The Meat man wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2019 2:58 pm
I've often heard that fishermen like that develop tremendous hand and finger strength without an ounce of training, simply all from their daily labor.
Hand strength can be subtle and difficult to recognize because it's got more to do with tendon and ligament strength than actual muscle. A guy can have super strong grip and yet have perfectly normal looking arms and hands. It's really the ultimate in function over form.
Large hands often do give a slight leverage advantage, especially with things such as thick handled dumbbells and such.
That's true, hand strength has little to do with how muscular someone is. Years ago during my time in Taiwan, I knew a young guy (maybe 19), who could grab a fairly heavy wooden chair at the base of one of the legs (the foot of the chair?) with one hand, then stand up and carry it around in front of him, right side up, at shoulder height and arm's length. And he'd have a big grin on his face while doing it. He was a bit taller than me (I'm 5'-9"), but didn't have an impressive physique, although he had large hands. He trained kung fu, but didn't do much if any supplementary exercises other than hitting things a lot. He also smoked a lot. I tried to do it and couldn't even come close to getting the chair off the floor one-handed with my arm straight, much less have the wrist and grip strength to carry it right side up. I knew him back in the '80s.
My profession is professional massage therapist, and that works your hands a lot, with kneading, pressing, etc. It also results in a strong grip. I've had some big new male clients come in, some in the military, and when introduced, a few large men tried that "crush the hand" thing while shaking hands. When I felt that happening, I squeezed back with a smile on my face, and they immediately backed off the pressure. It wasn't contentious and no words were said; it was a subtle nonverbal communication. If they booked again with me, they never tried that again. I've had some other clients, both male and female (most clients are female), express surprise at my grip strength as well as deep tissue pressure, because although I'm in decent-looking shape, I'm not impressive-looking in a physical sense at all. Also, for elbow/palm/fist and finger pressure, you press and move from the legs/feet and your core, similar to martial arts. I know some petite women therapists who are also MUCH stronger than they look because of that.
Jim