Why Should You Try Thick Bar Training?

What is thick bar training?

Training with barbell or dumbbell with a diameter over 2 inches is known as “thick” or “fat” bar training. Many top-level coaches now incorporate thick bar training into their programmes. Why?

Put simply, thick bar training brings the variety which is essential to your training if you wish to achieve results. Too many people do the same things over and over again without ever challenging themselves with a new stimulus.

If we want to get technical; thick bar training improves grip strength which significantly improves your ability to lift heavier weights. When you develop a vice-like grip, weights that once felt heavy will feel lighter in your hands. This strength will transfer to your entire upper body.

How does thick bar training work?

Besides the obvious benefits of a stronger grip, thick bar training works by irradiation.

Irradiation is the principle that muscles can contract harder when surrounding muscles also contract. They are ‘assisted’ by their neighbouring muscles.

Try this:

1. Flex your bicep as hard as you can without making a fist.
2. Now make a tight fist, squeeze it as hard as you can and flex your bicep again
3. Notice that your bicep contracts much harder when you make a fist?
4. This is“irradiation”. The nerve impulses of neighbouring muscles amplify the contraction.

This process works all the way through the upper body. As squeeze your fist, your forearm flexes, your bicep contracts and you feel the muscles tense in your chest, shoulders and back.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

How does this benefit our training?

You could just grip the barbell or dumbbell harder, and it will help a little. In fact, you should be doing this anyway – if you aren’t, start now! The problem is that it is tricky to grip a thin bar very hard. To realise the benefits of irradiation, we need something to grip onto – we need a thicker bar.

When we grip a thicker bar we not only train our grip, but the process of irradiation kicks all our other muscles into overdrive. THIS is where the gains are made. It’s this process that adds all the extra benefits:

• Massive strength gains – improved grip and forearm strength combined with enhanced joint stability and better-activated arm, shoulder and back muscles means you can lift more, and get stronger. HELLO deadlift PB!
• Injury prevention – increasing forearm strength, and activating the muscles in and around the wrist, elbow, and shoulder will bulletproof these vulnerable areas against injury, and even improve existing niggles and pain.
• Carryover to sports – in combat sports like judo, MMA and jiu jitsu grip strength is vital for performance. The ability to grab and hold onto limbs depends on a strong grip.Imitating the diameter of an ankle or wrist with a thicker bar is the perfect way to train for it. Even for boxers, who aren’t grabbing their opponent, building strength in the wrist, forearm, elbow and shoulder will reinforce these vulnerable areas against injury.

As you can see, thick bar training has many benefits, whether you are a strength athlete who wants to get bigger and stronger or a fighter who needs a vice-like grip and solid joints.

So how can you add thick bar training to your workouts? This is where you need BEAST GRIPS.

Training with Beast Grips

We’ve developed Beast Grips to be the ultimate thick bar training solution, and because we use our equipment every day, we’ve made sure they incorporate everything you need:

Beast Grips instantly turn standard and Olympic barbells, dumbbells, pull-up bars, and cable attachments into a thick bar. So instead of spending thousands on thick bars, just wrap a pair Beast Grips around any piece of equipment you want!

Beast Grips are portable so you can throw them in your gym bag and use them anywhere. AND unlike other thick grips, we’ve created Beast Grips with the optimum curve and strategically placed grooves.Beast Grips fit perfectly in your hands and are easy to grip onto.

Finally, we know that your gym kit needs to be strong to stand up to hard workouts. That’s why Beast Grips are made from 100% high-performance silicon, so they’ll last for ages and won’t compress like cheaper foam versions.

So do yourself a favour – add thick bar training to your programme. Unleash untapped strength potential, blast through plateaus, get stronger and perform better.

Grab a pair of Beast Grips now and unleash your strength potential.