Forearm Exercises With A Sledgehammer
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Finish Position of Radial Deviations
A sledgehammer is a readily available, inexpensive and highly effective forearm developer. You can get it at almost any hardware store, and can use it in even a tiny room. It is versatile enough to be used by someone just looking for a little extra strength in their day to day activities, or someone with exceptional forearm strength to protect their wrist and forearm from sports injury. A description of the four main exercises can be found in the links section.
Sledgehammer Forearm Exercises
What is a readily available, inexpensive and highly effective forearm developer? A sledgehammer. You can get it at almost any hardware store, and can use it in even a tiny room. It can develop wrist and forearm strength from all angles. It is versatile enough to be used by someone just looking for a little extra strength in their day to day activities, or someone with exceptional forearm strength to protect their wrist and forearm from sports injury.
Sledgehammers for forearm exercises can be found in a variety of weights and lengths. Weights as low as 3 pounds or as heavy as 20 pounds are fairly common. Handle lengths vary from the same as a standard nailing hammer to 3 feet. The best choice is usually one slightly heavier than you anticipating needing for maintaining your goal strength. If the length and weight are anywhere close to what you will need in the future, it should be good enough. You simply start your exercises by grasping the handle closer to the hammer head than you would have if you had bought a lighter hammer.
The object is to move down the handle as you grow stronger over the months. A great way to keep track of your improving forearm strength is to mark the handle every 1/4 to 1/2 inch. You move from one mark to the next as you become stronger. If you write down which mark you are using for your forearm exercises, you will know which one to advance to next as you grow stronger.
Generally a large range of motion is less effective for building strength in the forearms than a smaller range of motion. With a large range, there is too much stress on the wrist during part of the movement, and the weight is too light during another part of the movement. The 180 degree sledgehammer exercises you may see on YouTube are good for demonstrating the trainee's exceptional forearm strength, but are not as good for developing forearm strength, especially for those early in their training. A range of motion of 10 to 30 degrees is good for developing strength.
The goal during any session is to stimulate growth without injury. Tiredness of the muscle group is a good way to estimate that goal. Starting with high repetitions allows you to feel the tiredness with less chance of injury. The forearms are conditioned by our day to day life for repetitive, light movement. They should be eased into any workout of forearm exercises. By starting with a weight you feel is too light and with 30 or more repetitions, you can gradually increase the workload while minimizing the risk of injury. Whatever number of repetitions you set as your goal for the day, stop when you feel tiredness in the forearm. Gradual progression is the goal. As you get stronger, first increase the reps, and then move down the handle.
Sledgehammers for forearm exercises can be found in a variety of weights and lengths. Weights as low as 3 pounds or as heavy as 20 pounds are fairly common. Handle lengths vary from the same as a standard nailing hammer to 3 feet. The best choice is usually one slightly heavier than you anticipating needing for maintaining your goal strength. If the length and weight are anywhere close to what you will need in the future, it should be good enough. You simply start your exercises by grasping the handle closer to the hammer head than you would have if you had bought a lighter hammer.
The object is to move down the handle as you grow stronger over the months. A great way to keep track of your improving forearm strength is to mark the handle every 1/4 to 1/2 inch. You move from one mark to the next as you become stronger. If you write down which mark you are using for your forearm exercises, you will know which one to advance to next as you grow stronger.
Generally a large range of motion is less effective for building strength in the forearms than a smaller range of motion. With a large range, there is too much stress on the wrist during part of the movement, and the weight is too light during another part of the movement. The 180 degree sledgehammer exercises you may see on YouTube are good for demonstrating the trainee's exceptional forearm strength, but are not as good for developing forearm strength, especially for those early in their training. A range of motion of 10 to 30 degrees is good for developing strength.
The goal during any session is to stimulate growth without injury. Tiredness of the muscle group is a good way to estimate that goal. Starting with high repetitions allows you to feel the tiredness with less chance of injury. The forearms are conditioned by our day to day life for repetitive, light movement. They should be eased into any workout of forearm exercises. By starting with a weight you feel is too light and with 30 or more repetitions, you can gradually increase the workload while minimizing the risk of injury. Whatever number of repetitions you set as your goal for the day, stop when you feel tiredness in the forearm. Gradual progression is the goal. As you get stronger, first increase the reps, and then move down the handle.
Links about forearm exercises
Links about developing forearm strength
- Forearm Exercises for Forearm Strength
- Forearm exercises blog
- Forearm Exercises with Sledgehammer
- Similar to this article, describes how to start sledgehammer exercises
- Tom Black
- How to increase sledgehammer weight when you get stronger.
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forearmexercises
Nov 10, 2011 @ 10:49 pm | delete
- I am sorry the links were not helpful. Looking at the posts on the forearm exercises website, the writing and videos are too brief and the site too difficult to navigate.
Exercises for forearm, wrist and hand all wind up exercising all three areas. The forearm, wrist and hand cannot be isolated from each other like, for example, the biceps can be. An exercise can be done in a way which will have greater relative effect on one group versus the other two though. If the forearm is parallel to the floor, the wrist joint ligaments will have a greater torque force applied than if the forearm is perpendicular to the floor. Sledgehammers can be used for forearm or wrist strengthening. If the forearm is parallel to the floor the wrist will have a greater relative strengthening than if the forearm is perpendicular to the floor. If the forearm is perpendicular to the floor, the forearm muscles will have a greater relative strengthening. If a thick handle is used, the hand muscles have a greater relative strengthening than if a standard handle is used, because the hand muscles are in a more stretched position working against a longer moment arm.
Grip involves the forearm muscles that flex the fingers, and the intrinsic hand muscles. The exercises that help this the most are the thick handled exercises, such as the thick handled lever bar exercises and the thick handled barbell and dumbbell exercises. Sledgehammer exercises also help grip, but have a relatively greater effect on moving the entire hand as a unit in a direction, such as bending the wrist toward or away from the thumb, or bending the wrist backward or forward.
Some short videos lasting 6 to 10 seconds have been posted on YouTube on the forearmexerci (yes, there is no "ses" at the end of the name of the channel) channel of various forearm, wrist and hand exercises. If you are just starting exercises on grip and forearms, I would suggest starting with a thick handle on a barbell or dumbbell while you do curls and triceps extensions. If your wrists do not ache too much after a couple weeks, you can begin doing the sledgehammer exercises of radial and ulnar deviations and supinations and pronations. I would recommend 50 to 200 repetitions to a set, with one set of each exercise. You can progress farther down the sledgehammer handle as you get stronger. Then you can progress to using a thick handled lever bar for those exercises and strengthen grip, wrist and forearms in a relatively balanced fashion. If your interest is better sports performance, the best exercises would depend on the sport. For example, for baseball hitting, the sledgehammer exercises with a normal handle would be better than grip exercises, but for wrestling, grip exercises would be more important.
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stockysister
Nov 15, 2011 @ 9:15 am | delete
- Ok! Thanks for the reply! That's helpful :)
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stockysister
Nov 7, 2011 @ 11:31 am | delete
- I'd love to learn more about your ideas for sledgehammer exercises. Could you break up the text with some videos or pictures? Maybe descriptions of what to do? The links don't seem to provide much extra explanation, though the one on how to increase the weight is a cool idea! What do you do for your forearm workouts? Can you take video or pictures of yourself? I'd like to amp up my workout to get a better grip.
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The author has been doing resistance training for over 50 years. He has an interest in healthful habits, such as mental and physical exercise and pro... more »
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