In the summer of 2009, I bought a cheap plastic hand gripper out of curiosity and used it for a few months at work. It was slightly hard at first but only after a few weeks, I was doing tens and hundreds of reps each day. I had absolutely no hand grip training prior to using this cheap plastic hand gripper.
But one day, the metal spring snapped while I was on the 1,234,567th rep. I knew I was getting stronger but this was shocking because I just destoryed a piece of metal with my right hand!
In all seriousness, I felt like I needed a better hand gripper that doesn't break easily. I did some research and found out that companies made hand grippers with varying resistance. I came across Captains of Crush on Google search. They seemed like well built, tough looking hand grippers. I read some reviews and one person said that #1 usually stops a grown man cold. I scoffed and ordered #1 and #2 because I thought I had above average or at least average hand grip strength after using the cheap plastic hand gripper.
I was seriously wrong. #1 stopped me cold. I cried (my heart did). The first day I tried it, I got blisters on my middle, ring, and pinky fingers on both hands! And I couldn't even budge #2. Blisters were pretty bad and washing my face each morning was a painful reminder that I was still a newbie. It took me more than a week to recover. But while I was recovering, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do normal exercises with just #1 and #2. So I ordered the Trainer which was rated at 100 lbs.
The Trainer helped me get stronger fast. I used it rigorously for a week and I was able to close #1 a few times with a break between each rep. I always did 3 sets of ten reps with the Trainer as a warm up and did 1 or 2 sets of several reps with #1. I could only close #1 with my dominant right hand but after a month of training, I could also do it on my left hand.
Only about a month after I first closed #1, I closed #2. It came as a surprise. I was showing CoC grippers to my friends and I felt like showing off even more. They couldn't close #1 and I had already shown them closing #1 so I thought even if I fail at closing #2, it wouldn't hurt my pride as much. I tried and closed it. When the metals touched, I thought I had #1 in my hand. But it sure was #2.
A few more months have passed. It was early December 2009 and I could do several reps with #2 with my right hand and barely one rep with my left hand. I got curious again. What's #3 like? I ordered one. It was hard. I skipped #1.5 because I closed #2 relatively fast but this time, I really felt like I needed #2.5 to help me gap the bridge.
#2.5 arrived today (1/12/2010). I opened the package and closed it on the first try. I could feel that it was tougher than #2 but not by much. But regardless, I think it will help me get to #3 faster because what matters is one hard rep not several less-than-maximum-effort reps. As of today, I'm about 1cm away from closing #3. But after #2 rated at 195 lbs (~200 lbs), that 1cm gap is huge. I think it would take me at least half a year to fully close #3. But I'll get there eventually. And I'll write another review for #3 on Amazon.com.
here's a summary of my progress:
cheap plastic hand gripper (a few months)
Trainer to #1 (a week)
#1 to #2 - one rep (1 month)
#2 - several reps (4~5 months)
#2.5 - a few reps with a break between each rep (5 months)
#3 - about 1cm to go!
#3.5 - probably light years away :-)
Captains of Crush
Guide - 60 lbs
Sport - 80 lbs
Trainer - 100 lbs
#1 - 140 lbs
#1.5 - 167.5 lbs
#2 - 195 lbs
#2.5 - 237.5 lbs
#3 - 280 lbs
#3.5 - 322.5 lbs
#4 - 365 lbsGet more detail about Captains of Crush Hand Gripper - Trainer.
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