3 Great Forearm Exercises

Article by Jared DiCarmine

I remember just starting out in my fitness journey when I was just a young boy, I was absolutely obsessed with finding some of the best and most effective exercises for each body part, specifically forearm exercises because at the time I was huge into baseball and I knew the quickest way to speed up my bat and hit the ball further was to strengthen my forearms and wrists. I was 12 years old at the time and I came across one exercise that involved a wrist roller with a string through the middle and a weight dangling at the end. I had my dad make me one of these with a broomstick and all I did everyday was do multiple sets of wrist rollers. Holding my arms out straight and flexing and extending my wrists up and down to roll the weight up and then back down. After a few weeks I could see noticeable different in the size of my forearms. Looking back, they were obviously newbie gains because I had never done anything like that before, but it was still awesome to notice a little pop in my forearm when I made a muscle. Now you might be thinking or believe you should rest a muscle every other day so that it can recover. That is partially true, but it’s also false because it’s really dependent on the muscle being worked, the trainee, and the program design. Forearms can be worked quite often everyday because they are built to withstand a lot of total volume without tiring. They also recover quite quickly. If you had to take a break every time you used a muscle, then how would mechanics make a living?So this brings us into the next part of this article and various exercises that you can do for them so they can grow and become larger and stronger. When you really do your research you can find that there is a ton of exercises to work for your forearms. I think forearm exercises are some of the most creative for any body part and there is definitely too many to list in this article because they can go on forever, but I’m going to give you five right now that you can implement into your training to start seeing immediate results. Awesome Forearm Exercise #1: Farmers WalksFarmers walks are popular in strength and conditioning circles as well as power lifting events. They really test not only your grip strength but also your anaerobic endurance and core strength. Holding a heavy weight in both hands then having to walk with it really takes a lot out of your body as well as your grip. It’s a lot harder as opposed to just holding two heavy weights in each hand and being stationary. The walking part adds a slight twist to the exercise really forcing your grip to keep those heavy dumbbells and weights in place. And the best part is that you don’t need any crazy equipment to do this exercise like you see the professionals use on t.v. All you need is two heavy dumbbells from your local gym. So what I want you to do is pick up 2 heavy dumbbells and literally just go for a walk. Record the distance and try to beat it week after week. Feel free to do exercise for 3-4 sets in your forearm workout.Awesome Forearm Exercise #2: Reverse Barbell CurlsWhen you look at an anatomy chart of the all the different forearm muscles, you’ll notice that there is a lot of them and one of the most important ones to really bring out that pop in your forearms and make them look like you have a pair of bowling pins attached to your biceps are the brachioradialis and brachialis. The brachioradialis resides on the forearm and the brachialis resides slightly underneath the bicep. When these two muscles are developed, it really adds extra thickness throughout your lower arm. And when the brachialis is developed, it can actually pop out your biceps and increase circumference around your upper arm. These 2 muscles best respond to high volume and a long time under tension. A neat little trick you could do to really hit these muscle groups is hard is use the 1 and a half rep method. So for example you do 1 repetition and curl the bar all the way up. When you lower the bar, only lower it half way and bring it back up. This all equals only 1 repetition. Feel free to do 3-4 sets of 12-15 repetitions. Awesome Forearm Exercise #3: Add In Fat GripzI know this isn’t really a new exercise, but seriously hear me out for a quick second. The thicker the bar in any type of movement that requires you to use your grip, the more your forearms will be worked. It’s pure physics and backed by science. The larger your grip circumference, the more your forearms work to hold everything in place and over time you’ll build up these muscles without adding in any extra exercises. The best athletes and the biggest strength coaches and trainers all use fat gripz on their bars if they don’t have access to a thick bar. Fat gripz are easy to use and implement. All you have to do is pop them on the bar and that’s it. But let me warn you that you might have to lower some of your weights on some exercises. It really does take some time for your grip to catch up if you decide to go this route. But trust me its well worth it. Just image doing bicep curls with a grip the size of a coke can. Now tell me that’s not good for your forearms? I thought so.All in all, you don’t really need a lot of different forearm exercises to help them grow and become stronger. All you need is a sound training program. If you add in these 2 exercises above and include fat gripz on every back and biceps exercise in your program, I guarantee that you’ll be able to spark new found growth in your forearms without a shadow of a doubt.