MANUS: fat grips

July 30, 2013

June 19, 2013

Manus Thick Bar Review

Hi Guys,

Welcome to the new review secretion of the blog/website! Here I will be talking about, recommending and telling people to stay away from products that will aid your training and diet. For the purposes for being open and honourable, the only company that I am affiliated with is Scramble however I have worked with or consulted for a few other companies. I will always high light in the reviews if this is the case.

Today I would like to talk about Myproteins thick bar grip attachments. I have no affiliation with Myprotein and have never consulted for them.

These are large circular grips that can be attached to bars and dumbbells, making the grip much more taxed during weight based exercises. Fantastic right? However why would you want to tax your grip? What benefits does this offer? Is it just another gimmick or will this add real, quantifiable results to your training? Who would want to use such an item? Well the following people might want to look into something that helps target grip work;

People in grappling sports. Everyone has faced that dude with a vice like grip and we all want to be that guy/girl after.
Strongman competitors.
People looking to increase foreman size or density (physique and bodybuilders).
Anyone who likes different training and looking a little weird in the gym.

Right, so lets jump into the review!

Construction

The grips are made out of a heavy duty rubber with an angled slit to help aid getting them on the bar. One of the first things that I noticed was how robust they felt. With them weighing about a KG each, it was clear that they had been put together to stand a fews knocks (ideal for the weight room). With them being rubber, each grip is slightly soft but doesn’t have a spongy feel to them. the grips are smooth with no knurling on them.

Performance

All in all, the performance of the grips was (and still is fantastic). However there are a few issues that have come up while using the grips;

For the first few times that I used them, the grips were hard to get onto a bar or dumbbells. However after a couple of weeks of using the grips the rubber got looser and became much easier.
Due to them being made of rubber they often move on the bar. This isn’t normally a problem was you are squeezing the grips and they don’t move. However on things like pull ups they become a nightmare. I ended up just abandoning them for that exercise completely.

As far as the effects go, they are fantastic for getting an added pump when curling, making any rowing variation MUCH more taxing, turning normal bars into fat bars for pressing and of course, made all grip work a lot harder!

I am going to keep the grips in my workouts due to the effect they have on fore arm and grip strength. As a Jujitsu athlete, this is something that is high on the list of benefits!