Strengthening arms and wrists.(underage)

DublinGAA96

Hi all, I am wondering what exercises are suitable to strengthen your arms and wrists for hurling? The purpose is I want to improve strength for striking and strength of wrists by about 20%. I currently use dumbbells, would they be the ideal exercise? The weight on the dumbbell altogether is 2.5kg, but I could add another kg on if needs be. I don't need to improve it dramatically just a small bit, and its an aspect of the game I want to familiarize myself with. But bearing in mind I am still only 16.

All help appreciated, thanks.

Palytoxin

Just get the heaviest hurl you have, and balance the ball on it at arms length for as long as you can, move it up and down and side to side to keep your arm working, if you're able to try to bounce it on the hurl, and if that gets too easy, bounce it on either side of the hurl switching the side of the boss you hit it on.
I do this every year just to get used to the weight of the hurl again and I find I'm better able to move the sliotar, flick it away etc. after a few weeks doing this. Try it on both arms of course, and I find its handy cause you can do it anywhere, if I was ever sitting down to watch a match on telly say, I'd always have the hurl there just to get the arm used to it. Works for me anyway!

GAAman

Ok well even taking into account your age firstly 2.5kg is nothing and secondly if you stick to just 2.5 or even 3.5 you will get no benefit. The rule of thumb when it comes to weight training is you build upwards to a level you are happy with. Dumbbell sets up to 25 kg are cheap enough these days if you want to see improvements this is what you should be setting your sights on. Even if a dumbbell set is not an option I used to use bags of spuds

As regards wrists, I will say now I am a football man but when I was younger I was known to puc about a bit the weights wont really help your wrists it would be more of an upper arm workout. However when I wanted to strengthen my wrists I did two things. First I would get a load of dried rice and pack it into a bucket or tub, then clench my fist and rotate the wrist around when packed down in the rice. Next I would try and grab the rice, keep a tight hold on as much as I could and do more wrist rotations.

The other thing I would do is grab the hurl by the bas and stretch my arm out. Then using only the wrist move the hurl up and down as far as I could go, then alternate it side to side.

I found these worked for me maybe they will help you out too

DublinGAA96

GAAman wrote: »

Ok well even taking into account your age firstly 2.5kg is nothing and secondly if you stick to just 2.5 or even 3.5 you will get no benefit. The rule of thumb when it comes to weight training is you build upwards to a level you are happy with. Dumbbell sets up to 25 kg are cheap enough these days if you want to see improvements this is what you should be setting your sights on. Even if a dumbbell set is not an option I used to use bags of spuds

As regards wrists, I will say now I am a football man but when I was younger I was known to puc about a bit the weights wont really help your wrists it would be more of an upper arm workout. However when I wanted to strengthen my wrists I did two things. First I would get a load of dried rice and pack it into a bucket or tub, then clench my fist and rotate the wrist around when packed down in the rice. Next I would try and grab the rice, keep a tight hold on as much as I could and do more wrist rotations.

The other thing I would do is grab the hurl by the bas and stretch my arm out. Then using only the wrist move the hurl up and down as far as I could go, then alternate it side to side.

I found these worked for me maybe they will help you out too

Yeah that's what I was thinking, I don't do do it at 2.5 and 3.5 kg I just said that because there the lightest at my disposal. I throw more weight on. I have small and large dumbbells at my disposal, I have no problem using large ones but I prefer small ones there handier and just easier. I did workouts for few weeks at the start of the year, the management team just introduced the panel to a variety of exercises which was good. To be honest I think it's more important to strengthen my wrists than arms because if your wrists are strong your striking is a lot snappier and quicker and more efficient which is what I want.

nice_guy80

rebel girl 15

google powerballs - got one a few years back, and is supposed to be good for increasing wrist strength

nice_guy80

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

google powerballs - got one a few years back, and is supposed to be good for increasing wrist strength

supposed to?
or does?

wrist strength is complemented by forearm strength.

added to the video above, for underage players you could spend 5 minutes at end of every session holding the hurley with one hand out in front of the body and just swing it from side to side. repeat with other hand

get a tyre and give players 30 secs hitting the tyre, switching sides and feet each time - great workout for the whole body actually

if you wanted to look at weights - then dumbbell work is the way to go. wrist curls (light weights), reverse curl (barbell), lunges with heavyish weight (short breaks), side lunges (with weights, farmers walk, pull ups
set up a little circuit and doe 3/4 of them in a row and back to the start again.

Henno30

At 16 you're old enough for weights programs. There are lots of straightforward programs for beginners that will make you stronger, and there are plenty of exercises for improving grip, wrist, and forearm strength. Just go onto Youtube and have a look. Some people will suggest doing your wall work with a heavy hurley and it's not a terrible idea, but you're going to sacrifice a little bit of speed (in your hurling) by using one.

