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Comment by mattjenner | Hacker News Reader

In addition - grip strength can be as important and it also builds brain strength. An amazing case of: Use it, or lose it. I've have two hand grips on my desk for this reason, every long refresh or boring meeting - I'm grip strengthening.

"grip strength is also an independent and significant predictor of all cause mortality. How strong your grip is, is going to tell us a ton about how you're going to live." https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-exercise-and-living-longer

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Does just doing grip strength exercises cause people to live longer? Or is the correlation a result of the fact that activities that increase grip strength increase longevity (or are only able to be done by people who are very healthy)?

Inclined to side with you. Prior to specialized gripping exercises, I would think the people with the strongest grips developed it from hard effort: lifting weights, rock climbing, trade work, etc.

I think its the later - I have always understood grip strength to be an easy to measure proxy for your overall health; no harm in doing only grip strength exercises, but the better way is to lead a healthy and active life where your good grip strength is side effect of all the activities you do.

Watching TV all day on the couch drinking beer and potato chips - but with a grip exerciser in your hand is probably not going to give you much of a benefit.

Lots of confusion here. I really can't force myself to believe that training my grip strength with a small spring-loaded tool will extend my life and make my brain work better.

What I do know, though, is that my grip strength is fantastic, even though I don't squeeze any spring-loaded thingies. It's a side effect of doing regular deadlift exercises, as part of my strength training (roughly based on 5x5).

I also don't find it hard to believe that my strength training does bring benefits. Some are certain: life is much better when you're strong. Some are less certain, like living longer.

Grip strength is a proxy for whole body strength.

Training grip strength for health benefits instead of engaging in strength training is like turning a dashboard green instead of fixing the underlying issues.

Yes, Peter Attia says this precise thing in his book 'Outlive' and also his podcasts. I stopped using the gripper after that.

I started lifting weights 1 year and 2 months back - whole body compound lifts i.e. deadlift, squats, bench press, overhead press - and results are phenomenal.

Before that had been doing body weight for a decade push ups/ pull ups/ planks, and for some reason thought it was sufficient for me. Only when I pivoted to these (lifting weights) after a chronic pain developed due to excessive running, did I feel the difference.

Overall lifting weights and counting protein intake seems to be life changing. The chronic pain also went away.

Grip strength can also help reduce high blood pressure. http://www.1mhealthtips.com/easy-handgrip-exercise-to-lower-...

Any advice for good ones?

Grippers are only good if you want to get better at grippers. Grip strength is so specific and if you are talking real world transferability grippers are probably the worst. IMO if you want something that actually transfers and that you can still use at a desk and that offers some variety get one of these https://www.sportgrips.com/product/grip-twister/

Then for extensors get some rubber bands.

Source: I've been doing grip strength training for over a decade, my basement is completely filled with grip training tools. So, trust me bro. Honestly though, bouldering is probably the best, can't do that at a desk though.

Any idea if this helps with carpal tunnel syndrome?

If you haven't already tried, consider getting a steroid injection directly into your affected wrists by an orthopedist.

Had CTS many years ago, couldn't even hold a lightweight briefcase in my hand - and the pain was miserable - a single injection into the bad wrist and now 20 years later I am still pain free.

Not sure if it would work as well in all cases, but it was life-changing for me.

I would suggest looking towards equipment for "overcoming isometrics", which at its baseline is literally just self resistance and can be expanded with a few mechanisms to add some springiness and help your nervous system reach full activation, since it tends to shut off if it feels a truly immovable object. The hand gripper is just a very specific device of that type. There are also systems like the Iso Trainer or Bullworker that allow you to address more of the body and from more angles. This method of training emphasizes strength in the tendons, since there's almost no motion, and it doesn't have a simple numerical progression like weights, so it's mostly discarded by people seeking "big muscles" and "big lifts". But it has a lot of substance as a general strength training method.

An overview of some equipment in this category:

[0] https://youtu.be/komva2gCaWM?si=lPwMN2UalEqtz7l1

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