Many
effective self-defence techniques do not require a great deal of strength to
perform. This seems to have given rise to a myth that strength is not
important. Possibly this grew out of attempts to build confidence in the
lighter built members of classes:- “It doesn’t matter that he is stronger than
you, you can still hurt him!” While the latter statement is true, it is wrong
to think that a bit of extra strength will not improve your chances.
One
of the most useful fields for improvement is of grip strength. If you want to
judo throw someone, you usually have to grab hold of them first. Catch someone’s
arm as they attempt to bottle you? Whether you can control their arm long enough
to turn the tables will probably depend on grip strength. Squeeze the testicles to escape from a hold.
Grip strength again! And what is the point of being an awesome fighting machine
if you still have to get your girlfriend to open the jam jars?
If
you have read my book, this blog or the associated webpages you have probably
acquired a cheap set of dumbbells or even attempted to make a set of Indian
clubs. Hopefully you have been exercising with them regularly. If so, you will
have already begun to see improvements in your grip strength just from
manipulating these weights. The palms of your hands probably feel firmer and
certain muscles on your hands may be more noticeable. Here are a couple of
extra exercises you can attempt.
Clench
your hands into fists as tight as you can for a second or so. Then open them
explosively, spreading the fingers. Clench, pause, pow! Repeat.
Starting
with your fingers straight, bend you middle knuckles so your fingertips touch
the upper edge of your palm. Then bend you distal knuckles to form a fist. We
can combine this with the previous exercise:- Half fist, full fist, pow! Half
fist, full fist, pow!
The
great thing about these little exercises is you can do them anywhere at nearly
anytime. Walking down the corridor at work:- Half fist, full fist, pow! On the
train:- Half fist, full fist, pow! Standing at the bus stop:- Half fist, full
fist, pow! Waiting for dinner to finish cooking….
If
you are cooking, try standing in Horse or Sanchin stance. Most combat stances
have the knee bent so holding these positions will increase your leg strength
and improve you overall speed and mobility.
Another
little conditioning exercise you can attempt. In the book I had you making a
knife-hand strike onto the palm of your other hand to demonstrate the force you
could generate, especially if you learnt to relax your striking arm. Executing
a few strikes like this against the other hand is a good conditioning exercise
that not only toughens the edge of the hand, but also the palm of the hand. And
since palm heel, knife-hand and hammer-fist are three of our most useful hand
strikes….