Felexicon

If you are only concerned with wrist and forearm strenght then go with a powerball. You can pick them up in Argos for about €20 and they are class

nice_guy80

a powerball won't do much for you on the pitch when you're holding a hurley

the idea behind a weighted hurley is that then when you use a normal hurley your swing will be quicker due to the lighter weight

Henno30

nice_guy80 wrote: »

a powerball won't do much for you on the pitch when you're holding a hurley

the idea behind a weighted hurley is that then when you use a normal hurley your swing will be quicker due to the lighter weight

Being stronger helps, so yeah it'll do plenty for him when he's on the pitch holding a hurley.

Pride Fighter

Get a pair of handgrippers. They work for me, but I dont hurl so would not know if it effects you adversely in any way.

DublinGAA96

Henno30 wrote: »

At 16 you're old enough for weights programs. There are lots of straightforward programs for beginners that will make you stronger, and there are plenty of exercises for improving grip, wrist, and forearm strength. Just go onto Youtube and have a look. Some people will suggest doing your wall work with a heavy hurley and it's not a terrible idea, but you're going to sacrifice a little bit of speed (in your hurling) by using one.

Hi all, Op here, appreciate all the advice. I just picked out this post here. The one thing I do NOT want to do is sacrifice the speed of my hurling a little bit, and if this is the case then I'm ruling out the idea of using a heavy hurl.

I will start upping my workrate on my dumbbells, and I thought the idea of holding a heavy hurl by the bas, and moving it up and down and side to side might also help. I'll have a look on YouTube aswell. Any more advice much appreciated

solarith

The amount of utterly useless advice here is amazing.

Felexicon

solarith wrote: »

The amount of utterly useless advice here is amazing.

Good addition there.

I'm sure he will be amazed with the extra strenght in his wrists after this adivce.:rolleyes:

rebel girl 15

solarith wrote: »

The amount of utterly useless advice here is amazing.

If you don't have advice on this topic, then don't post - no need for it.

solarith

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

If you don't have advice on this topic, then don't post - no need for it.

OK - here's my advice to the OP.

Don't assume that strangers on the Internet know what they are talking about. They don't know your size, they don't know your weight, your speed, anything. If you want to improve your mechanics, there are people qualified for this sort of thing. Most clubs have at least one player, or know of someone doing a semblance of a sports science course in college or equivalent. Talk to them. Anyone telling a 16 year old to start using *25*kg weights to improve their WRISTS is insane.

Felexicon

solarith wrote: »

OK - here's my advice to the OP.

Don't assume that strangers on the Internet know what they are talking about. They don't know your size, they don't know your weight, your speed, anything. If you want to improve your mechanics, there are people qualified for this sort of thing. Most clubs have at least one player, or know of someone doing a semblance of a sports science course in college or equivalent. Talk to them. Anyone telling a 16 year old to start using *25*kg weights to improve their WRISTS is insane.

Correct. Infact if I had tried lifting 25kg wieghts when I was 16 I may have done serious damage to my arms. It's the classic case of people hearing arm strenght and going straight to the biceps

Palytoxin

A heavy hurl won't make your arms slower when you go back to the light one, but you'll be better able to handle the light one after using the heavy hurl.

nice_guy80

so basically I was correct

you need to develop overall arm strength, and not just wrist strength

GAAman

GAAman wrote: »

Ok well even taking into account your age firstly 2.5kg is nothing and secondly if you stick to just 2.5 or even 3.5 you will get no benefit. The rule of thumb when it comes to weight training is you build upwards to a level you are happy with. Dumbbell sets up to 25 kg are cheap enough these days if you want to see improvements this is what you should be setting your sights on. Even if a dumbbell set is not an option I used to use bags of spuds

As regards wrists, I will say now I am a football man but when I was younger I was known to puc about a bit the weights wont really help your wrists it would be more of an upper arm workout. However when I wanted to strengthen my wrists I did two things. First I would get a load of dried rice and pack it into a bucket or tub, then clench my fist and rotate the wrist around when packed down in the rice. Next I would try and grab the rice, keep a tight hold on as much as I could and do more wrist rotations.

The other thing I would do is grab the hurl by the bas and stretch my arm out. Then using only the wrist move the hurl up and down as far as I could go, then alternate it side to side.

I found these worked for me maybe they will help you out too

solarith wrote: »

OK - here's my advice to the OP.

