How to Cure Weak Grip (Without Blowing Out Your Elbows)

You missed the lift.

Not because your back was weak. Not because your hamstrings gave out. You missed it because your hands opened up.

In powerlifting, your grip is the bottleneck. If your posterior chain can pull 500 lbs but your hands can only hold 400 lbs, you are leaving 100 lbs of gains on the floor.

But here is the trap I fell into: I thought the solution was just "more volume." I hammered my grip every day until I developed tendonitis so bad I couldn't turn a doorknob. I learned the hard way that tendons don't recover like muscles. They have poor blood flow and heal slowly.

If you try to "push through" tendon pain, you don't get stronger, you get sidelined.

This is the revised Wayne Outlaw Method: a system for bulletproof grip that respects the biology of your tendons.

Phase 1: The "Tendon Tax" (Strategic Deload)

The Mistake: Treating your forearms like biceps. The Fix: Understanding Overload Rest.

Muscles recover in 48 hours. Tendons can take weeks. When you feel that deep ache in your elbow (Golfers or Tennis Elbow), that is your body telling you the load has exceeded the tendon's capacity to remodel.

If you are already in pain, stop heavy gripping immediately. You cannot "grind" through tendonitis. You have to rehab it.

• The Protocol: If you have pain, switch to Heavy Slow Resistance (HSR).

• The Move: Dumbbell wrist curls (flexion) and reverse wrist curls (extension).

• The Tempo: 3 seconds up, 3 seconds down. Slow is the medicine. This aligns the collagen fibers without shocking the tissue.

• The Volume: 3 sets of 15 reps, light weight, painfully slow.

Phase 2: Active Recovery (The Rice Bucket)

I used to use the rice bucket to crush my hands. Now, I use it to flush them.

Deadlifting is 100% flexion (squeezing). This creates a massive imbalance in your forearm. Your flexors get huge and tight; your extensors (the muscles that open your hand) get weak and taut. That imbalance snaps tendons.

The Protocol: Use the rice bucket on rest days only. Do not do this before a heavy pull.

• The Iron Claw (Extensor Focus): Burry your fist deep in the rice. forcefully OPEN your hand against the resistance. This strengthens the neglected backside of your forearm.

• The Flush: Do light, rhythmic squeezing and twisting for 2-3 minutes. You aren't trying to hit a max effort here; you are trying to pump blood into the white, avascular tissue of your tendons to speed up healing.

Phase 3: The Protector (Versa Gripps)

There is a myth that using straps makes you weak. False. Using straps when you are injured or overreaching is called longevity.

If your back needs 500 lbs to grow, but your elbows are screaming at 315 lbs, you use the gear.

The Protocol:

• Warm-ups (Raw): Do all warm-ups raw to maintain baseline neurological connection.

• Working Sets (Strapped): On your heaviest sets, use Versa Gripps. This offloads the tension from the inflamed tendons in your elbow and transfers the load directly to your wrist bone and back structure.

• The Benefit: You get the back hypertrophy of a heavy deadlift without the tendon degradation of a max squeeze.

Phase 4: Tissue Maintenance

You cannot train a muscle that is constantly knotted up. Tight muscles pull on the tendon insertion point (your elbow), creating constant micro-tearing even when you aren't lifting.

The Protocol:

• The Smash: Take a lacrosse ball or the handle of a kettlebell. Put your forearm on a table and roll the mass of the muscle out. It will hurt. Do it anyway.

• The Prayer Stretch: Palms together at chest height, lower your hands until you feel the stretch.

• The Reverse Stretch: Arm straight, palm facing you, gently pull the hand back.

The Bottom Line

A weak grip is a choice, but so is an injury.

I wasted months trying to be "hardcore" and ignoring the pain. Don't be an idiot like I was. Respect the recovery curve of your tendons.

Use the rice bucket to balance the muscles. Use the straps to protect the joint. Use the tempo work to heal the tissue.

- Wayne Outlaw

Want the Full System?

Fixing your grip is just one piece of the puzzle. If you want to pull heavy without snapping your body in half, you need a complete programming strategy.

I broke down my entire methodology from intensity techniques to injury prevention in The Outlaw's Training Bible: Advanced Intensity.

This book isn't for casual gym-goers. It is for athletes who want to understand the mechanics of true strength, proper periodization, and how to build a physique that actually functions under load. Stop guessing. Get the blueprint.

Get your copy on Amazon here.