If you are new to obstacle course racing or are looking to improve on some of the obstacles then grip training should be part of your training.
Grip training will help you massively with rings, monkey bars, rope climb, log carry or many of the rigs as well as other related exercises such as deadlifts and pull-ups.
But before you start spending a whole session on barbell wrist curls I will explain how you can add grip training into your OCR training program.
First lets look at wrist mobility, here is a short video that will help mobilise and keep your wrists injury free.
Now your wrists are feeling mobile lets look at a few training techniques to improve your grip.
- Using thicker grip bars when performing pull ups (you can buy think grips which clip onto regular bars if your gym does not have think bars)
- Recovery walks with weight plates. Using a pinch grip on bumper weight plates during rest periods of gym sessions will get your grip working.
- Invest in nunchuck attachments to perform pull ups on. (eBay or amazon)
- Use the nunchuck attachments on heavy kettlebells and perform farmers walks holding the nunchucks.
- Hang for time on a bar, once you can hold for a minute try different grips such as fingertips or releasing fingers to increase the difficulty.
- Use the rings as part of your training, start by performing pull ups and dips on them and then get creative and get used to holding them. (here is a few exercises that you can work towards on the rings)
These are a few ideas for you to get started with grip training and add into your gym programs. Remember grip training will take time and it will fatigue quickly at first but you can train this. Be patient train it once or twice a week to start with and as you become more conditioned you can add more in.