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by Atomic Athletic on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 2:08pm
Basically, it goes like this: when you focus on one muscle, or group of muscles, then you need to also work the opposing muscle, or group of muscles. For example, if you work your biceps, then you also need to work your triceps. At Atomic Athletic, we are big on leg work. When we do front squats or hack squats, we then do stiff leg deadlifts or good mornings.Have you ever heard of working the antagonistic muscle group? Sure you have.
As you can see with the leg training, if you are doing “full body” type exercises it becomes more difficult to determine what the antagonistic muscle group is. In fact, unlike the training systems of 15 years ago, many of today's “cutting edge” training systems totally ignore the concept. At Atomic Athletic they are called Accessory Exercises. I learned the concept from one of the strongest bodybuilders of the late 60s and early 70s, Bill St. John. Despite his Mr. America contest write-ups, Strength & Health magazine actually did more articles on his feats of strength than they did on any other subject.
The heaviest deadlifts, clean pulls and snatch pulls all have one requirement in common: grip strength.
Even at 88 years old Norbert Schemansky has really impressive forearms. He hasn't done any real lifting for almost 40 years, but you can see what he built and it is very unusual. His forearms look like four giant tendons. Trust me. They are not a bodybuilder's forearms. He still has certain overdeveloped forearm muscles, most obviously the extensor digitorum and extensor carpi radialis longus.
Several years ago I hypothesized that if I worked those muscles at least enough for a warm-up, every time I did a pull movement (basically every workout), my Olympic lifts would go up, without having to change anything else in my routine. I was absolutely correct. Since that time, I have found several really great exercises for doing just that.
A great deal on clubs:
The first exercise will teach you the movement. I do it with either light Indian clubs or my lightest stone padlocks. If you don't have either one, try it with an unloaded dumbbell bar held from one end. The exercise: Lock your elbow down by your side with your implement gripped in your hand, weight pointed down. Slowly start rotating your wrist in full large circles in order to focus on the two muscles I just mentioned. You will feel those muscles begin to work, you can then change the rotation direction. Do this until your wrist feels nice and limber and your forearm has a good pump. Next move on to slow full extension and contraction wrist curls using your implement. The wrist curl with maximum flexion at the end of the movement is a great way to build grip strength. An advanced form of this is done with a Sumtola (Hindu Barbell) or a heavier Stone Padlock.
Norb didn't start doing grip work until after he had two Olympic medals. His grip work was a much heavier variation on what I mention above. Norb once told me that if he had it to do all over again, he would add in some of the “Indian stuff”, which he clarified as yoga for stretching, “but like the strong guys over there do it.”
For more exercises, get the “Frightening Forearms & Grip” DVD.
Live strong,
Roger LaPointe
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