Getting the most from your Grippers - Manual 1

There are loads of hand grippers on the market these days, such as PDA's SoS hand grippers, Baraban's, BeefBuilder's and Heavy Grips . Far and away the most famous are the Captains of Crush Grippers sold by Ironmind. Being able to close the Captains of Crush 2,3 & 4 is like a medal of honour amongst iron monkeys worldwide.

Steve Gardener is a so called "Captain of Crush" which means he's officially closed the Iron Mind Captains of Crush Gripper #3. Now that's a near bloody impossible feat, so he's plain scary strong right.

It takes about 280lbs of crushing hand power to close the CoC3, so imagine what fun you'd have on the mats if you could wield that kind of strength. Submission by chinese burn anyone? How about a win in round 1 by nipple pinch? Once you've clamped your pincer grip round your opponent, he's not going nowhere.

So Gardener has come up with a natty little e-book. What you do is send him a PayPal and a day or so later he bungs you a PDF file in an email. It's a doddle. *note, you can now get it from www.gripperbook.com* . Pretty cheap and no postage to pay! If you'd like a taster, check out his article on this site. (The actual manual contains well over twice the info, plus loads of pics)

The book, as you can see by the contents below, is pretty comprehensive. It contains all the little tricks you need to become a captain of crush. Most importantly, it reminds you that it's possible, and step by step, little by little, you will get there. You may not become a Captain of Crush, but you'll get stronger without a doubt.

There's a few tips (setting the gripper, dog legs and Pavel Tsatsouline's Irradiation technique) that will immediately make closing your gripper easily. OK, this is rather like learning to do a powerlifter's J trajectory bench press - it's not a gain in strength as such, just technique. But still, it's pretty cool to know.

Getting stronger is with sheer piggin' hard work - though maybe less work than you think. Gardener saves you the guess work and outlines his way to do it.

Gardener writes extremely well, and it's one of those books that you'll have finished in one sitting, easy, but will go back again and again as you go through the steps he outlines.

If you own a CoC style spring gripper then get this. It's not expensive and lets you get the most out of your gripper. Recommended.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Brief history
3. Why are they so popular?
4. How to use a gripper
5. Gripper exercise techniques
6. Setting of a gripper
7. Training the sweep
8. Strap Holds
9. Timed holds
10. Block holds
11. Tips and Tricks
12. Chalk/sticky/resin etc
13. Dog legs
14. Over closes
15. Negatives
16. The mind : how to use it and more
17. Other grip tools that might help
18. Care and maintenance : Hands : Grippers
19. Gripper training schedules and programmes
20. Hi-reps and sets
21. Low reps and sets
22. Three steps to improving Gripper power
23. Gripper strength ratings
24. Last word
25. Acknowledgements
26. A little about the author

The Cool

The Uncool

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