When we train, we always want very big biceps, and we forget about the forearm, just like with the quadriceps, we forget about the calves. The muscles of the forearm are several and we must not forget about them, to achieve strength in the hands, wrists and throughout the entire arm.
Strengthening the muscles of the forearm is much more important than many may believe. In this text we are going to understand why this area must be developed, and not only the muscles that act as a shield for the bones, but also the tendons and ligaments must always be at 100% to keep us active, flexible and healthy.
Later we will see some exercises to strengthen the forearms, they are very simple, and surely we have done them at some point, but as we say, we tend to give more visibility and importance to the biceps and triceps.
Why is it important to strengthen forearms?
Training forearms is of vital importance to improve strength, as well as the grip of the hands , increase the flexibility of the muscles, tendons and ligaments that make the wrist and fingers have so much flexibility and freedom of movement.
By training and strengthening the forearm, we manage to reduce the stress on the elbow, since the most common thing is to pull the arm to lift something, instead of helping us with the wrists, for example, and that is where the importance of having strong forearms comes in.
We believe that it is very difficult to train the forearm because it is not marked as much or as quickly as other muscles, however, it is much easier. It’s not about getting X stamina or X fitness. This time it is about being useful for the rest of the body and that it is healthy to avoid injuries when training with weight.
Bodyweight Forearm Exercises
They are very similar exercises to strengthening the biceps, but with subtle differences so that all the weight and force falls on the forearms. If we are not able to perform them, due to injury, pain, disability, etc.
push-ups with fingers
- Instead of doing the push-ups with the palms of our hands open on the surface, we are going to place our fingers stretched out as if we were going to grab something .
- We leave them in that position on the ground and try to get up.
We already say that it is not easy, that it requires many attempts and it is an exercise that can hurt at first. We must be careful, if we do not have much strength in our arms, we can injure ourselves.
hang up arms
If we know what pull-ups are, we’ll know that they start with hanging the arms and dropping the body. In this way we will be working the forearms in a way as simple as dropping the weight of our body. To train the forearms, we must make a lot of force with our hands (put the fists inward) so that we do not slip and fall to the ground.
The thicker the surface that we have to grab, the more force we will have to do with our hands, therefore, the more we will strengthen our forearms. To increase the work, we can swing.
- We just have to hang from the bar with our fists inward.
- To increase the difficulty we can alternate arms and include more weight.
dominated
There are different types of pull-ups and almost all of them help develop the biceps, but today the protagonists are the forearms. So, if we like pull-ups, we could choose supinator pull-ups, that is, with the fist inward.
- We hang from the bar with our fists inward and try to hold our head above the bar for about 3 seconds and then slowly lower.
It is not an exercise for everyone, but it enhances the work of the muscles that we have in the forearm.
Railing
This exercise is complicated and requires a lot of agility, flexibility, strength in the arms, a strong mentality, a lot of body stability, etc. For this exercise, we are going to need a hanging surface. In the playgrounds we will find several options and we only have to:
- Get into a pull-up position and go from bar to bar with your hands.
The difficult version of this is to do it with rings , since these will be in movement and it will be much more difficult for us to perform the exercise. This is how we practice gripping, strengthen muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments and so on and make our forearm muscles bigger and stronger.
forearm with rope
This exercise is widely used in rehabilitation, after an injury, to improve mobility, and even for children to enhance the agility of their hands and wrists. This exercise can be done either with the specific machinery, or in a rudimentary way.
If we are in a gym we should ask if they have the rope roll, and if not, we can practice it at home:
- We take a stick that is of medium thickness, and we tie a rope that in turn will be tied to a weight.
- We loop that rope around the pole as we lift and lower the weight .
- To increase the intensity and work on all the muscles of the arm, as well as tendons, ligaments and others, we can lie on our back, raise our arms as if we were going to lift weight and wind and unwind the rope.
wrist push-ups
This exercise is very common in the gym and also in rehabilitation therapies. It is a very simple and easy to do forearm exercise. We just need to rest our forearm on a surface with palms up (and then down) and grab some weight, for example a bottle of water.
Now it remains only to do push-ups with the wrist up and down, either in the palm up or palm down position. If we do both, the exercise will be more complete.
The difficult version is to put the arms in a cross or extended forward and with dumbbells , do those same push-ups with the wrist. It seems silly, but it hurts a lot when we do many repetitions, since it is a muscle that is not very used to being in movement like the biceps.