Don't assume that strangers on the Internet know what they are talking about. They don't know your size, they don't know your weight, your speed, anything. If you want to improve your mechanics, there are people qualified for this sort of thing. Most clubs have at least one player, or know of someone doing a semblance of a sports science course in college or equivalent. Talk to them. Anyone telling a 16 year old to start using *25*kg weights to improve their WRISTS is insane.

Hmmm thinly veiled insult is thinly veiled.....

Seeing as you did not read my reply properly I have bolded the important parts of my post to make it easier for you to digest. I was NOT saying the *25*kg weights would strengthen his wrists in fact I specifically said it would be an arm workout. If you took a second to read the thread title which must be in Mandarin Chinese for everyone else because to me it reads "Strengthening ARMS and wrists" you might see where what I said came from.

You do not need a sports science degree to know that if you stick to a small weightset and do not progress to a higher weightset you will not increase strength! Or do you find fault there too? Lastly I made it clear in my post that this was all in my own experience as did others, not quite sure where it came across I claimed to be a leading sports scientist!

Just to add, I most certainly am not a coach at all, and I most certainly have not seen lads I helped coach and train go on to be in a current u-21 county panel.........not at all, even a smidgen!

Yeah that last part is not true!

All the best now

GAAman

Felexicon wrote: »

Correct. Infact if I had tried lifting 25kg wieghts when I was 16 I may have done serious damage to my arms. It's the classic case of people hearing arm strenght and going straight to the biceps

If I crossed the road when I was 16 I may have been hit by a bus.

I was going to include this in my reply to the other one but took it out, have to say it here now. When I was 14 my first job was in a fruit and veg shop. I would carry and move the "heavy scthuff" as my kerryman boss would say. These were 20-25 kg bags of spuds and 50 kg bags of coal. Often he would put two bags of coal on my shoulder to carry from the van up the street to the shop. When I was 14 I was a whippet, short and skinny as a rail.

Again as I have said in this thread this is all in MY experience but a weightset up to 25 kg's would be far more evenly distributed than 100 kg's of coal on one shoulder. It would be 12.5 kg's per arm which is nothing in comparison.

But to be honest I will say no more, feck you try and help someone and get lambasted in return!

Henno30

DublinGAA96 wrote: »

I will start upping my workrate on my dumbbells, and I thought the idea of holding a heavy hurl by the bas, and moving it up and down and side to side might also help. I'll have a look on YouTube aswell. Any more advice much appreciated

Dumbbells are a great tool for getting you to where you want to be, but you need to be clear about where that is first.

At your age, your body is raging with hormones that give you a capacity for muscle growth guys twice your age can only dream of. Weights programs are both appropriate and beneficial for you, but you need to know what your goals are.

To simplify matters, you need to think about your muscular development in two ways - muscular endurance, and muscular power. The type of training you do will depend on which one of these you are aiming at.

In simple terms, endurance training is about high intensity, high rep count workouts with lower weight. Strength training is about low reps with the maximum weight you can lift.

Now both of these are important to a field athlete like a hurler, so you have to think about which is more important to you. Your objectives define the nature of your program.

So let's say you want to gain muscle and strength. You may only need 5 exercises to go about this, namely the bench press, the shoulder (or overhead) press, the deadlift, squats, and rows. You'll notice that something like the bicep curl isn't in there. There's a very good reason for this.

The exercises I've listed are known as compound lifts. All this means is that they engage more muscles and muscle groups in your body than something like a bicep curl, which is supposed to isolate your biceps and work them specifically. For your purposes (getting bigger and stronger) that stuff isn't all that useful.

You want to be working as many muscle groups as you can, so you're developing as much of your body as possible in each session. Spending a lot of time on something like a bicep curl is like a guy taking up hurling spending all his time practicing sideline cuts. Obviously time spent working on touch, striking, catching, and rising the ball is more important and is far more valuable.

Strength training is the exact same. Those compound exercises are the foundation to getting stronger because they make a far greater contribution to your overall condition than isolation exercises.

So to start with, you could take those five exercises, and work up to a weight where five reps is the most you can do. You don't need to be pumping that dumbbell continuously for minutes at a time, that's endurance training, and it won't make you as strong as 3/4 reps at your maximum weight will. Once you've found that level where you're at your maximum weight, you aim to add more weight, or more reps every session, always moving up in weight when you're doing those five reps comfortably. This is what's known as progressive overloading.

Now maybe that's a lot of information, but the one thing I have to add here is that your diet is hugely important as well. But that's for another day. As complicated as it might seem at times, it really isn't. It's primarily about picking heavy sh*t up and putting it down again. If you stick to it, you will get bigger and you will get stronger.

Remember as well that you are a hurler, and you can never neglect the rest of your game in pursuit of better conditioning. But will a strength training program make you a better player? Yes, it absolutely will.