FJ's Verdict:

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Product Name: GRIPMASTER
Company: prohands
MSRP: $15.95
Availability: Medium (Online & Maybe Some Stores)

When I’m introduced to a new soul, do you know the one thing that turns me off more than ANYTHING in the world? A weak pussy-like handshake. Seriously, man or woman… I don’t give a shit, if you’re gona shake my hand, let me at least know that you’re alive. If you give me a limp noodle to hold on to, I’ll squeeze it into the shape of a bow-tie.

I’ve actually done this. If people go to shake my hand, and I feel like I’m holding on to a squeeze toy… Guess what I tend to do? You got it. Their facial expression followed by the self massaging of their hands to address damage control just cracks me up. Oh and it’s not only me… If you’re up for an interview and give some limp handshake, trust me, its OVER.

So what if you don’t have a natural vice-like grip? What if you can’t muster up a squeeze to let people know of your existence… Are you doomed? Well, not if prohands can help it. Today were going to be looking at a little device called the GRIPMASTER – it’s designed to help athletes (or normal folks) improve their grip to improve performance in sports such as tennis, baseball, hockey, sport shooting etc. Basically, anything that requires you to hold on to something with a good grip and giver’! (Masturbation isn’t a sport gentlemen)

Before I put this thing through my abusive test, let’s see what prohands has to say about their product…

Product Claims:

“The GRIPMASTER is our signature model. It’s ideal for any athlete wanting to develop hand strength. Available in four different color-coded models of graduated resistance, GRIPMASTER offers both men and women an opportunity to dramatically increase hand, wrist, and forearm strength.”

First Impressions:

The unit comes with a little brochure that is, for the lack of a better word… Useless. I mean it gives you the warnings, the recommendations and also tells you about their other products such as the VIA (targeted for women) and their PRO series (Which will be reviewed in the future). But the whole point of this thing is to workout your hands, and it only shows you 2 exercises out of the available 11 that they have. Where are the others you ask? Well you need to go to prohands.net to view them. Ridiculous. Do they really think that everyone has 24/7 access to the Internet? Common sense can sometimes go a LONG way!

On the other hand, I will admit this: the animations of the exercises on the website have top-notch production quality and I guess I can kinda see why they point you over there… but I don’t see any reason why they can’t print all 11 on the brochure coupled with helpful pictures. If I’m confused and need to watch animations for further clarification, I will do so on my own. I do have a god damn brain you know.

Moving on to the unit itself… I have to say I am very surprised. For 15 bucks this thing has a glossy finish to it, the springs are attractive in chrome, each individual “piston” depresses smoothly without any quirks and the black grip portion which wrests on your palm is comfortable as fuck. I also like how the black portion has a “lip” to it so that hugs the muscle between your thumb and index finger. Class… Pure class!

gripmaster_comfortlip

The pistons are also slightly “grooved” so that your finger tips can rest on them without slipping off.

gripmaster_finger_groove

Another great bit is how you can, if you chose to do so, hold this thing upside down since either way it will contour to your hands. This my friends is perfection. I’m really not kidding here…  You have to hold this sucker in your hand to realize the top-notch build quality that they managed to pull off for a mere $15 bucks!

Gripmaster_upsidedown

Real World Results:

So it’s well built and attractive, but is it actually USEFUL? Well to answer this question, I put it through a variety of tests, along with a little workout routine comprised from the 11 exercises which prohands mention on their site.

I do have to say, the tension on the unit I got was a little easy for my tastes… But this isn’t prohands fault. I have the unit which is stated at medium tension, if you’re a male that is 15 years of age or older, go for the heavy tension model. Actually, if you’re 15… WTF are you doing here? Don’t let your mommy catch you reading my obnoxious content.

