Using Towels to Build Muscle and Strength

Want to instantly improve your total body strength and maximize your workouts with a simple piece of household equipment? Read on.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into SAPT for my initial interview was that all of the athletes seemed to have a towel in hand. Looping them through kettlebells, wrapping them around barbells, hanging them over pullup bars, you name it, the towels were being used for it. As I walked through the facility, a high school guy nearly ran me over as he scurried across the room holding a towel looped through few kettlebells.

Didn’t take me long before I looked at the President of SAPT and asked her:

“So, uh, what’s with all the towels?”

She smirked, and proceeded to tell me how SAPT makes grip strength a major priority in their programs. And, rather than purchase one of the many “grip gimmicks” out there, they found it much cheaper – and even more effective – to use a simple hand towel.

Using a towel to perform various exercises (examples to follow, don’t worry) will automatically increase the demand of your wrist and forearm musculature, thus improving grip strength. There was a time I cared less about grip strength, but once I began to work at it, I quickly noticed its impact on my performance during the other lifts.

You see, your grip is – more times than not – the first link in the chain when lifting. Whether deadlifting, bench pressing, or pullup-ing (? Yeah…just go with it), there’s no denying your hands connect your larger muscle groups to the bar. Which means if your grip goes, the lift goes. However, if you’ve got bone-crushing grip strength, you don’t waste as much energy trying simply to hold on to a slipping bar. Instead, your larger muscle groups can take the brunt of the work.

Okay, let’s get to the reason you clicked on this article in the first place (i.e. ways in which you can use the towel to improve your strength and athletic performance during your workouts). Here are just five exercises you can immediately incorporate into your training to ensure a grip of steel, with the added bonus of increasing your chances of the opposite gender wanting to hang out with you:

1. Towel KB (or Plate) Farmers Walk

Loop a towel through each kettlebell, and walk for 40-100 yds. The key here is to stand as “tall” as possible, with your shoulder back and down. If you need to add weight, I prefer to stack a plate on top of the kettlebell (as shown in the second half of the video) instead of using a second kettlebell. When you’re done, don’t worry about the fact that your fingers are stuck to your palm. They’ll unglue eventually.

If you don’t have kettlebells, you can still do this exercise with weight plates. Things get entertaining when you compete to see who can carry the most weight by a towel:

2. Towel-Grip Bent Over Barbell Row

This one is an especially handy exercise for those without a “T-Bar” apparatus at their gym. Just anchor a barbell into a corner and execute the exercise as shown. I love this one because you get the benefits of rowing along with tremendous grip improvements.

One tip: I don’t recommend using plates larger than 25 lbs, as I find that larger plates tend to smack you in the chest before you can complete the full range of motion.

3. Towel-Grip Inverted Row

The awesomeness and benefits of inverted rows have already been discussed in THIS article, so I don’t need to elaborate much here. However, performing the exercise by holding on to a towel really enhances grip strength.

Think about “pulling the towel apart” and squeezing your shoulder blades together as you row up.

4. Towel Pullup

You don’t need to be Einstein to figure this one out. Just throw two towels over a pullup bar and hang on for dear life as you pull up.

If using two towels is too difficult initially, then use just one. Simply hold on to the bar with one hand, and grab a towel with the other hand. You can either perform a complete set per side, or perform half the reps on one side, and then switch.

5. Fat Grip Barbell Hold with Towel

This is a fantastic option for those that don’t have access to a fat bar. Tightly wrap two small hand towels around the barbell, pick it up, and hold for 20-60 seconds.

Normal bars from here on out will feel like nothing!

A towel and these five exercise variations added into your workouts. It’s truly all you need. Oh, and no need to worry, you can thank me later for the improvements in muscle and strength you see over the next four weeks.

To maximize your results when using these exercises 1R would recommend the following supplements:

1. Optimum Nutrition Threshold Beta-Alanine - Will help increase your workout capacity which will improve performance and strength during high
2. intensity training
3. Cytosport Creatine - By increasing your body's ATP production creatine will help you become more explosive, more powerful, and more athletic when taken before or after lifts
4. Cytosport Whey Isolate – Naturally rich in glutamine, BCAA’s and other important nutrients, this protein supplement will help you build lean muscle mass when taken after training sessions