Understanding Grip Strength Regulation
Takeaway Points:
Grip strength autoregulation can be a useful tool in order to maximize your workouts on any given day - grip strength is a good indicator of full body readiness.
If your grip strength is good, then you typically do a more challenging workout, versus a low grip strength which may be a sign to hold back or modify your workouts.
Generally, grip strength testing is simple and easy to use, but should still be used intelligently in the context of your training program.
Grip strength autoregulation is a powerful tool that you can use to manage your workouts - if you know what you’re doing.
I’ve written a bit previously about autoregulation - an advanced technique that you can use to adjust the difficulty of your workouts on the fly.
The reality of the matter is that using exact, finely calculated progressions for your workouts can often work well if you know what you’re doing, but these progressions are often rigid and don’t leave much wiggle room. What if you show up to the gym and your workout progression says you did 3x4 last week and you’re supposed to do 3x6 this week, but you aren’t feeling good, and can only get in 3x3 with the same weight?
The idea of autoregulation is to use methods which can enable you to make decisions on the fly, and therefore adjust the difficulty based on your readiness. When you’re feeling extra strong, you can push yourself and do a bit more - when you’re feeling like crap, you can pull back and rest a bit. A system of autoregulation often enables you to get better results, because it gives you the methods to be able to properly match the difficulty of your workouts to your exact abilities in any given workout.
Autoregulation can be very simple, or it can be very complex. A simple version of autoregulation is the classic method of giving ranges for each exercise. For example, instead of saying that you want to perform 3 sets of 10 on the bench press, you could say that you have a rep range of 3 sets of 8-12, enabling you to either push harder or pull back depending on how you’re feeling.
You can do the same with sets, when working with a volume-focused program intended to build size - for example, 3-5 sets of 10. In this way, you can complete sets of 10 until you can no longer complete 10 reps in a set, and then call it there even if you didn’t complete all 5 sets. In this way, you can measure progress in the form of added sets, or less dropoff in strength between sets, as you continue to train.
Of course, you can also do both! A range of 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps gives you a lot of precise control over what you can do in any given workout.
Another common method of autoregulation is the use of RPE, or ratings of perceived exertion - a complicated system that I won’t get into here. But if you know what I’m talking about, you know!
How Does Grip Strength Come Into It?
So what am I talking about when I talk about grip strength autoregulation? Grip strength autoregulation is the use of your grip strength measurements to achieve a similar result in terms of managing your workouts.
Typically, your grip strength increases steadily over time as you get stronger, so long as you’re including regular exercises which tax your back and pulling strength - like deadlifts, rows, pullups, and so on. You can see this in the expression of how easy it is to hold onto a heavy barbell - as your grip strength improves, you can hold onto heavier weights, and for longer, without dropping it.
Another interesting feature, is that your grip strength is a good indicator of full body readiness. In short, if you test your grip strength and it’s lower than usual, then that’s a sign that your body is generally exhausted and less able to perform an intense workout. If you test and find that your grip strength is higher than usual, or even hitting a personal best, then it means you’re good to go!
The preferred method for testing grip strength is a handheld grip dynamometer, which measures your grip strength via a device which you squeeze on as hard as possible - then the force you’ve generated is measured to produce a simple number.
There are plenty of cheap grip strength testers out there which are - well, not GREAT - they’re a bit uncomfortable to use and can vary a bit in terms of their readings just depending on whether you’ve gripped it the right way. But they’re cheap, and they work well enough for the purpose.
There are also more expensive, proper dynamometers like the Jamar. This is a lot more expensive, but it’s also the gold standard and works a lot more smoothly - if you’ve got the cash to spend.
Once you’ve got your grip strength tester, the method is simple - you test your grip strength each morning to get a sense of how recovered you are. You can track your strength readouts every day (preferably in a spreadsheet, which makes it easy to compare the data), and then use that to get a sense of how rested you are. You can also test before each workout to get a sense of how rested you are before the workout, if, for example, you tend to workout at the end of a long day.
There are more advanced applications as well, and for this I have to thank David Dellanave for getting me into the concept. At David’s gym, clients regularly use their grip strength testers throughout their workouts as a way to determine not just whether they’re ready for a workout, but which exercises their bodies are most prepared for in any given moment, and thus are likely to get the best benefit out of. This more advanced version of autoregulation, which he refers to as Biofeedback, is maybe a bit complicated for many, but is still a really interesting and cool use of the training.
Benefits And Drawbacks Of This Method
I find that the best benefit of this method is that it’s simple and easy to use, and gives you really simple and easy to understand numbers.
Other recovery testing methods are less precise. You may be able to track how many hours of sleep you got, for example, or even get fancier and include data from an app or other device about how well you slept, but even then I find that I can have bad sleep and great workouts and vice versa.
Heart rate variability is a newer method for measuring preparedness for cardiovascular activity which is often bundled into wearable devices like apple watches and fitbits, but as I understand it, the research is starting to turn against it a bit.
You can also track other variables like how much you meditate, how stressed out you are, etc. but these can also be very imprecise in terms of correlating very strongly with how ready you are for a workout. In contrast, grip strength is easy and quick to measure, and gives pretty clear numbers.
At the same time, I worry that the precision of this method may make it seem more “sciencey” and reliable than it actually is. We can still have bad grip strength readings and good workouts, or be able to rally and complete a workout simply by taking longer in the gym than usual.
The fact that grip strength testers cost money (and especially the more expensive Jamars) can also mean that this method isn’t accessible to everyone.
Grip strength can also be “gamed” a little bit. For example, if you’ve just done a heavy bench press session, this won’t tire your grip out too much, but it will still tire you out. In contrast, a heavy deadlift session will DEFINITELY tire out your grip, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily infinitely more challenging than a bench press. Numbers should be taken in context and you shouldn’t give them too much merit or power on their own.
Still, I believe that grip strength testing can be a valuable tool in your toolkit, and I’ve often used it to help guide my own training.
I will admit that one of the cool factors about this method is that if you track it in a spreadsheet, you can get a graph of your grip strength as it increases over time, and use this to get a picture of your overall general strength as it improves, as well as how your readiness varies from day to day.
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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