Strengthen Your Forearms With These Exercise

Many of the sporting activities today often require certain skills involving the athletic movements of the athlete’s forearms and wrists. Conventional sports which include the swinging or throwing of objects will tend to place a level of emphasis on the need to have a strong grip and frontal arm strength to strengthen your forearms.

Tips to strengthen your forearms and wrists

Some of these sports may include, volleyball which requires the individual to utilize their wrists and forearms for spiking the ball, golf and baseball which are both played with the person swinging a golf club or baseball bat. Other sporting activities demanding the use of the forearm and wrist for maintaining a strong grip include rock climbing, wrestling, or professional football. Additionally a person’s daily activities can be greatly enhanced through the development of a stronger grip.

Professional bodybuilders aiming to take their bodybuilding career to the next level have often spent several hours of training on building strong forearm muscles to support their upper arm biceps muscles allowing them to effectively lift heavier weights instead of focusing on developing the biceps and shoulder muscles alone.

Wrist Curl

One of the traditionally used training exercises performed by many professional wrestlers and bodybuilders to strengthen their forearm is the wrist curl. Often used to strengthen the forearm flexors this exercise is typically performed often with the use of a pair of dumbbells or a weighted barbell.

1. Sit on a chair or exercise bench while resting both forearms on the knees. The weighted bar or dumbbells are held with an underhanded grip observing the palms in a face up position.
2. Relax both risks allowing the barbell or dumbbells to fall as much as possible to the floor, before lifting the dumbbell or barbell in an up and backward direction towards the chest keeping both forearms down on the knees.
3. The weighted barbell or dumbbells are then lowered towards the floor completing a single rep of the exercise.
4. Although the motion range of the wrist curl is not observed to have a great distance it is an effective method of training to strengthen the forearms and wrists.

Reverse wrist curl

The reverse wrist curl otherwise known as the downward wrist curl focuses on targeting an totally different muscle group as the traditional wrist or upward curl. Similarly this exercise is performed with the assistance of a pair of dumbbells or a weights barbell to strengthen your forearms.

1. To start, maintain a seated position on a exercise bench or chair resting both forearms on the knees.
2. The weights are held with an overhand grip placing the palms in a downward position oppositely from the underhand grip used in the typical upward wrist curl.
3. The wrists are again relaxed allowing the weights to fall as much as possible to the floor before lifting the weighted barbell or dumbbells in an upward and backward direction keeping the forearms on the knees.
4. The barbell or dumbbells used are then lowered to the floor completing a single rep of the reverse curl exercise.

Both the forward and the reverse curl exercises should be completed using as many reps as possible if performed in a single set. However when training using multiple sets it has often been recommended doing between twelve to fifteen reps for each set ensuring the weights used is lowered in a controlled manner by extending the wrists as far back as possible while completing each rep.