Hi everybody. Welcome back to C2 Tactical in Scottsdale. We are out shooting today here. Thank you to them for letting us use their range here with my friend Destiny. Today I want to talk about something interesting that people have talked to me about a whole bunch, and that is Building Grip Strength in order to be a better shooter and why I don't recommend that you just focus on Building Grip Strength. Today's video sponsored by Drone quote, they're your advocate for solar and roofing with unmatched customer service to help guide you in weather and how to go solar with your home. If you want an advocate on your side with competitive pricing and unmatched customer service drone quotes, your bet, they're my trusted resource for solar, and you can check them out at the link in the description. So this is something I see a lot of people when we focus on this, right?

Because obviously you grip the gun with your hands. And so because of that, I mean, how many times have you heard from a firearms instructor grip it harder, grip the gun, harder grip it, like it stole something, and you're like, okay, yeah, but that's all I got. And okay, cool. I am a 205 pound guy and I know what my grip strengths are. When's the last time you tested your grip strength? I don't know that I ever have, right? And most people haven't. I do because I'm a firearms instructor nerd, and that's what we do. We nerd out on stuff. And I will tell you that over the last six months or so, my grip strength has increased in both hands, about 12% in each hand. And so people are like, oh man, that's cool because that's going to lead you to having better recoil control.

Probably not actually. You get to a certain point and you get diminishing returns. I was strong enough before that. I didn't really have a problem with it. Now you are a fun size human. You might see a difference in 10 or 12%, right? Yeah. So when you see people and they use these captains of Crush and they use these grip strength trainers and those things, you see folks in jujitsu and they're really worried about gripping on a people's GI and stuff like that. That's cool. I don't recommend you work on grip strength and here's why. The interesting part is, is that we use grip strength as a proxy for overall body strength. So when you start talking to people who are dealing with the elderly, they'll use grip strength testers to see how is their overall body strength instead of, okay, I'm going to make 'em do pushup, situps, all these other things that like you're elderly person, you ain't going to do that for me today, I just use this grip strength tester. Hold that as hard as you can, and then it tells me where you're at on a percentile basis. And so if our grip strength is a proxy for our overall strength, well, if I work these captains of crush and I just get strong forearms, then I go out of balance. How is the best way to build grip strength? What do you think?

I don't know, pick up heavy crap strength training. So if you want to get better grip strength, hit the gym, man. So that's why yours has gotten stronger. Mine has gotten stronger. I've been working, I started working with Kettlebells about six months ago, and the kettlebells started really making a change in my grip strength here. A month or so ago, I switched over from the kettlebells to actually working in the gym with a personal trainer and doing some strength work three times a week. And guess what? My grip strength improved. Well, that's just a function of my overall strength improving. And so my grip strength is part of that. And here's the other part. When I grip the gun, I actually grip the gun with my whole body instead of when we say gripping the gun, we're talking about from your toes to your fingertips.

And so if I'm strong in all those, imagine again if I have a really weak back, I know you struggle with lordosis, right? In your lower spine, you got to work around that and it changes your hip positions and all that stuff. Well, guess what? I got to work around that because when I have a weakness, if I don't address that weakness, that'll come out in my hands. So rather than work here, you're probably best served continuing on in your stuff to work on your lumbar extensors. You know what I mean? And your hip flexors and your SOAs muscles, and that will build your fricking grip strength. So you want to grip the gun better, get more stronger. It seems a little weird. You want to get stronger with your gun, better with your gun pushups might be the best way to do that. Pull-ups, right?

I still can't do an unassisted pull-up all by myself right now, which sounds weak and I know people are going to give me a hard time about, but the reality is most people can't. I'm working on it. I'm getting close. And if you want to get grip strength improved to be a better shooter, your better answer is get in shape. Like this lady, she's buff and strong and all that stuff. And so because of that, you don't have to have 150 pounds of grip strength in each hand if my entire body is nice and strong. And that is why you're able to do such great recoil control. People notice that on the channel. They're like, damn, destiny can control recoil like a monster because you're fit and your whole fitness of your whole body is what's bringing around the gun. Make sense? Don't work on your grip strength. Work on being stronger. Thanks for being an example.

 

YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPms3Q2i3FM

Credit: John Correia, Active Self Protection