This is a guest article from Diesel Crew’s Jedd Johnson.
In every strength sport, there are one or two lifts or events that ALL the competitors look forward to testing themselves on and that the audience can’t wait to see.
In Powerlifting, it’s the Bench Press.
In Strongman, it’s the Atlas Stones.
And in Grip Sport, it’s the Two Hands Pinch.
The Two Hands Pinch is the event with the most notoriety, most examined history, and most popularity of all the events at any grip competition.
The Two Hands Pinch involves gripping a round apparatus in an overhand pinch grip with the thumbs on one side and the fingers on the other and lifting it until the loading sleeve touches a cross-bar 16.5 inches off the ground.
It is fully adjustable from 40 millimeters to 64 millimeters, so it will accommodate the largest, smallest, thickest, and thinnest of hands, so everyone can optimize their width.
This also makes it one of the fairest events in Grip across the board.
And since its inception in the early 2000’s there has been an established world record lift for it, which every grip athlete knows about. This is the biggest record in the entire sport.
In Grip, this record is known as THE Record.
But, the great thing about the Two Hands Pinch is that even if you never plan on competing in Grip Sport, the lift is extremely valuable, and there are many reason why
YOU should train it hard as well.
1. Huge Carry-over to Odd Object Lifting
First, the Two Hands Pinch is one of the few Pinching lifts where you can reach substantial weight. In an interview with Men’s Fitness UK, Laurence Shahlaei, professional Strongman competitor in World’s Strongest Man, stated that the Two Hands Pinch is the only one of the Grip Sport lifts he trains on a regular basis, because it is the only one that allows him to target his grip with appreciable weight. When your main sport demands the hand strength to lift automobiles off the ground and load giant stones onto shoulder-high platforms, hand strength is of immeasurable importance. With the degree to which the Two Hands Pinch makes your hands and forearms work, there’s no wonder Laurence keeps this lift in his training.
2. Reinforces the Grip for Super-Human Pulling Power
You might be surprised who you see perform the Two Hands Pinch lift on Youtube.
Andy Bolton, the legendary Powerlifter, and 1,000-lb plus deadlifter, has several clips on his YouTube channel performing the Two Hands Pinch. Surely, this sultan of the deadlift has recognized the importance for complete hand strength. It’s not enough to have strong fingers when you are pulling as weight as he has. You’ve got to have strong thumbs to brace the fingers and keep them in place while pulling the bar all the way to lockout. The Two Hands Pinch trains your hands to work as a unit and this synergy takes your overall hand strength to new levels.
3. Strong Hands Help EVERYTHING
Finally, Grip strength is important for anyone who trains with resistance. When you can lift, hold, and control more weight with your hands, you have better command in your strength sport, whether you are a Powerlifter, Olympic Lifter, Highland Games Competitor, Kettlebell Lifter, or Bodyweight Technician. All of these require hand strength and wrist stability, and these are two things that the Two Hands Pinch will give you. You will see in your training, that as you get stronger from the elbow down, all the rest of your other lifts will go up.
There’s no denying the importance of training the Two Hands Pinch for optimal Grip Strength. The problem is how to train it.
If you train the Two Hands Pinch right, then you can count on the rest of your lifts and strength disciplines exploding. But if you do it wrong, you’re wasting your time.
The DVD, Napalm Pinch: How to Dominate the Two Hands Pinch, will show you everything you need to know in order to get the most out of your Two Hands Pinch training.
From the big stuff like proper lifting technique, to the minutia, such as where exactly to place your thumbs and fingers, this DVD shows you everything you need to know.
It also contains the main Drills everyone should be doing to bring up their Two Hands Pinch lift, a complete break-down of the Rules required for legal Two Hands Pinch lifting, as well as a Programming layout in order to balance your Two Hands Pinch training with all the other grip training you need to focus on.
In short, there is no other resource out there on this lift, and it is brought to you by Jedd Johnson, who from 2009 to 2012 set 5 different World’s Records on the device. Having trained on the device since 2004, no one in the United States and only a handful of people throughout the world have trained it more than Jedd.
If you’re serious about hand strength, you need this DVD.
Get it here => Napalm Pinch: How to Dominate the Two Hands Pinch
Comments
I did ask this question in the comments above but I don’t know where its gone.
What would be some good goals to aim for in the two hand pinch?
@Chris, There are a few standard grip goals people shoot for when training the Two Hands Pinch.
1. Bodyweight Pinch – Whatever it is that you weigh, trying to lift that much weight to legal height on the Two Hands Pinch.
2. 200-lbs – This is a nice round number and seemingly a cut-off point for many people. To me, I think this is more mental than anything. Kind of like hitting your first Bench Press with two 45-lb plates on the bar each side.
3. 100-kgs – Roughly 222lbs or so, this is another cut-off. You are getting into some serious pinch weight here.
Most people will be able to hit 150 on any apparatus or plates, once they put some time in. Naturally, with the adjustable device we use in competition, you can find your best width and improve your max. pretty easily.
And of course, there is technique to the lift, which will bump your numbers up big time, and that is why I recommend everyone get my DVD, to truly understand the best way to approach the lift.
Hope this helps.
Jedd