Building Forearms
 

I have Arthritis and I have a hell of a time doing weight training with my arms. My wrists take a lot of abuse and its almost too painful to complete my workout...even with low weight.

So my question is...Is there a low impact exercise that I can do that will build my forearms? I think that will help my wrists out.

Thanks for your help,
Narmy

I don't know much about arthritis etc, however, Farmers walks and Deadlifts have done wonders for my grip strength and have brought SOME growth to my forearms.

I beleive that building strength in your forearms would bring you more benefit then building mass though for arthritis so look into deadlifts/farmers walks, very little stress on wrists but very good for grip/forearm. (I broke my wrist a while ago and cant move my right wrist in a full ROM to do a wrist curl so I'm stuck with heavy forearm work without moving my wrist and these two movements work best for me)

You can put your hands on the edge of a weight bench parallel to each other, and hold a barbell with your palms up. Let the bar roll all the way to your fingertips and then curl it back up. Then flip your palms down and grip the bar for the other side.

You can also do deadlifts and other full body workouts (hang-clean, clean and jerk, etc) but if you have arthritis it sounds like you should stay away from these as they're hard on joints and difficult for the not-so-young crowd.

Work with free-weights when doing shoulder press or bench, this will work out your stabalizer muscles and forearms which are not a factor in machine weight lifting most of the time.

I used to have to have very strong wrists and fingers for my spin bowling. What I used was a squash ball. Its really cheap. You can always keep it in your pocket. You just pull it out and start squeezing it. You dont need to go to the gym or have specific training regimes. You can do it anytime anywhere. If you standing around with a group of mates talking have your squash ball in your hand. After the initial question no ones notices. Do it while your waiting for the train/doctors/etc. Do it while you watch tv/in a lecture/etc. Best $2 I ever spent.

I had a friend that used a locking spring clip for a barbell to strengthen his forearm. I'm not sure if it worked good, but it wouldn't rely on the wrists.

block pinching, pinch gripping, plate curls, wrist curls, thors hammer, farmers walks, grippers, rolling thunder

Hey coash, could you explain block pinching, thors hammer and rolling thunder?

take a small bar, or even a stick or something like that. Tie a rope around it and attatch a small weight probably around 5 - 10 lbs to the bottom and make it so the weight will touch the ground if you have your arms fully extended in front of you. Then just grab the bar and wind the weight up and down etc...gives you the ultimate forarm burn!

If you remember the pitcher Steve Carlton he had huge forearms and he used to fill a larger container/barrel with rice and thrust his hands into the rice up to his elbows then clench and unclench his hands and slowly circle his hands in the rice. You could probably start with dried beans and it would be easier. You can buy a 25lb bag of rice or dried beans at any local mexican or asian market for much cheaper than your traditional supermarket.

Holding onto padles and moving your arms in water would help too.

That stick thing with the weight on the rope really does work. It burns.

rolling thunder is done with a thick bar...and it sort of rolls when you grip it so it tests you. http://www.juliehavelka.com/jpgs/sm_...2002_todRT.jpg
block pinching is just pinching two slabs together..you can vary number of fingers used. thors hammer is not really grip but more forearm http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/exerc...horshammer.htm

edit: oops forgot topic....plate curls result in stronger wrist strength directly. the others are a less direct benefit to the wrist.

Thanks coash.