An Introduction to Blobs

What's Blob training all about?

Alfred Pageby Alfred Page

Filed in : Articles
Tags : , , , , , , ,

Blob50 and York Legacy Blobs
Blob50 and York Legacy Blobs.
A Blockweight or 'Blob' as it is commonly known, is a single cut head from a dumbbell. A Blob can come in any size, weight or shape depending on which style of dumbbell it has been cut from. The most common are 'hex' head and the aspirin-shaped cast heads. The original 'Blob' and the idea for a training tool, belongs to Richard Sorin and it is this shape, cut from an old 100lb York cast dumbell, which is used in the GNC Grip Gauntlet.
Training with Blobs can build tremendous total hand and grip strength, with particular emphasis on the often underdeveloped thumb and 'pinch grip'. The idea is simple: Pick the Blob off the floor with one hand.

For my own training, which forms the basis of this article, I use heads from York Legacy Dumbbells, although nearly all of the methods can be applied with most other shapes. These are cast iron and have one fairly flat side and a flared side. I have 5 of these ranging from 12.5kg up to 22.5kg in 2.5kg increments, and before getting them had never touched, or even seen a Blob.

My training


To begin with I trained a brief session almost every day, with a combination of single lifts, timed holds and passing it from hand to hand, or around my body. This daily training soon proved excessive so I eased off to 2 or 3 sessions per week. During this time I was doing little or no gripper work, with is my other main grip interest.

It felt most natural for me to place my 4 fingers on the flared side of the Blob and my thumb on the flat side. I soon realised this was in fact the 'easy' way of lifting them and it was more difficult and thus productive, to attempt all the lifts with my thumb on the flared side. Obviously at first it meant backing down to the smaller weights and building the strength back up and then my goal was always lifting the next weight up in this manner.

Note: Your Pinch strength is ultimately determined by your thumb strength.

You Might Also Like...


The Rotater
The Rotater.
Brilliant device. If your shoulders aren't quite as flexible as you'd like, grab The Rotater. Love it.
Already got one? Looking for something specific? Swing by the Straight to the Bar Store. It's all in there.

Other Tips

I always warm up before Blob training by soaking my hands in hot water for a few minutes followed by loosening and rotating my wrists & fingers. Pinch gripping is far more difficult with cold hands. Try pinching a really heavy Blob with 'both hands' for timed holds. Try to add a second or 2 each workout.

If you combine Hand Grippers and Blockweights in the same session, always aim to do the Grippers first. You should find that some crushing done first will have far less effect on your pinch strength than Blockweights will have on your crushing strength should you do them first.

I currently train grip 2-3 times per week and alternate Blobs and Grippers each session. Sometimes a max gripper attempt is a good warmup for your Blobs. I find mixing up the exercises each session more productive than just doing, say, high volume singles. A sesion could include some max singles, 2 sets of passing from hand to hand and 3 timed holds with both hands on a reallly heavy blob.

These are merely suggestions, based on my own limited experience. As a complete novice I progressed from pinching a 12.5kg Legacy Blob in October 2008 to lifting a 22.5kg Legacy Blob (albeit with my thumb on the flat side) on January 1st 2009. For some further reading on Blockweights, please see Eric's article 'The way I trained to close the Ironmind #3 Gripper', and the section in John Brookfield's excellent book 'Mastery of Hand Strength' or any of the articles on www.straighttothebar.com.


Alfred Page

Alfred Page certainly loves grip training; with an impressive collection of blobs, grippers and other fun things. Perfect.



Like this? Check out :

70 of the Best : 7 Years of Straight to the Bar.

This site - Straight to the Bar - has been around for an incredible 7 years (the first post was on Jan 17th, 2004), and to say I'm grateful is a gross understatement.

Thank you.

Taking Advantage of Your Location.

The Home Gym.

The Bodyweight Aficionado's Guide to Gear.

A few extras that can add a whole lot of possibilities.

Blast from the Past : Feats of Strength.

Ready for a serious challenge? Great.

GripWalking.

A great way to get a little grip work.

Odd Object Training.

Ready for something a little different?


Of course, if you enjoyed these, I'd highly recommend grabbing the Strength & Fitness Newsletter. Delivered weekly, and absolutely free.

(there's also a Daily Update, if you're looking for an even larger dose of training-related goodness.)

NB : If you'd like to write a guest post for Straight to the Bar, or if you'd like to join the team of Moderators here (I love hearing about everyone's training approaches) - get in touch. And if you've got a fitness competition or seminar coming up, add it to the calendar.

Look forward to hearing from you.


Over to you. Leave a comment below, or send us a tweet :


blog comments powered by Disqus
Straight to the Bar Strength Kit

Are You as Strong as You Could Be?

Grab the Straight to the Bar Strength Kit.

Training Guides, eBooks and of course the Strength & Fitness Newsletter. Absolutely free.