Thoughts.

So, how you grip the disc is important. However, as with just about anything in sports, it is not enough just to know how to do it right. You must possess the requisite athleticism to execute–knowledge alone can only take you so far.

So how do you train your grip to be stronger? I actually don’t do a ton of grip training anymore–I’m at a good baseline level, though I imagine a bit more training would help with my forehand hucking in particular–but when I did do grip training, I considered a few things when I planned my grip workouts:

There are different kinds of grip strength.
Pinch: Between individual fingers and your thumb.
Crush: Between your fingers and your palm (the “standard” grip when you think about grip–think handshake)
Support: Not a gripping motion, but the ability to maintain one’s grip (think holding on to a heavy bag full of groceries by the handle)

It’s my opinion that the first and the last are the most important for ultimate. The former is particularly important for catching (think about it–attacking the disc, you should be using your thumb underneath/on top to go with your other fingers), while the latter comes into play more for throwing and transferring power from your hips to the disc. Crush grip really has little relevance to ultimate, and it is not something you need to emphasize in your training (though you should still include it for completeness’ sake from time to time).

So, how do you train pinch and support grip? By gripping, of course!

The easiest way is simply to find a gripper or a grip machine at your local gym. these lend themselves fairly easily to a variety of gripping motions–really think about using your thumb–when I talk about support grip, it’s essentially support pinch grip. Start with a relatively manageable amount of force/weight, doing sets in the upper end of the rep range (think 20 reps), and work down to doing a few reps with higher weight, for reps and for time held closed. Pinching and then holding (whether you pinch with one, two, three, or four fingers simultaneously with your thumb is your prerogative–I prefer two fingers, with middle and pointer, as I think they are the ones that do the brunt of the catching work) allows you to work both types of grip simultaneously.

Another exercise I’ve done for supporting grip is holding plates. Grab a 5 or 10 lb plate and simply hold it with four fingers flush on top and the thumb on bottom (or vice versa). Hold for time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Other options for grip training:
-Sand/Rice gripping. I’ve never done this myself, but others have.
-Fingertip pushups. I used to do these with regularity. But consider the range of motion in which you’re training your grip by doing these (see below). If you can get to the point where you can do them just on your thumbs or on three fingers (thumb+pointer/middle), you’re on the right track.

More conventional thought says doing things like farmer’s walks and deadlifts are good ways to train grip, and this is true–but it’s not as specific to ultimate (often training primarily crush grip, and in a range of motion unseen in ultimate). I do think, however, that learning to use the hook grip, with your thumb under your fingers, will emphasize strength of the thumb more and will carry over to your grip in ultimate though (to at least some extent).

Another thing to consider is that grip strength is highly specific to the range trained. I can do grip training for climbing, working on gripping at the outermost edges of my hand’s extension (think a hold several inches thick, so there’s a lot of space between your fingers and thumb), but, despite possessing phenomenal strength on the wall, have little to spare when gripping a disc with very little separation between fingers and thumb.

I couldn’t tell you what the exact range for the specificity of the training effect is, but the more you can work your grip in the range you’ll be using in-game (ie, closer together), the more you’ll find the results carry over to throwing and catching in game. That’s not to say you should avoid training grip at the edges of your range–to the contrary, a balanced program necessitates it–but pick your focus wisely.

Finally, grip strength fatigues easily, and recovers slowly. If you’re some kind of superhuman, perhaps you can train grip every day and continue to see improvement. For me, a good grip workout would actually leave me worse off for at least the day following. Some of my best throwing has come after taking a couple days off from throwing and grip training–my hands can recover fully, enabling more confident, sure throws. Keep this in mind when planning your training. Grip training is, primarily, a secondary focus for workouts, so I usually save it for the end of workouts where I won’t have to worry about a fatigued grip affecting my other lifts.

You’ll be surprised what a big difference this can make, though you might not notice the gradual improvement over time.

Related posts:

1. Throwing Thought: Grip
2. Throwing
3. Catching/Throwing Thought: Head Stability
4. Throwing Thought: Grip, Part 2 (Video)
5. Catching Thought: Layout Grabs