Anyways, back to the testing. Now, I’ve got big hands *wink*… The distance from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my pinky finger is 9inches and the GRIPMASTER was a pleasure to hold on to, but if I had a choice, I would have liked it to be the size of the PRO series. That unit is the PERFECT size for my hand. To see how this thing fairs in smaller hands, I had to test it out personally… But I wasn’t about to shrink my fingers. So I gave it to the one woman on this planet who has the privilege of bossing me around – Grandma!

gripmaster_grandma

She loved this thing! It fit in her hand perfectly, and to my surprise, got in a decent amount of reps with a few minor struggles. Not bad for someone who’s 70 huh? I hope she doesn’t read this… She’ll kick my ass for revealing her age to the general population.

Let’s get to the exercises. The first one I performed was the full hand squeeze. There’s nothing to this one, just hold on to the GRIPMASTER and squeeze it as hard as you can. Wash, rinse, repeat. Works well. The good thing about this product over the traditional grip/hand exercisers is the ability to have individual pistons for each finger. You can instantly see how much weaker the grip on your pinky is versus, say… The middle finger. It brings out your weakness – A very good thing.

Gripmaster_fullsqueeze

Next up was the individual finger press downs. This one can be challenging since you now have to place the tip of each finger into the grooves and squeeze. A great exercise for guitar players. Again, it instantly brings out the weakness of your pinky and ring finger. Oddly enough, the strongest finger for me was the index, not the middle finger. I think it’s because I like to poke people, then point and tell them what to do… It’s the only possible explanation I have.

gripmaster_fingerpress

Then we have the finger & thumb pinch, and thanks to the lip on the black portion of the GRIPMASTER, it won’t slip or fly out of your hands while performing this exercise. Though I was wondering… where exactly would you need to have the ability to do a strong-ass pinch? I guess it can help you work the TV remote with pin-point accuracy, and maybe even help scrawny video game nerds press their controller buttons with ease… because we all know how challenging a Playstation controller can be. Pfft…

Gripmaster_pinch

Moving on, we have the tricep press down. This was an interesting one, and was surprisingly effective… But I don’t see why you wouldn’t just perform triangle push ups. I guess if you spend most of your time in an office environment seated all day long, you can perform this right on the table and get in a half-decent triceps workout. The only thing that I recommend if you chose this route is the heavy tension GRIPMASTER. The medium tension requires wayyyy too many reps before you start to feel a burn.

Gripmaster_tricepsexercise

I also invented an awesome one called “gun control”. This can be used by law enforcement officers or people who like to do sport shooting. Basically you hold the grip master vertically and while pretending to hold on to a gun, depress and hold the pistons under your middle, ring and pinkie finger.

gripmaster_gunaim

Now aim it as if you were about to shoot and rapidly depress the piston under the index finger… Simulating a trigger. I own an airgun, and after spending one week doing the “gun control” exercise with the GRIPMASTER, I noticed that my gun stability improved by a fair margin. Shots were accurate and I was finally able to hit a quarter sized target from 50 feet without the aid of a scope. Bang on!

Those are the main exercises which I found useful, to view the rest, make sure you visit their website.

Conclusion:

Well folks, there really isn’t much else left to say. I mean common… Its built like a fucking brick but has the smooth finish of a fancy gadget, its a pleasure to use, is inexpensive, very functional, reliable, works as advertised and best of all… Is grandma approved! What more can you possibly ask for? I’m trying obnoxiously hard here, but I really can’t find anything to complain about. I even threw it down the stairs, hoping to find a flaw in the build quality but I had no such luck in achieving this goal.

As far as I’m concerned, the GRIPMASTER is pretty much completely without fault. Like… trust me, it’s really THAT good. You’d be crazy not to pick this up. Because of this, the GRIPMASTER will be the first product to receive:

To Being Fit & Sexy 4 Life!

-FitJerk

Flawless Fitness Book

handgrip_vs_gripmaster

P.S – I have no use left for my old pair of hand grip exercisers and as such, I will be doing a little “give away” for you guys. Details on how to win this give away will surface soon, but one thing is for sure… It’s only open to Bronze members. If you aren’t a Bronze member, make sure you sign up. It’s FREE!

P.P.S- What did you think? Do hand strengthening exercises tickle your fancy? Will you be picking up the GRIPMASTER to crush your boss’s hands? Let me know you’re alive and post a few comments below…

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