Thick Handle Barbells and Dumbbells

Put a fat grip on your dumbbell for forearm strength

The reason is: these thick-handle weights are the best way to increase your grip strength and forearm size.

Forget the goofy “hand exercisers” that you see advertized all over the place. Even though these devices are very popular, I’ll never promote them on this site.

Why? Because they are not the best choice for guys who want a strong grip and/or muscular forearms.

Thick-grip dumbbells and barbells work like magic

You get a vice-like grip by squeezing things.

I don’t mean squeeze and release, over and over again. I mean squeeze and hold until you can’t hold any longer. Isometric training, in other words. That’s right, you get strong hands by grabbing and holding on as tightly as possible until your muscular fatigue makes it impossible to continue.

The slow twitch muscle fibers in your forearms are built to work all throughout the day without undue fatigue. This type of muscle is perfect for isometric training.

Thick-handle dumbbells (or thick barbells) force you to grab and hold with much more intensity than regular dumbbell handles. It really works your grip, and this means more strength and size in the hands and forearms.

Training with thick-grip barbells or dumbbells has been around for a long time. Early in the 20th century, strongman Thomas Inch popularized the use of an extremely heavy, thick-handled dumbbell for strength challenges. And competitive lifters have long known the benefits of fat bar training.

But fat barbells and dumbbells didn’t really take off until Brooks Kubik and his “Dinosaur training” fad. Brooks introduced strongman-style training to everyone who had access to the ‘web, when it had previously only been known by guys in hard-core weightlifting clubs.

Why “hand exercisers” are the wrong choice

Thick handle dumbbells are better than these

But these “hand exercisers” don’t really work very well. There are many, many different designs, but most of them are useless. What’s worse: they are dangerous because they work your hand is unnatural positions. Over weeks and months of training with these devices, you run the very real risk of repetitive strain injury.

If you already have a strong, trained grip, feel free to use these grippers to keep in shape. But untrained guys shouldn’t use them because there are alternatives which are just plain better.

In fact, the only good thing you can say about all these different grippers is that they are portable. You can use them everywhere. For some people, this is worth the risk of repetitive strain injury. And that’s fine with me, as long as they know what they’re doing.

Static holds

Static holds are the best way to train your grip strength. They also increase the size of your forearms. Combined with some high-rep wrist curls, this is the best way to turn your flimsy forearms into powerful pythons.

To do static holds, get the heaviest dumbbells you can find, and just hold them until your grip gives out. Or, load a heavy barbell on the low pins of a power rack, then pick it up and hold it until you need to drop it.

Static holds with a thick bar

The thick bar makes static holds even more effective.

• Lack of knurling on (most) thick bars means your grip has to work overtime
• The lever advantage of your fingers is less than with a skinnier bar
• Holding a thick bar is more challenging because you can’t lock your fingers and thumb together

Farmers Walks

A man does a Farmers' Walk with two heavy dumbbells

Farmers’ Walks are basically the same as performing a static hold with heavy dumbbells, but instead of standing around, you walk. The gentle ‘bouncing’ that occurs as you walk puts extra demands on your grip and forearm strength (and your trapezius muscles too). It’s a more functional exercise than static holds.

Farmers’ Walks with thick-handle dumbbells

Using thick grip dumbbells makes your workout quicker because you won’t be able to walk as far with a given weight.

And, if you don’t have dumbbells that are heavy enough for good Farmers’ walk training, you can slip some bar wraps over your regular dumbbell handles to increase the intensity.

Thick-handle kettlebells

Many low-quality kettlebells have thick handles. This makes them good for training the grip. Unfortunately, most folks don’t have a kettlebell that’s heavy enough for really effective grip training, but in any case it’s better than nothing.

Interestingly, manufacturers claim their low-quality kettlebells are made with a thick handle specifically because of the grip-training benefits that come along with having such a handle. But this is actually a lie. The handles on low-quality cast-iron kettlebells are thick because cast iron is brittle. And if they were any thinner, they might break if dropped on a hard surface.

The good news is: higher-quality kettlebells (such as competition kettlebells) have normal-sized handles just like barbells and dumbbells. Check out dumbbells versus kettlebells for additional lies told by kettlebell marketers.

Thick barbell deadlifts

In most cases, guys who deadlift soon find that their grip strength is the limiting factor in their performance.

Competitive deadlifters know the value of a strong grip. They use lots of chalk and special gripping techniques like the hook grip (which can ruin your hands). But most of all, they train their grip strength with special thick barbells. But these special bars are expensive — upwards of $500 — and not suitable for the vast majority of fitness enthusiasts.

To get the benefits of a thick barbell deadlift without spending a lot of money, get yourself some bar wraps (like the Fat Gripz described later in this article). Bar wraps are not suitable for deadlifting extremely heavy weights, but for most fitness enthusiasts, they’re a workable solution.

Pull-ups with thick grips

Some folks like to supplement their pullup training by occasionally doing thick-bar pullups. I’m not fond of the exercise, because I believe you should prioritize either pullup training or grip training.

But if you want to try, just wrap a towel around your pullup bar. Alternatively, use the FatGripz bar wraps which I describe in the next section.

If you’re not doing pullups on a typical pullup bar, you might already be using a thicker bar:

• For reference, normal pullup bars are 1 inch in diameter
• Scaffolding Poles are approximately 2 inches in diameter
• Black iron gas pipe is 1.75 inches; it’s often used to make a pullup bar
• Gymnasts’ rings are around 1 inch in diameter.

FatGripz are your best choice for making thick-grip barbells and dumbbells

The best way to make a fat grip barbell or dumbbell

They slip over your barbell or dumbbell handle and instantly turn a standard weight into a thick-bar grip training machine. They’re much better than wrapping a towel around the bar because they keep their shape no matter how heavy you go.

Since Fat Gripz are sold in pairs, you can use them for barbell deadlifting (or static holds) and two-handed barbell farmers’ walks.

–> Check out user reviews and specifications here. <--

Do it yourself option

Want to try making your own thick-handle dumbbells? Check out RossTraining’s excellent article: click here.