When I first heard of Grip trainers, I was skeptical…For me, why should you buy a modified piece of gi material when you could use a old gi or a towel to work your grip? The creators of VO2 Max sent me a free pair of “Iron Fist” grip trainer and as soon as I started using them, my opinion changed and I immediately understood the functionality of the this device. I’ve been training with the Iron Fist for 2 weeks now and my grip is at another level.

Why is Grip Training Important: Grip training is where it all starts, going back to the fundamentals. The first point of contact in any fight is the grip. How can you win a fight if you can’t hold onto your opponent?

How do you grip train?

This type of training often overlooked by BJJ players. Grabbing metal bars at a gym isn’t exactly the same as grabbing the sleeve of your opponent’s kimono in a fight. And it is not exactly subtle to carry and wrap a giant kimono around those bars, which is also extremely dangerous.

You can practice the spider grip, the pistol grip, or the lapel grip (my favorite) with all the integrated options in the sleeve. I have trained fixing the Iron Fist to kettlebells and training swings, snatches and cleans. Another favorite exercise is the static farmer walk where you basically hang on to the collar grip for as long as you can. This usually starts to burn your grips after about 20 secs!

If you are in a gym, you can attach the Iron Fists to the cable row to work out at the same time the pulling shoulder muscle as well as your grip. There is also the old fashion pull up using the sleeve grips. It is pretty tough!

My training consisted of doing static farmer walks until failure (until I could only hold on to the sleeve for less than 5 second) every night before sleeping. It is brutal but the benefits are great.

Static farmer walk is sure to burn your grips

Features: The VO2 Max “Iron Fist” grip trainer features 7 crucial grips, more than any other in the market. It is designed with a unique integrated lapel, allowing you to attach it and practice your grips virtually anywhere.

You can practice the spider grip, the pistol grip, or the lapel grip (my favorite) with all the integrated option in the sleeve.

Opinion and results: There are numerous grip trainers for grapplers that are available on the market such as the Orangahangs, Grapple grips, Scramble grip trainers etc...The Iron Fist is really good because of the integrated lapel grip which makes it so functional. The material is really strong and won’t rip.

After training with this for 2 weeks, my grips in training felt really strong. I love playing the spider guard with one hand in the collar and the other on the sleeve. It was funny watching my training partners try to break my grip, and at the end giving up on breaking it 🙂 This is a great piece of training equipment and I wish I had discovered this earlier!