the training, so let’s get started! The forearms are made up of two counteracting muscle groups; | FOREARMS | | FLEXORS | | EXTENSORS |
They make up the mass of your arm below the elbow and are responsible for wrist movement and grip strength (the power to curl your fingers.)
< Unknown facts on the forearm > I have always looked at training the forearms differently from traditional methods and have proven my theories to be highly beneficial over the last few years.
As you would have noticed, I like to look into the biomechanical processes and movements which associate each exercise I put myself and my clients through.
Here we have 3 popular body parts, and a common exercise for each. For this example we will use; | MUSCLE GROUP | EXERCISE | | CHEST | BARBELL BENCH PRESS | | BACK | SEATED PULLEY ROW | | BICEP | STANDING DUMBBELL CURL |
Now let me break each of these exercises down so you can take a look at the surrounding muscle groups that are recruited during the each movement: | EXERCISE | MUSCLES RECRUITED | |
BARBELL BENCH PRESS
| PRIMARY | PECTORALIS MAJOR | | SECONDARY | TRICEP, FOREARM, ANTERIOR DELTOID | |
SEATED PULLEY ROW
| PRIMARY | RHOMBOID | | SECONDARY | LATISSIMUS DORSI, TRAPEZIUS, FOREARM | |
STANDING DUMBBELL CURL
| PRIMARY | BICEPS BRACHII | | SECONDARY | BRACHIALIS, FOREARM |
Now take a good look at that table there and tell me what you notice? Each of these very popular mass building exercises all employ the forearms to complete each movement effectively. < Seeing immediate results > When I actually started to take note of this, I went on to start a 2 month forearm strengthening program to see if I was able to improve on my 1RM (1 rep maximum) on some of my favourite exercises.
The results actually blew me away. No longer was my grip strength letting me down at the latter stage of my workouts, the intense pain I received in my wrists whilst bench pressing had practically faded away and best of all my lift strength had improved drastically in a little over a month. < What caused the improvements? > To clear things up, nearly all upper body weight bearing exercises require you to grip an object, whether to be pushing a bar, pulling a rope or pulling your bodyweight towards a static object. Your first point of contact with your hands and the first major muscle group recruited is the flexors and extensors within your forearms!
So there is no two ways about it, if you and your training buddy have the same strength in your chests, it’s going to be the person with the better conditioned forearms that will always have the advantage over the other.
< What's the best way to train the forearms? > Well as I said earlier, they are made up of two muscle groups, the forearm flexors and extensors, and although these are rather small muscles, they still require a strong catalyst to grow.
The best way to train them is by moving weight upwards and downwards, rather than from side to side.
Always use dumbbells where possible as to insure both arms are lifting an equal resistance. Exercises like reverse curls (palms facing downwards) and wrist curls (palms facing upwards) are very effective when using sets with high reps (20-30) for isolating the muscles of the wrist and major section of the forearm. Some of the most effective exercises include; - One arm dumbbell reverse curls (over bench)
- One arm dumbbell wrist curls (over bench)
- EZ bar reverse curls
- Dumbbell hammer curls (brachialis)
- Dumbbell wrist hammer curls (over bench with palms facing inward)
- Weight plate pinchers (below)
Your training times are also crucial and I suggest only training with the biceps or at the rear end of another muscles session.
An example would be if you were to combine a forearm workout with a set of bench press. This would not be a good idea, as the stabilizing muscles of your wrists would have already suffered and would be nowhere near the full capacity needed to complete such a compound lift like the bench press.
Forearms react best to a high intensity, high rep workouts. Heavy compound movements are not recommended as applying this much stress on the fragile bones of the hand and wrist joint can be very dangerous and potentially keep you out of the gym for months at a time.
The key to developing this muscle group is building up its endurance. Much like training your abdominals or oblique’s, the size of the muscle increases as that muscle becomes more comfortable with the resistance you apply against it. < Formidable Forearms > More than anything, well trained forearms are a performance based attribute.
They really help to improve some of the annoying weaknesses we have when training. I hate nothing more than having to stop dead lifting because my grip fails, even though I know my hamstrings and lower back have much more to give!
Simple and highly effective forearm exercises can be done in a short amount of time with minimum equipment and only need to be performed a few times per week. Here is your chance to make some significant gains to your bench, deadlift and other heavy compound lifts without actually targetting the big muscles. I added over 33lbs to my bench press with a little over 6 weeks of forearm training, so what are you waiting for? < This weeks questions, I'll be waiting for your comment below! > 1) On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your grip strength at the moment? 2) How often do you currently train your forearms? (It's ok to say never!)
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