Most gym goers don’t pay enough attention to grip strength, but that needs to change
Grip strength is an undervalued component of strength training, and working on it will significantly boost your muscle size and strength. A stronger grip is associated with a longer lifespan, too
JOE recently trained with Daniel Strauss (a.k.a Raspberry Ape) at his home gym. Strauss is a strength coach, mixed martial artist and grip training connoisseur.
Strauss has built an epic grip strength gym in his own garage – and we tried it out. The walls are home to a treasure trove of grip strength training items. Some are extremely rare and bought from the United States, whereas other pieces have been custom-made by Strauss and his friends.
We tested them out through the medium of pull-ups, in order to add a different element to proceedings.
Strauss also recommends wearing denim while working out – a fact he says is backed up psychological research.
“I call it PEDs – Performance Enhancing Denim.
“There’s this principle called Enclothed Cognition – which is basically, the way you dress, and the way you perceive the way you dress, changes your performance, changes the way you think and changes the way you behave.”
Strauss says this theory has been observed in scientific research, too.
“They’ve done studies where they’ve taken two groups. One of the groups they’ve given a lab coat, and then they’ve given them tests in logics, analysis and mathematics and the group that was in a lab coat have done significantly better than the control group.
“Proving that even though there’s no difference between the groups, just by what you wear can actually change the way that you perform in certain tests.”
Strauss says “soon the whole world will be covered in denim”, but this may take a while to catch on in most gyms.
View the workout in full below:
