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Broken 'Core'

Many people have caught on to the 'core' strength training craze (possibly because they still believe in 'spot fat reduction' - and their 'cores' look less like an apple core and more like an untouched pear).

While true 'core' (aka 'trunk') strength is important, an injury to this area can be very debilitating. As I combat a back injury that has yet to be diagnosed for 3 months and is still causing pain, I have looked to my extremities as an area to develop new capacities.

Today's picture is a mini basket ball bought at Target for approximately $9.00. Using Pierre's (From Capital CrossFit) method for making medicine balls (drill hole, fill with sand, plug with car tire repair plug and rubber glue), I was able to make a great 10lb mini ball for scaling workouts and is a great grip strength training tool. You can see the little nubs where I patched the holes in the picture By tossing the ball and catching it palm down, the hands and fingers get a great amount of work in the wide open position (a place where most grips fail).

If this type of training is familiar. You are probably familiar with things like block training and John Brookfield (hand strength guru and strongman athlete). His book "Mastery of Hand Strength" is a great resource for training your fingers, hands, and wrists. While the book is brief, it has great ideas on making your own implements for hand strength, as well as training methods, and a little bit of the history of hand strength.

Hopefully I can turn this halt of my regular training into something positive and develop my hands and wrists, so when I do get back to full shape, the time will not have been waisted. -jj