How do I Increase Forearm Strength?

Doing sets of exercises that are devoted specifically to the forearm can help you improve your forearm strength. The forearm is rarely as prioritized as other parts of the body, but a good forearm workout can greatly improve the muscle mass of your forearm. Lifting weights on a regular basis can increase your forearm strength over time, but exercising directly with the forearms is a far more effective way to strengthen them. Strong forearm muscles can strengthen your grip dramatically and can effectively advance your ability to lift weights, and this helps increase the overall strength of your arm.

The most popular muscle-building exercise for the forearm is the wrist curl. This exercise requires nothing more than a dumbbell or a similar small weight. At the foot of the bed or on the edge of a chair, grip the dumbbell with your palm facing upward and rest your forearm on one leg with your hand holding the dumbbell hanging over the edge. Lift the weight as far up as possible with only the strength of your wrist, then lower it and repeat. It is not advisable to do this exercise for more than three sets of 10 to 15 curls twice a week.

Hand grippers are another effective way to improve forearm strength. They are marketed as devices intended to increase your hand strength and grip, but gripping abilities and forearm strength are in many ways synonymous. Forearm muscles are utilized whenever something is gripped by the hand, and improving one's grip will in many ways strengthen the forearm. Starting out with only a few sets of five to 25 reps daily is advisable. After this becomes too easy of a task, it is time to upgrade to the next level of gripper.

With most muscle-building of the forearm, lifting and lowering as much as one physically can during an exercise can greatly intensify the overall effectiveness of the workout. There is a significant amount of muscle-training involved before it reaches the point where you can directly exercise the forearm without feeling too much strain. Partial movement of the forearm is already utilized in most exercises that involve the arms, so those are less effective when aiming to improve the forearm. There are some people who are more genetically predisposed to sufficiently strengthening the forearm, but directly working with it can successfully improve it for anyone.