Grip Strength

Akuryoku [握力]


“Grip strength is a good indicator for overall strength.” - Peter Attia, Outlive 


While reading please keep “challenge pushups” in mind …


Not so trivial facts:


Weak grip strength has about 40%  risk of dementia…


Weak grip strength is indicative of difficulty standing and walking for a huge risk of falling …


Grip Strength: how hard you can grip your hands, which involves everything from your hands to your lats. Almost all actions begin with your grip.


There is an enormous body of literature linking better grip strength in midlife and beyond to decreased risk of overall mortality.

  

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Having a strong grip can help to reduce the risk of developing injuries, such as tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other repetitive strain injuries. This is because a strong grip helps to improve the stability of the hand and wrist, reducing the likelihood of injury during repetitive or high-impact activities. - Apr 6, 2023 https://tinyurl.com/yrpsjse7


Functional strength refers to the ability to perform everyday tasks with ease and efficiency. Having a strong grip can help to improve your functional strength, making it easier to carry heavy loads, open stubborn jars, and grip tools and equipment.


Grip endurance refers to the ability to maintain a strong grip over a prolonged period. This is important for anyone who needs to perform repetitive gripping tasks for extended periods of time, such as factory workers or musicians. By developing grip endurance, you can perform these tasks with greater ease and efficiency, reducing the risk of injury and improving your overall health.


Regular grip training can help to improve hand health by strengthening the muscles and tendons in the hands and forearms. This can help to reduce the risk of developing conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and other hand and wrist injuries. By improving hand health, you can also reduce the likelihood of developing chronic pain or discomfort in the hands and forearms, which can have a significant impact on your overall quality of life.


Believe it or not, having a strong grip can also help to improve your posture. This is because the muscles in your hands and forearms are connected to the muscles in your shoulders and upper back. By strengthening these muscles, you can improve your overall posture and reduce the risk of developing posture-related injuries or discomfort.


Studies have shown that grip strength is strongly correlated with cardiovascular health. In fact, a strong grip has been shown to be a better predictor of cardiovascular health than traditional measures like blood pressure and cholesterol levels. By developing a strong grip, you can improve your overall cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of developing conditions like heart disease and stroke.


Regular grip training can also help to improve bone density in the hands and forearms.


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It turns out, your grip strength — the amount of force you have when you clench your hand around an object — is a huge indication of your overall health.  


Researchers call grip strength an “indispensable biomarker for older adults.” In other words, the strength you hold in your hands, wrists and forearms says a lot about how healthy you are. It’s also an indication of your risk for injury, mental health conditions and more.  


“Grip strength naturally begins to decline around age 50, and maybe even earlier,” says geriatric medicine specialist Ardeshir Hashmi, MD. “People who maintain their grip strength age more slowly. They stay healthier longer and are stronger throughout their bodies.” 


Grip strength is measured by a device called a hand dynamometer. It’s a handheld device you squeeze as hard as you can.


It’s generally understood that a higher grip strength is associated with better health, and a lower grip strength is associated with poorer health. 


Our hands are critical for so many of our daily tasks. If you want to button your shirt, eat with a fork, write with a pen — it all requires a certain strength and dexterity in your hands and fingers.  


Grip strength is an easy-to-measure indication of how strong the rest of your body is. And keeping muscle strength throughout your body is important for your mobility, balance, endurance and more.  


Dr. Hashmi says. “If you’re losing strength in your hands and arms and, therefore, having a weaker grip, it’s an indication that’s happening all over your body.” 


Men had more mobility issues when their grip strength was less than about 82 pounds. For women, it was 46 pounds. 


Research shows that poor grip strength is an indication of a weaker immune system, which can leave you more vulnerable to getting sick.  


Dr. Hashmi notes. “A weaker grip strength can be a sign that you’re more prone to infectious diseases, like COVID-19, RSV or the flu.” 


When you add it all up, your grip strength is essentially an indication of your overall health and longevity. In a way, your grip strength can almost predict your future health. 


People with a strong grip strength are more able to stay active well into their older years. And there are some easy exercises that can help you maintain, and even improve, your grip strength. 


Dr. Hashmi calls exercise the “penicillin against premature aging. The more you maintain your grip strength, the slower the cells age,” he explains. “If you don’t maintain your grip strength, the cells actually start to metabolize and age faster. And that shows in what you’re physically able to do, or not do.” 


“Eating well, focusing on getting enough protein, and exercising your whole body is important to slowing the process of aging,” Dr. Hashmi adds. “Focusing on your grip itself is important, but it’s just one part of it. You want to keep your whole body strong and take care of your muscles throughout your body.”  


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In certain cultural settings, a handshake is a way to convey overall strength of physicality, mind and heart as well as attitude and demeanor. It’s a tactile method they sends a certain signal to the other person as to whom they are and what they represent.


It has been discovered as a part of research at Israel's Weizmann Institute that human handshakes serve as a means of transferring social chemical signals between the shakers. It appears that there is a tendency to bring the shaken hands to the vicinity of the nose and smell them. They may serve an evolutionary need to learn about the person whose hand was shaken, replacing a more overt sniffing behavior, as is common among animals and in certain human cultures (such as Tuvalu, Greenland or rural Mongolia, where a quick sniff is part of the traditional greeting ritual).


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