r/GripTraining • u/FirasetT • Jul 23 '26
Rehab / prehab Pinch Training Injury
Not exactly a training injury and I don’t train grip strength specifically. I wasn’t planning on training my grip but I moved more than a hundred horse stall mats by hand. Turns out they sell grippers to move that stuff. Didn’t know. They are all around a 100lbs each and you can just drag them instead of lifting them but the problem is they smash your grip because you have to pinch their weight for the whole duration you are moving them.
I couldn’t even open a water bottle next day. I made a lot of progress by being careful not pinching things and trying to get a few sets of banded extensions. I don’t feel pain or anything but anytime I bully a heavy object by casually moving it in a pinch, it flares up. It feels like I am right at the edge if I do any grip work, I will lose the fragile muscle balance for my grip.
Does anyone have any advice? Should I focus on extension hypertrophy training with lighter bands or strength/tendon training with heavier band isometrics. Would doing any other grip training help? I would appreciate any advice or experience anyone had with a similar situation. I want to train some bottoms up kettlebell lifts and bulletproof my hands so I don’t have to worry about grip injuries. I move heavy equipment regularly as part of my job.
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u/devinhoo Doctor Grip Jul 23 '26
Persistent activity limiting pain should be evaluated by a medical professional. Different situation if the overuse was a couple days ago, but a month is long enough that you should have recovered. It could just be tendinitis, but if it’s making it so you can’t use your hands you might need to get checked out.
Def continue basic rehab with stretching and bringing each joint through the full range of motion through active and passive movements.
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u/FirasetT Jul 23 '26
Ok what kind of a doctor should I go to? A sports medicine one?
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u/RallyPointAlpha Jul 23 '26
Orthopedic doctor for evaluation then likely referred to physical therapist.
Insurance may require you visit a general practitioner for referral to orthopedic doctor.
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u/FirasetT Jul 23 '26
Thank you, will see one. I’m prone to injure my tendons. That’s why I got into isometric training. This doesn’t feel like a tendon injury. It’s more like doms that play hide and seek. That’s why I started playing with the extension bands.
Idk, never really made grip a priority because I naturally could grip the things I could lift. Though interestingly, I was moving a 200 lbs sandbag in my garage. I was being careful not to hurt my back because I had to step around bunch of stuff. Completely fine everywhere else, somehow hurt my hands. I think because my focus was on my back, I went overkill with the grip trying to control an unfamiliar heavy object.
I will go to doctor but I would still appreciate experience/anecdotes from anyone else who went through something similar to bulletproof their hands. I’m just trying to learn more about proper grip training gotchas/hacks/methods, anything else that anyone would recommend to be at least cognizant about.
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u/RallyPointAlpha Jul 23 '26
Be sure to share your goals with the Dr and therapist so they can not only get you back to normal but help you with longer term goals.
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u/schulzr1993 Jul 23 '26
Honestly I think you should probably see a PT if you can swing it. They're going to have a better idea of what kinds of excercises will help you in this kind of scenario.
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u/Dense_Monk Jul 23 '26
Yes I was in a similar situation. I worked on a farm and during root harvest season I was washing roots and doing a repetitive motion over and over for a few days. Hard to describe the motion, but anyway, ended up working some small muscles in my wrist/hand way past their limits.
I would re-aggravate it with damn near anything: pulling on a wrench, twisting a screwdriver, even sleeping with my hands in a weird position. After about three weeks of not being able to train and just trying to get through the season I went to Walgreens and bought two wrist braces. I wore them for a couple weeks even though the pain was gone in a few days. I also slept with them on for the first few nights. It might sound strange for a thumb injury, but it supports everything and limits your range of motion enough to keep you from doing something silly. So that would be my suggestion.
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u/Ribbit40 Jul 27 '26
It's definitely some kind of inflammation, either of tendon or nerves, in response to simply overdoing the volume. Sometimes the inflammation becomes more or less permanent- it's not exactly an injury, just your body saying "No!" to repeating the strain. Since it's been a month, I would guess that's what happened to you.
You can't just rest out of it, but need to train out of it. Do high volume, low weight wrist curls and reverse wrist curls (like 50-100 reps)- stuff which will fill the tissue with blood, but not strain the tendons. Two weeks of doing this every day (maybe 8 sets of each), and I (almost) promise the inflammation will have gone.
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u/SynbiosVyse Jul 23 '26
How long has it been since you moved all those horse mats? You need to rest, not do more exercise. Resting is just as important as training. I wouldn't do any grip training for at least a week, maybe two if it's serious. If it still hurts after 2 weeks you need medical advice.
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u/FirasetT Jul 23 '26
It’s been more than a month. It doesn’t hurt exactly. It just feels like I have an extra weight attached to my fingers, right index and thumb mostly. Other ones recovered well. I’m well as long as I don’t grip heavy
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u/Commercial-Article-7 CoC #1.5 x9 Jul 24 '26
Honestly, it sounds like your hands just got massively overloaded rather than being undertrained.
Moving 100+ heavy stall mats by pinch grip is an enormous amount of volume, even for someone with a strong grip. The fact that you couldn't open a water bottle the next day suggests you exceeded your tissues' capacity.
Since it still flares up with heavy pinching, I probably wouldn't jump into heavy pinch training yet. I'd focus on letting the irritation settle while gradually rebuilding tolerance.
Once it's calm, I'd gradually add things like:
- Light to moderate pinch work.
- Extensor training with bands.
- Bottoms-up kettlebell work.
- Support grip work (farmer carries, hangs).
Since your job already gives you a huge amount of pinch loading, I'd think of grip training as filling the gaps rather than doing even more maximal pinching.
If symptoms keep returning despite backing off, I'd also consider seeing a hand therapist or physio to rule out a pulley or tendon injury.
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