Last Three Days

I had a goal of closing a C.o.C. #3 by the end of the summer. While technically I did close Aaron's easy 3, and that was cool for me, I need to do better. At the very least I want to be able to close his average 3 by the end of the year. I am of course talking about using a MMS set. I continue to try setting my #3 which seems REALLY hard. I am getting better at setting that bad boy in my hand, but once I set it to parallel I can barely get any squeeze out of it.

Been reading a lot of posts on various forums about how people train for closing this monster. I noticed one thing many of them had in common was high volume training. I say high volume, but all I mean by that is higher than me. I have been use to only a few warm ups, and then a 5x5 at the most. Really doesn't seem like a lot when I think about it. I feel I take my gripper workouts seriously these days, and I think what has happened is my hands are finally ready for more. I feel like they can take more now that they have some good muscle built up from the last year of playing with grippers, and pinch stuff.

I have no plans on going crazy with a "Joe Kinney 4 Hour Workout", but I have proven over the last 3 days that I can take more with more frequency. Without specifics, here is what I have done.

Over the last 3 days I have closed my grippers a total of 112 times. Again, really doesn't seem like a lot, but they have been quality, serious attempts at real closes. It is also 112 closes in 3 days compared to 112 closes over 2 weeks.

#1x74
#2x28
#2.5x10

 First day was Tempo work, second was MMS, and third day was CCS. I was able to do all of these feeling strong, and without any major arm or hand pain. In conjunction with all this I have trained 2HP for the first and second day, and 1HP for the third, and made nice gains on both. I also have done my regular body strength exercises as well... bench, DL, OHP, and light squats with light sandbag work for a little cardio.

All this to say that my "staying power" seems to have increased. I was having trouble for the longest time getting a decently hard and lasting workout with grippers. I always just seemed to peter out of hand strength during what I thought should have been halfway through a workout.

I will now give the hands two days off to recover and see how they feel on Monday. If they feel decent, I will repeat the process. Gonna see if a little more volume, and frequency will get me to that #3. If 3 days in a row turns out to be a bit much I will back off to 2 and see what happens then.

Gonna make that #3 mine, and will cert on it next year.

-Z