Fat Gripz: Worth it? Cheaper Alternatives?

[YankinDeez]

Do you guys feel Fat Gripz actually make much of a difference?

If so, know of any cheaper alternatives? Paying $40 for a pair of grips which probably cost less than $1 to make just seems a bit ridiculous to me.. I'd feel like those females who pay $1200 for a pair of heels just because the bottoms are red (ok not that srs)

But forreal do they actually work as advertised?

[Merante]

I bought a set, you really feel the difference when using them, it kills your forearms so if your looking for better grip strength and forearm
Workout yea I'm
Not sure about the other
Things

[callan91]

I heard that some people just wrap a towel around the grip instead

[Retardo-pex]

Do you guys feel Fat Gripz actually make much of a difference?

If so, know of any cheaper alternatives? Paying $40 for a pair of grips which probably cost less than $1 to make just seems a bit ridiculous to me.. I'd feel like those females who pay $1200 for a pair of heels just because the bottoms are red (ok not that srs)

But forreal do they actually work as advertised?

Depends what you train for. The cheapest solution is wrap/tape some towels around the bar. Fat grips are convenient since you can easily bring them from bar to bar or keep them in your bag and carry them around the gym etc. The other alternative is to train at a facility with many different specialty bars, axles thick bars farmers walk handles etc. If you train at home this can get expensive, about 100-200$ per specialty bar unless you find some good deals.

[SlipshodDread]

As opposed to actually buying a ready made thick bar, FatGripz are dirt cheap. You will struggle to find good quality thick bars for under £100 ($170~). Of course the cheaper alternative is to simply use towels, but the problem here is that no matter how tight you wrap the towel, it will still compress, making it feel very weird and unbalanced in the hand.

You could take a look at Manus Grips. These are very similar to FatGripz, but may be cheaper depending on where you live and the site you buy them from.

[9863]

want a cheaper option, ive done this
Go to your local plumbing/hardware store & get a couple of peices of poly pipe, slice them in half (length ways) and slip them over the handles on the bar's
Shouldn't cost anymore then $5-10 to do

or get some rubber pipe & do the same which will have a better feeling on your hands

http://www.onewater.com.au/cgi-bin/page.pl?page=741

[KDG730]

What did they do before fat gripz? Lifted heaviest ass weight.

You don't need them to build big forearms and they are too expensive. Just do farmer walks

[chemo29]

I think they only really shine during bicep/tricep days
but ever since I got them, I switched to 3day/2day splits where I'm doing much more compound, and simply put: they work so well targeting your forearm and grip strenght that for compound I found they hindered performance

Also, I'm carrying straps, belt and lift log book around, the grips were an additional item I eventually preferred to leave at home

[Garage Rat]

They replace any thick bar work.
Thick bars are expensive.
While 40 bucks is pricey,remember they are a one time buy and should last you forever.
I have both kinds and really like them.
Not an absolute must have item, but nice to have in your training tool box for variety.

[Huanbo]

I bought a set. It does the job, and you can absolutely feel the difference, but I don't use it that much, cuz it forces me to drop the weight too much, for example I can do 12 bodyweight pull ups, but with these fat grips, i can do 6 at the most, cuz i'll start losing grip.Or I can do biceps curls 90lbs for 12 reps, but with these on, 8 tops. For me I only use it on my last workout sets. I'd recommend you use towel first, and see if u like how it feels, it burns ur forearm muscles, if u like how it feels then buy it.

[ironwill2008]

Do you guys feel Fat Gripz actually make much of a difference?

If so, know of any cheaper alternatives? Paying $40 for a pair of grips which probably cost less than $1 to make just seems a bit ridiculous to me.. I'd feel like those females who pay $1200 for a pair of heels just because the bottoms are red (ok not that srs)

But forreal do they actually work as advertised?

What would you expect to gain from using this product?

[EvertonFC2010]

i just lift raw brah no gloves or anything i do get calluses on my hands though

[ironmaniac508]

I have a pair that I bought about 3 years ago and use them for grip work; farmers walk etc. They are, at least in my opinion, much more comfortable and convenient compared to using a towel and/or the PVC idea. You may want to consider looking on amazon.com, they may have some on there that are used. If you only option is to purchase a new pair, $40 really isn't that much money for something that will most likely last a lifetime....actually kind of amazed people would even consider this a major purchase.

[WillBrink]

Do you guys feel Fat Gripz actually make much of a difference?

In your grip strength? Of course.

If so, know of any cheaper alternatives? Paying $40 for a pair of grips which probably cost less than $1 to make just seems a bit ridiculous to me..
I'd feel like those females who pay $1200 for a pair of heels just because the bottoms are red (ok not that srs)

But forreal do they actually work as advertised?

If $40 for a pair that will last forever is really too much $$ to you, I gots some bad news about life....but seriously, people make up various home made grip thickener, none of which work as well, don't last as long, and saved a whopping $40. My write up of fatgripz:

http://www.brinkzone.com/articles/in...grip-strength/

[SlipshodDread]

What did they do before fat gripz? Lifted heaviest ass weight.

You don't need them to build big forearms and they are too expensive. Just do farmer walks

In the early days they didn't have ready made equipment, so used what was available, often train axles. These are usually a fair bit thicker even than fat gripz, since they were designed to bear the force of a train, not to be held easily in the palm.

You don't do chinups to train biceps, so don't just rely oh heavy pulls with regular bars to get bigger forearms. Will they help? Of course. Are they efficient at it? Hell no.

[Retardo-pex]

As opposed to actually buying a ready made thick bar, FatGripz are dirt cheap. You will struggle to find good quality thick bars for under £100 ($170~). Of course the cheaper alternative is to simply use towels, but the problem here is that no matter how tight you wrap the towel, it will still compress, making it feel very weird and unbalanced in the hand.

You could take a look at Manus Grips. These are very similar to FatGripz, but may be cheaper depending on where you live and the site you buy them from.

Grabbed a 99$ full 20 kg non hollowed out axle recently I was pumped at the find.

[realdurtysouth]

I was looking at Fatgripz recently too, and actually ordered one trial set to have a go but they didnt fit my dumbbells (too long).

I've been considering a number of cheaper options and the solution I think I'm going to try is to buy some pipe lagging.

Fatgripz are 2.25" / 5.715cm thick according to their website, and the pipe lagging I've been looking at is "Climaflex Polyethylene Pipe Insulation" with a 22mm Bore and 19mm Wall (either side) for a total diameter of 6.0cm, which is pretty darned close. Of course, the pipe lagging is more compressible and won't clamp as tight but you can solve that by wrapping it in tape or similar. Given how cheap an offcut of pipe lagging is (I figure they'll give me a short length sample for free or a handful of coins) I'm going to at least try it out and see how it works out. I would be interested in hearing from others who have already tried FatGripz or other solutions though.

[Posterchild18]

Cut a thin pool noodle into pieces. ...boom... won't last for too long though

[IDrinkBloodLOL]

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...post1287672651

I have a grip move you may want to try, I call them finger curls for lack of a better name as I've never seen anyone else do them.

Deadlift the bar double overhand, then let it roll halfway out of your fingers, then squeeze it back up again. Repeat the roll/squeeze for high reps, grind out several sets of 15 with as much weight as you can.

You will notice almost every part of your forearms after a few sets of that.

Everyone wants some magic grip exercise to let them hold on to bigger deadlifts and nobody can give a concrete answer on exactly what you should do - well there you go. There it is. Do the hell out of it.

Maybe now people will stop buying those stupid grip squeezers and fat grips and whatever the hell else line of Toys'R'Us crap they use to try to train their grip strength.