Fat Gripz Review - Extreme's too

A long time ago I reviewed the Grip4orce grip trainers. I also wanted to pickup a pair of Fat Gripz as they seemed to offer some differences. Essentially the two trainers offer the same service- train up your grip strength by fattening up the bar or barbell you are grabbing onto during lifting.

The Grip4orce review can be found here- http://danprater.blogspot.com/2012/05/grip4orce-use-and-review.html

So for this article its all about the Fat Gripz and their bigger brother the Fat Gripz Extreme.

 Regular Fat Gripz










                                                   EXTREME!!!!









First off I will do my best to NOT compare these to Grip4orce. Instead I'd like this to be a standalone review of the product. Later on Ill get a writeup comparing the two products.

So what is the Fat Gripz system? Its basically a chunk of rubber that wraps around a bar to make it much fatter and therefore much harder to hang onto. The FGs do this extremely well as they maintain their original shape very well. This wraps the grip around the bar very tightly. Only very thin bars (<27mm by my estimate) have trouble with this as the opening in the gripper isn't small enough enough for those bars and it can slide. This only was a problem with the lat pulldown bar as if I wasn't careful the grips could slide off. However, the material is very clingy to knurled bars and even if the lifter doesn't grip tightly they tend to stick to the surface pretty well.

What about the difference between the FG and FGE? Almost an inch if I am not mistaken. The Extremes are MASSIVE compared to anything else on the market. Realistically this reduces their effective use to very limited amount of exercises unless you have Andre the Giant hands or a grip that can embarrass a gorilla.  Most of my athletes and clients cannot use them period and they give my older athletes a very hard time with simple lifts. To be totally honest I only bought them because they're just too ridiculous not to have. BUT I do find good use for them with very light small muscle work such as shoulder movements or holding exercises. If I'm feeling nutty then some pressing movements.

The material is pretty tough and durable. Even stretched it out it will find its way back to its original shape. What this means is it takes some work in order to open the grip up to get it on the bar. The FGExtreme is even tougher. I joke with my athletes telling them if they can't open the extreme then they shouldn't be using it. This really isn't too much an issue if you staying with one object at a time. I.E. just using a pair 40's for a few sets before moving on. However, if you are trying to superset multiple dumbbells or the like this will prove to be time consuming and a pain in the ass if you don't have a few pairs. And at $40+ a pair that is not likely.

As for training the FG and FGE give a very 'natural' expansion to the bar. You simply need to just hold on and pull or press to your hearts content. If the bar is wider than 28mm (which most are) the grips will stick to the bar and rarely ever move unless pulled open. This is great for when doing exercises that require a neutral grip like hammer curls or tri-extensions. Some fatter bars can be annoying as they grips will expand even farther leaving a gap. Not a huge issue.

I mentioned for a moment the material is very tough. I've had my pair for almost a year and between my athletes and myself they show no signs of degradation. So its a very solid design. My gripe with the FGEs is the steep angling on the ends. If your hand finds its way to either edge the grip will collapse slightly. This seems to be a design fault and hopefully they look into changing the sloping. It really should just go straight down instead of sloping inward as sharply as it does. The material isn't THAT strong.

Lastly, just something I wanted to note about the cost and the materials. The FG is priced comparatively to other grip trainers while the FGE is about 10-20 more per pair. What concerns me is where these things are made from. Likely China but to date I have not found anything listed. So if buying American or where the product comes from is a concern then it should be noted that FGs do not have that openly listed. It also makes me wonder why the price is so damn high.

Bottom line.
 I like FGs and the bigger Extremes as well. They add a unique variety to same old lifting routine and really do a number on the forearms and hands. I don't like the idea that they are not made in the good ole' U.S. of A. especially at the price. They do however offer a stable fat bar alternative to those on a budget that don't want to buy specialty bars.