Effective Forearm Strength Training
Most guys I know want stronger arms. They claim that they will do anything to get them, and yet, when they come to me for help--I am a personal trainer and competitive powerlifter--they are not interested when I tell them that the best thing they can do to get stronger arms is simply to increase their forearm strength. The reason behind this is the same as the reason why bodybuilders focus on bringing their weakest bodypart up to speed: the thing that hinders our overall strength is usually the area we're neglecting. Someone with strong biceps and triceps may not ever spend any time developing strong forearms.
This is a mistake. The forearm takes up a lot of space on the arm. All of that tissue between the hand and elbow, if developed, can lend incredible strength to the arm as a whole. If we neglect the forearm and wrist, we neglect half of our arm and much more in terms of potential.
Exercises for stronger forearms are simple, and luckily, they look like a lot of movements that anyone familiar with weight training already knows. The key to building stronger wrists is simply to put the wrist in a position of bad leverage during a lift. Have you ever met a guy who hasn't done a bicep curl? I haven't. Well, if that guy would pinch a 25 lb plate between his thumb and fingertips, and then do bicep curls without letting his wrist bend, he would build his biceps and his forearms.
Forearm training can be done with sledge hammers, dumbbells, barbells, and anything else where the hand can be moved off-center to generate tension through the leverage disadvantage.
So, if you are interested in getting powerful forearms, I recommend that you keep doing whatever you're doing for your arms, but get creative. Experiment. Find ways to lock your wrist into position and move it against resistance. The wrist is meant to be trained statically, not dynamically as it wiggles through three inch ranges of motion on EZ bar wrist curls.
Remember, you can't get stronger than your weakest link. For most guys, where the arms are concerned, that weak link is probably the forearm.
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