Gripmaster for strong fingers?

[pianolotus]

https://www.gripmaster.com.au/index1.htm

Would this device be a shortcut to strong fingers or injury.

[Bob]

It would depend how you use it, of course.  Go nuts with it and you can definitely mess things up a little.  The red one is a little too much for piano playing.


I didn't stick with them too long. Maybe I should have.  It's not quite the same motion as playing the piano and you're training for strength a little more with them.  You might get better results just opening and closing your hand with no resistence at all.  Maybe I'll dig mine out....

If you buy them, they come individually, so you have to buy two to be able to use both hands at the same time.

[Daniel_piano]

I don't see problems in using them
My piano teacher is a concert pianist and organist
He has very strong and large hands
He does bodybuilding and use grippers too as part of his training
He said that before he started bodybuilding his hands were weak, small, thin and always cold and he got tendonitis very easily
Now his hands and fingers are 4 times thicker than mine and so strong that he could break my hand and wrist in just one shake
He said he could reach a 9th and now he can reach a 11th
His sport physician believes that this is due other than the enlargment of the webbing between the first and second finger to the enlargment of the palm due to muscles atrophy in that area

It's true that you don't need much strength to play piano but surely you don't need ultra-weak hands either, so weak that it hurts when you land on a chord
I started a weightlifting routine three weeks ago and by holding the dumbbells and barbells my hands and fingers are already stronger and bigger
This is helping me somewhat as I've a better tone, more resistance and better speed
I could barely reach a 9th now it's a 10th (but on the edge of the keys) and my teacher is commenting on how my hands looks biggers

Let's not be snob with muscles
We always associate being muscolous with being gym-alcoholic no-brainer but actually muscles development is really important both in kids, male and female for good health
For example I think that the better playing and speed linked with a more muscolous palm is due to a better blood flow
Better blood flow would result in better and easier movements
Muscles atrophy definitely improves peripherical blood flow

Btw, there's definitely an extra-genetical component to hand size and thickeness
My teacher is way shorter than me, yet his hands are way bigger
My father is similar to me and he has very large and thick hands, he said to me that he had not hands like this when he was a boy but that they get larger after having worked for a year as a bricklayer during his 20s
My mother is shorter than me, but she worked a lot in her 20's on a hotel using his hands to knead, wash, wipe, rub the floor and he hands are bigger and stronger than mine
She also told me her hand were littler and weaker before she started working
No one in my family (aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents) have hands as weak and tiny as mine, not even the girl so they're definitely going to change and as I said they're already bigger and stronger after a month of weighlifiting

Daniel

[pianolotus]

Thanks Daniel_piano for an insightful post

More on the gripmaster, which exercises should i use? should i squeeze the mechanism so as to strengthen the palm, or should I press down with the inside pad of my finger (more of a horizontal motion, using the middle nuckle which allows ur finger to 'fold' half way along the finger), or should i press down with the tip of my finger as if I was vertically depressing a button.

thanks

[timothy42b]

There's a better device out there, I think it's called Captains of Crush.

Heavy dead lifts without straps, once every week to two weeks, will build a stronger grip for most of us without the gimmicks and with less risk of injury. 

[piano_learner]

I did a lot of weight training in my youth and have been training on and off since the age of 16. A good excercise for building strength in the fingers and forearms is the following.

1) Sit on a bench and straddle it like riding a horse.
2) lean forward and rest both arms on the bench, wrists together hanging over the front of the bench, palms up. Your forarms must be flat on the bench.
3) Using a light barbell, grip it with fingers closed and curl your wrists inwards towards you.
4) slowly curl you wrists towards the ground and open your hands. Allow the barbell to slowly roll accross your palms towards the tips of your fingers.
5) when at the tips, begin to close your fingers again and allow the barbell to roll back to your starting position.

REMEMBER. Do this slowly and with a light weight to avoid injury.

[timothy42b]

I did a lot of weight training in my youth and have been training on and off since the age of 16. A good excercise for building strength in the fingers and forearms is the following.

<snip>

REMEMBER. Do this slowly and with a light weight to avoid injury.

Yeah so did I, and most of it was wrong.  And your well intentioned low intensity high volume wrist curls are probably not only inefficient but would lead to injury if anyone did them consistently, which fortunately never happens.  Light weights are okay for kids, we oldtimers can't afford the injury risk. 

I'm not sure a grip that can crush bricks is helpful on piano, but if you want to try, start here:  https://www.cyberpump.com/
Look at the Gripboard, and do a search on CoC. 

[Bob]

I remember more of what happened when I used the Gripmaster.

I pressed down one finger and it had more resistance than normal because of the Griopmaster.  So that one muscle and tendon tightened up.  It's all a web of muscles connected, so it wasn't very comfortable after a few days.

Not that that's a reason to blow it off entirely.  I just overdid it I guess within a few days and that was the result. 

I think it could be useful if it was used carefully.  Maybe only a few "pumps" on each finger 2-3 times a week.

[Daniel_piano]

I remember more of what happened when I used the Gripmaster.

