© Geek Climber – YouTube
YouTube’s Geek Climber did wrist exercises for a month trying to build his grip and strength of the forearm through antagonistic muscle exercise.
In the latest video describing his training, YouTube’s Geek Climber worked 30 days on his grip strength by doing the wrist roll, an antagonistic muscle exercise that develops the often under trained wrist extenders and flexors, and which turns the pole in you hands to twist a weight (tied by a rope or cord), then downward.
He started on Day 1 with 10 kilograms before turning 15. “When I woke up the next day, my whole torso was very sore,” he says. “It was pretty shocking to me … It feels like the wrist roll is activating some parts of my muscles that have never been activated before.”
He consults fellow vlogger Jason Hooper, a physiotherapist, about the right form. Hooper recommends performing this movement with the wrists in a pronounced position, with the arms at a 90 degree angle to your side: too often people will try this movement with their arms outstretched in front of them, leading to shoulder fatigue . Hooper also emphasizes that the eccentric second half of the wrist roll, which involves weight loss, is the most difficult, but also where most of the benefits of this exercise are.
After his conversation with Hooper, he started doing 3 sets of 1 full rep at 10 pounds, which was performed twice a week. He soon noticed that his muscles started to hurt less as his body adapted to the new exercise routine, and therefore he gradually increased the weight during the thirty days.
After only one month of twice-weekly wrist-roll workouts, he was able to significantly increase his grip strength, with his single-rep maximum of 15 pounds to 25 pounds – though he is unsure how much it will affect his climb.
“The improvement is likely to improve from V7.3 to V7.5, the kind of improvement you can’t see for sure,” he says. “I feel like I’ve improved anyway.”
Try 200+ Home Exercise Videos from Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention and more at All Out Studio for 14 days for free!
Read more