When you think of strength training, it’s the ‘big’ muscles – the glutes, the abdominals and the biceps – that most of us focus on. But the body is home to around 600 muscles, many of which can tell us fascinating things about our health.

One such group of muscles are the grip muscles in our fingers, wrists, hands and forearms. Beyond being incredibly useful, these muscles have come to be seen as a key indicator of longevity; studies have shown that grip strength (or a lack thereof) can tell us how well someone is ageing and even act as a more powerful indicator of cardiovascular health than blood pressure.

As such, there’s been increased interest in the idea of training these muscles, using dedicated hand exercise equipment to squeeze, stretch and move this intricate part of our body. But do we need to be training grip strength, and if so, what are the benefits? We spoke to Helen O’Leary, a physiotherapist at Complete Pilates, to get her take. 

Beyond its role as a longevity indicator, grip strength is important for many reasons. For one, it’s a form of strength we use all the time during our day-to-day lives.

“Grip strength is an easily overlooked aspect of whole-body strength and health,” O’Leary explains. “Our hands are in constant use throughout the day, from picking up a coffee cup to lifting pans in the kitchen, opening jars, turning a key in the door or picking things out of your bag. It’s easy to take hand function for granted, but we are constantly using our grip strength.

“Ask anyone who has injured their elbow, wrist or hand, and you’ll quickly realise how important these muscles are – just getting through the day can be a real challenge.” 

Training grip strength can be beneficial, but it’s important to note that improving your grip strength will not have a direct impact on longevity, even though the two are linked.

This is because grip strength and longevity do not share a bi-directional relationship, meaning the relationship doesn’t go two ways – while your grip strength can be affected by the ageing process, you can’t slow down the ageing process by making your hands stronger.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits to be reaped from training your hands. O’Leary explains: “Training your hands and grip strength can improve your ability to manage heavy lifting for everyday tasks, maintaining independence (no more asking people to help you open jars or lift your bag) and reducing the risk of injuries related to additional stress and strain.”

Grip – specifically finger strength – is particularly important for climbers or anyone looking to get into bouldering, as it allows you to grip onto more challenging holds.  

There is plenty of hand and grip exercise equipment out there if you want to get technical about it, but if you’re just starting out, you should be able to use equipment found at home.

Squeezing a stress ball or another squishy object is a great place to start. As is lifting weights in the gym – anything that engages your arm, especially your forearm, will give your hand and grip strength a challenge. Farmers’ carry or deadlifts are good examples.

“The TheraBand Flex Bar is a great tool for working different types of grip such as wringing and twisting, while a coil sprung grip trainer is great for people who already have good grip strength but want to get better,” O’Leary explains. “For training finger strength, you can even get an articulated grip strength trainer that has separate buttons for each finger.”

Hang boards or fingerboards can also be helpful for climbers looking to improve their finger strength; you can find one in most climbing gyms to try before you buy.  

And as far as frequency goes, you want to treat grip strength training the same way you would any other part of your body. “The recommended frequency is a minimum of twice a week, but more sessions are likely to result in quicker gains,” O’Leary says.

“However, rest in between sessions is also important, as that is when strength adaptations occur in skeletal muscle, so make sure you leave at least two rest days in the week and there is no need to train more than once in a day.”

She continues: “Between three and five sets of your chosen exercise will yield better results than one set, and make sure you work with enough load and enough repetitions that you only have a couple of repetitions left in you for each set.” 

Images: Getty