I pressed down one finger and it had more resistance than normal because of the Griopmaster.  So that one muscle and tendon tightened up.  It's all a web of muscles connected, so it wasn't very comfortable after a few days.

Not that that's a reason to blow it off entirely.  I just overdid it I guess within a few days and that was the result. 

I think it could be useful if it was used carefully.  Maybe only a few "pumps" on each finger 2-3 times a week.

They should be used like any other weighlifting routine
This means that you do 1 or 2 sets or 5 to 10 repetition each and that have have 2 days of rest between each session
Reast after exortation is what grow muscles so without rest there's no growth just injuries

For a beginner one could do 2 sets of 4 repetition each on Monday, rest on Wednsday and Tuesday, same 2 sets on Thursday, rest on Friday, same 2 sets on Saturday and rest on Sunday

You can literally destroy your body with any kind of weighlifiting activiy or sport for that matter (basket, volely and soccer are way more dangerous for kids bones than weighlifting) but if you have a intelligent plan and you follow it it's impossible to face any risk or problem

Anyway, weighlifting alone strengthen the hands and the wrist in the case one doesn't want to use a gripper

Daniel

[piano_learner]

Yeah so did I, and most of it was wrong.  And your well intentioned low intensity high volume wrist curls are probably not only inefficient but would lead to injury if anyone did them consistently, which fortunately never happens.  Light weights are okay for kids, we oldtimers can't afford the injury risk. 

If you do any exercise incorrectly it will lead to injury. I don't know why you think the wrist curl is inefficient, (although there is debate about whether forearms need a separate exercise due to the fact they are worked when doing bicep curls). All exercise produces results and as far as I am aware there isn't a precise way of measuring the efficiency. I don’t know if it will improve/help piano playing though, but it will increase the strength of your grip!

[galonia]

When I first starting playing the double-bass, my teacher told me to squeeze gently on a squash ball when I had nothing else to do (e.g. sitting on the bus) to strengthen my LH.

[timothy42b]

If you do any exercise incorrectly it will lead to injury. I don't know why you think the wrist curl is inefficient, (although there is debate about whether forearms need a separate exercise due to the fact they are worked when doing bicep curls). All exercise produces results and as far as I am aware there isn't a precise way of measuring the efficiency. I don’t know if it will improve/help piano playing though, but it will increase the strength of your grip!

Yes, and the older approaches we grew up with do work, but there are much better methods now, that have more awareness of individual differences (and unlike the magazine articles, that will work even if you do not use steroids.) 

Incorrectly could mean bad form of course, but more likely a bad balance of volume, intensity, and frequency.  Those are the factors you must balance to get to progress. 

By efficiency I mean finding the minimum amount of work to make gains.  Body builders enjoy spending four hours a day in the gym.  3.5 of that is unnecessary, but they train to be able to handle it, and besides it's fun.  Rather than training to build up your capacity, I want to train smart and make progress with the least effort.

To do that, you focus your routine on infrequent intense exercise, using compound multijoint movements (like squat, deadlift, clean, etc.)  You never do isolation exercises like wrist curls or bicep curls, and you never never do high repetition light weight exercises.  These are too inefficient and too prone to produce CTD injuries.  They do not stress your system so they don't take advantage of some of the synergistic benefits.  You don't do 12 bodyparts, with two to eight sets each.  You do 2 to 4 compound joint movements, 1 set.  2 sets max.  If you are really working out properly, you aren't capable of doing more than this. 

Now I'll define intensity.  Unlike efficiency you can do this mathematically.  It is (percent inroad)/(time). 

Volume is how many reps and sets you do.  Strange as it may seem, you are far more likely to injure yourself lifting a light weight many times and getting fatigued and breaking form, than doing very heavy weights, even singles.  (Singles are weights you can lift only one time.) 

Frequency.  If you lift weights on Monday and can't lift more weight on Wednesday, then one of two things are wrong.  You wimped out and didn't lift hard enough Monday, OR (and far more likely) you didn't rest long enough.  You should be able to make your workouts intense enough, and short enough, that 20 minutes once a week is enough to continue strength gains for a long time. 

Really, to do this right, you need to approach it scientifically, keeping a careful log and finding out how to keep making progress.  The typical YMCA lifter does the same weight year after year and convinces himself he's doing something good.  Nah, he's just wasting time. 

Research HIT a bit.  There's some good stuff now.  There's also some controversy, and there are people who don't need it.  But there's no doubt it's the most bang for the least amount of time. 

[xvimbi]

https://www.gripmaster.com.au/index1.htm

Would this device be a shortcut to strong fingers or injury.

Sorry, I got to this thread rather late. I used to use the gripmasters when I was still rock climbing a lot. Those things constantly slipped out of my hand. Also, as I found, the best way to improve my strength was - suprise - climbing! I have since used the same approach with piano playing. I let the piano build up my strength. Well, I also work out every day, so I can't really say which is to blame for my personal finger strength. However, as already mentioned before: whatever exercise you do, make sure you understand the exercise completely and that you can carry it out correctly. The same principles, by the way, apply to any pianistic technique. Otherwise, you will get injured, either by "dumb bells" or your piano.