Forearm strength and what it means to Jeet Kune Do.

If you ever watched a Bruce Lee movie you saw him with his shirt off. While his entire physique was incredible, the one thing that always stood out to me was his large forearms. Compared to the rest of his body they were enormous. Years later I began Jeet kune Do training and have found out why this is so important. In any fighting system the the arms do the majority of the offense and defense. No matter what art you may be adapting with JKD concepts, it is benifited already if you have good forearms. Grappling, punching, grabbing and locking, finger thrusts and blocking all deal directly with forearm strength. If you have ever been grabbed by someone who is strong then you know that it really doesnt matter what they grab, it hurts. Being able to hit hard is self explanatory. Forarm conditioning should be a major part of any self defense training. There are tons of excercises to be done. Finger tip pushups, holding a weight with two fingers then swithching the fingers quickly, rolling weights on strings, gm equipment, pushups, chin ups, weapons training. In particular my favorite are nunchuckas. You can work the entire forearm with them. After usually only twenty minutes and it help build total body equillibrium. Thoughts?

I agree Chen, but also look at his back muscles. For a short Asian man, they are massive.

I have found that in my practice of "traditional" karate and bagwork, sparring, that my back muscles and foreamrs were the first to burn out, hurt the most after a session and are the most developed.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chen Zen:
In particular my favorite are nunchuckas. You can work the entire forearm with them. After usually only twenty minutes and it help build total body equillibrium. Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Yes indeed. I have a pair of hardwood chucks that I will just swing around with increasing speed. I've noticed it gets my heartrate of a bit, along with a pump in my forearms if I continue. After about 15-30 minutes of the heavy nunchaku I switch to a pair of burned rattan "speed chucks" and notice a diffence in my speed as well. Great hand eye coordination. There are alot of forearm exercises out there, but if I had to choose just one exercise (or piece of equipment) it would have to be my "Captains of Crush" number 2 hand gripper! I can almost close it, lacking about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch! MAN! This gripper is pretty hard, to me anyway! They have 5 grippers ranging in tension from;

• The Trainer @ 100 lbs
  
  
• # 1 gripper @ 140 lbs
  
  
• # 2 gripper @ 195 lbs
  
  
• # 3 gripper @ 280 lbs
  
  
• # 4 gripper @ 365 lbs
  
  

There was a test that was conducted on I believe about 1000 average males. The test showed that the average male was able to squeeze 112 pounds of pressure on a hand dynamometer, with their dominate hand.
http://www.ironmind.com/ironcms/opencms/IronMind/GripTips/griptip.html

Look for the link, "crushed to dust" on the side. I found this site to be very helpful in terms of wrist/forearm strengthening.

If you could do just one exercise for you forearms, what would it be? I know there are several that are equally important, but which one is your favorite?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DragonFire1134:
Yes indeed. I have a pair of hardwood chucks that I will just swing around with increasing speed. I've noticed it gets my heartrate of a bit, along with a pump in my forearms if I continue. After about 15-30 minutes of the heavy nunchaku I switch to a pair of burned rattan "speed chucks" and notice a diffence in my speed as well. Great hand eye coordination. There are alot of forearm exercises out there, but if I had to choose just one exercise (or piece of equipment) it would have to be my "Captains of Crush" number 2 hand gripper! I can almost close it, lacking about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch! MAN! This gripper is pretty hard, to me anyway! They have 5 grippers ranging in tension from;

• The Trainer @ 100 lbs
  
  
• # 1 gripper @ 140 lbs
  
  
• # 2 gripper @ 195 lbs
  
  
• # 3 gripper @ 280 lbs
  
  
• # 4 gripper @ 365 lbs
  
  

There was a test that was conducted on I believe about 1000 average males. The test showed that the average male was able to squeeze 112 pounds of pressure on a hand dynamometer, with their dominate hand.
http://www.ironmind.com/ironcms/opencms/IronMind/GripTips/griptip.html

Look for the link, "crushed to dust" on the side. I found this site to be very helpful in terms of wrist/forearm strengthening.

If you could do just one exercise for you forearms, what would it be? I know there are several that are equally important, but which one is your favorite?[/QUOTE]

My favorite's my chucks. Usually the first thing I turn to when bored is my nunchuckas. I have a hardwood rope pair and i swing em till the rope stretches out to far. Then I do drills or shadowbox but for forearms its all about the Nunchuka.

Finger flicks!!!!!

Whenever you are bored or you are working stance, waiting for a bus, whatever, just do a couple hundred finger flicks. Start by Making a tight fist and then flicking your fingers out to there full extension and opening them wide, then make a tight fist again. Do this about 100 times and you should feel the burn of the blood flowing to your forearms and hand. Great for grip and iron forearm and it takes no equipment, can be done anywhere, anytime, unlike chuks. Just an incredible exercise. If you can do about 500 in a sitting you are in great shape. When they become easy, start altering the direction of your hands, ei. hold your arms straight above your head, out to the sides, in front of you like a full guard, streched straight behind your back. It becomes a total arm workout, with no equipment.

the nunchuck i love. i got a pair a year ago an played with them every day for at least 5 hours stright or more. my endurance with the chuck is phenomal if yall can only go for 30 mins i am not critizing in any way