Forearms

Forearms: what are they?

The forearm holds around twenty muscles, but for training purposes they group into three families: the flexors on the palm side, the extensors on the back side, and brachioradialis, which runs up to the elbow and helps bend it. Most of them attach through the two bony points at the elbow, the medial and lateral epicondyles, which is why forearm overuse shows up there as golfer's and tennis elbow. Coaches rarely program forearms directly, and for many clients that is fine, because grip is the first thing to fail on a heavy row and gets trained every time.

Three kinds of grip

Crush grip is closing the hand around something, as in a gripper or a thick bar. Support grip is holding on without moving, as in a farmer carry, a dead hang or a heavy deadlift; this is the one that limits most gym work. Pinch grip is holding something between fingers and thumb, as in a plate pinch, and it is the most sport-specific of the three.

A client whose deadlift stops because the bar slips has a support grip problem, not a back problem. Farmer carries and dead hangs address it directly, and they take a few minutes at the end of a session.

How to train the forearms

Grip work responds to time under tension more than to load, and it recovers fast, so it can be added frequently. Balance the flexor work with extensor work; almost every client trains one and never the other.

Straps: when to use them and when not to

Straps are not cheating; they are a tool that decides which muscle limits the set. On heavy rows and pulldowns, where the goal is to train the back, straps let the lats reach failure instead of the grip. On deadlifts, using straps on every set means grip never develops, so a common approach is to pull the working sets without straps and add them only for the heaviest top sets or high-rep work.

The bigger point for a coach: decide deliberately. A client who uses straps on everything and never trains grip will find it limiting outside the gym; a client who never uses straps will undertrain their back. Both extremes are choices made by default rather than on purpose.

Elbow pain and forearm balance

Pain on the outside of the elbow, often called tennis elbow, and on the inside, often called golfer's elbow, involve the tendons where the forearm muscles attach. They are common in clients who grip hard for a job as well as in the gym, and they usually build up gradually rather than appearing suddenly.

The training response that tends to help is loading the tendon rather than resting it completely: slow, progressive wrist extension or flexion work depending on which side is affected, plus reducing the aggravating volume rather than stopping training altogether. Persistent or worsening elbow pain should be assessed by a clinician; a coach's role is managing load and building capacity.