Do you know that your handgrip strength can be an indicator for your overall health?
It is important to note that as you age, you tend to lose muscle mass and this is when strength training becomes even more important if you want to build your fitness, muscle mass, and handgrip strength.
You also get to avoid incurring physical injuries when your grip strength is high. While handgrip strength may not be most people’s parameter for measuring good health, there are many studies that actually point to the direct correlation between grip strength and good health.
In fact, your grip strength can help in the early detection of chronic ailments. In this article, you will get to know what handgrip strength is, what grip strength can reveal about your overall health status, why your knowledge of your grip strength is vitally important, and how you can greatly improve your grip strength for better health.
What is Handgrip Strength (HGS)?
Whenever you hold onto objects, you exert a certain amount of force. This force may vary depending on the weight of the object and the amount of strength needed to lift, push, squeeze or drag the object.
Your handgrip strength (HGS) is therefore that amount of force that your hands are able to exert on an animate or inanimate object. Your handgrip strength is essentially a measure of both the function and strength of the skeletal muscles of your forearms and hands.
A dynamometer is a handheld tool used in measuring your HGS in kilograms. To measure your HGS, you will have to squeeze the dynamometer and the squeezing force exerted by your handgrip is measured.
Typically, a low HGS for men is one where less than 26 kilograms of HGS is measured on the dynamometer while for women a measurement of 16 kilograms is indicative of a low HGS.
What Health Conditions does HGS Indicate?
There are studies that prove that HGS can consistently serve as a biomarker of the current state of health and wellbeing of individuals. HGS can also serve as an early predictor for possible future health and wellbeing outcomes.
As a matter of fact, your handgrip strength can be used as an indicator for several health conditions including your overall physical fitness and strength, malnutrition, bone density, upper and lower limb function, depression, cognitive impairment, diabetes, chronic diseases, and sleep issues amongst many other health concerns.
Your HGS will also serve as a pointer to your overall quality of life and if you have a low handgrip strength, then it may be a symptom of several minor and chronic health conditions.
If you have a low handgrip strength, you are more than likely to experience some difficulty in carrying out otherwise simple physical activities like pushing, lifting, pulling, and squeezing objects.
Having a low HGS is also often linked to malnutrition, cognitive impairment, high levels of inflammation, poor sleep quality, and poor cardiovascular health. It is worth noting that as you age, your skeletal muscle mass and strength tends to decline, as a result of an age-related condition known as sarcopenia.
As you lose muscle mass, you will also experience a decline in your bone mineral density which increases your risk of bone fractures. To help reduce the effects of age-related sarcopenia to your bone health, you should engage in strength training to build both your muscle mass and handgrip strength even in old age.
Indeed, many researchers suggest that having a high handgrip strength is not just an indicator of good health, and a high quality of life, but also of longevity.
How to Check your Handgrip Strength
As mentioned before, you can measure your HGS with the use of a handheld dynamometer. You could also do so using a grip strength meter device which you can find when you take a trip to your physician’s office.
Using either a grip strength meter or dynamometer will help to measure the amount of force that your dominant and less dominant hand is able to generate.
Your doctor will be able to immediately determine if you have a low, average or high handgrip strength with the use of these HGS devices. You could be suffering from a handgrip strength problem where there is at least a 10% difference in the measured handgrip strength score between your less dominant and dominant hand.
How to Improve Your Handgrip Strength
#1. Strength Training
You don’t have to wait for a trip to your doctor’s office before taking action to improve your handgrip strength. You can start today by making a concerted effort to begin a strength training program that will target the skeletal muscles of both your forearms and hands.
Some of the best exercises to improve your HGS include workouts like Wrist Curls, Dumbbell Rows, Deadlifts, and Kettlebell Farmer Carries.
You can also improve your handgrip strength when you make use of thick hand grips, such as traditional spring loaded hand grippers or when you exercise by hanging from a pull-up bar.
When you engage in these exercises, your grip will become stronger while your risk of poor physical and mental health is greatly reduced.
#2. Lifestyle Changes
By avoiding a sedentary lifestyle and embarking on strength training, you will indeed be making a healthy lifestyle change, but there are other changes to your quality of life that you need to consider.
If you are a cigarette smoker for example, you really need to quit, as cigarette smoking is known to adversely affect your handgrip strength. Also, the frequent eating of unhealthy meals like French fries, and burgers can greatly lower your HGS.
However, you can improve your handgrip strength by consuming more protein in your daily meals, as protein helps to regenerate damaged muscle tissues while also building muscle mass and strength.
#3. Good Quality Sleep
You need to sleep for an average of between 7 to 8 hours daily if you want to improve your handgrip strength and your overall health.
Sleeping gives your body time to recover while the damaged muscle tissues of your hands and forearms tend to regenerate, add muscle mass, and strengthen in the process.
Good quality sleep will equally help to lower your stress and blood pressure levels which will greatly improve your handgrip strength.
Conclusion
Knowing your handgrip strength is an effective and quick way of evaluating your general fitness and this is regardless of your gender, age or race.
You can test your HGS by using a digitalised handheld accelerometer or dynamometer device which reads your fatigability, submaximal force steadiness, and rate of force development to quickly indicate the overall strength of your handgrip.
Knowing your HGS will help you to predict the outcome of your general health while providing an early warning indicator for possible chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even cancer.
