The forearm is the collection of musculature between the elbow and the wrist. It is a subsection of the arm. It is responsible for a lot of fine motor skills such as writing, playing instruments, and gripping.

Within the forearm, there are two long bones, the radius bone and the ulna bone. The ulna bone is the longer and larger of the two and is located medially (closer to the midline), and the radius bone runs parallel to it. These two bones are connected by the interosseous membrane. 

The forearm does not lack muscles. There are a lot. By a lot, we’re talking twenty different muscles in the forearm that are responsible for extending and flexing the wrist, extending and flexing the finger digits, flexing the elbow (the brachioradialis), and pronating (think a pull up grip) and supinating (think a chin up grip) the hands.  

Other sports ask that besides holding onto an object or opponent, that you grab or snatch something out of the air, on the mat, or away from the competition. Concrete examples include catching an alley oop for a dunk in basketball, a wrist for control, or a frisbee out of the air. 

In all of these instances of athleticism coming from the hands via the forearm musculature, you see training needs. Depending on the sport, athletes have a variety of needs. Athletes need their forearms to get strong, be explosive, and have the localized muscle endurance to keep firing throughout the duration of the competition and not fatigue. 

Athletes benefit from strong forearms. Stronger forearms translate specifically to a stronger grip. From a stronger grip you are able to hold more weight to not only lift more in pulling movements, like the clean and snatch, but pressing movements like the bench press. All great movements in themselves for athletic development with high levels of dynamic correspondence.

With strength training, you need to think bigger, more powerful muscles. For bigger muscles, that means hypertrophy work. Hypertrophy work centers around accessory movements that can be done in a structural bodybuilding style with isolation exercises. A favorite movement here for forearm strength that athletes can perform is Zottman Curls (which we’ll discuss later in more detail).

Concerning more powerful muscles, that can come from bigger intensities, which means heavier weights, usually gained by performing compound movements. Pull ups and rope climbs are the go-to movements for such forearm development. Because face it, multiple muscles acting in conjunction are stronger than a single muscle acting on its lonesome.

Compound movements are so beneficial because they ask multiple muscles to recruit high threshold motor units as co-contractions to demonstrate strength. Athletes need this ability so it is important that their forearm muscles can work with their bicep and triceps muscles, as well as the musculature in the back and chest.

One last thing to be aware of with strength training for the forearms is that not all grips are created equal and rarely in sports will all grabbing be done in the same way. Meaning you have to vary the way implements are held.

Athletes need to be training their forearms using Garage Grips, neutral grips, pronated grips, supinated grips, monkey grips, towel grips, and with various sizes and shapes of objects. Simply hanging from a cylinder vs a bar vs a towel vs tennis balls vs vertical pipes vs being supinated or pronated or neutral can make a whole world of difference. 

Impulse is force X time. Impulse is the one thing all athletes need to concern themselves with for developing that explosivity and speed that is so crucial to success in competition. At Garage Strength, we believe Impulse is so important we dedicate a whole day to it and we have a whole day dedicated to it in our strength training app, Peak Strength, as well. 

The same applies for the forearm musculature. Impulse as an athletic application must be applied to the forearms by having actions and exercises performed at high velocities. 

It is one thing to prep and grab onto something, like holding onto a tennis racquet, in and of itself important, but it is another thing to quickly flex the wrist to strike the ball so it goes in the exact direction intended.

The same goes for procuring a lower limb in wrestling. Where strength training of the forearms is responsible for the ability to have a firm grip, impulse training of the forearms is responsible for making the action rapid–think the quickness in which the hands reach out and close around an ankle or wrist. You can even think about high level athletes quickly extending their hands and nabbing a ball out of the air.

That’s forearm impulse.

Another way athletes need to think of forearm training is around muscular endurance. Localized muscle fatigue is a thing. Sometimes your ability to hold on goes away–you can’t do that next pull up because your grip is gone or you can’t deadlift any more reps because the bar is slipping out of your fingers.

Increasing muscle endurance in the forearms is important for athletes. As competition persists and the game battles late into the match or 4th quarter, you don’t want to be letting a takedown get away because you’re unable to hold on for the time frame required due to fatigue or you’re unable to make a block because you couldn’t hold on long enough for the running back to scoot by.

Training muscle endurance is a grind. It takes a tenacity that is both mentally taxing and physically exhausting. Muscle endurance means sets with lots of reps, long times under constant tension, and feeling the lactate build up to create that burning sensation.

In Garage Strength Program Design, training localized muscle endurance is often attacked through rep schemes and, for muscles like the forearms, handled during accessory movement selections. 

Athletes use their hands a lot. The forearm musculature is responsible for a lot of that action–grabbing, holding on, and snatching all come into play.

Let’s look at a few exercises, and exercise groupings, that do a great job of training the forearms either with a strength focus, impulse focus, or muscular endurance focus.