Grip strength is integral for motorcycle riding as endurance is needed to maintain control and manipulate the clutch, throttle, and front wheel brake with sensitivity and precision.
Article:As with any activity, an overall conditioning program is a good idea to build core body strength and condition the muscles to handle stresses and be ready for the activity. For any sports specific conditioning program, consult your physician and a reputable personal trainer before beginning, as physical training,isometric exercise especially, raises blood pressure significantly and can cause injury.
Grip strength is integral for motorcycle riding as endurance is needed to maintain control and manipulate the clutch, throttle, and front wheel brake with sensitivity and precision. After about 2-3 hours of road time,your hands and arms get fatigued and maneuvering can become more difficult, not to mention your reaction time slows down.
Here are A few simple exercises for yours hands:
Get a tennis ball, or anything similar you can grip, and do 3 sets of 15 to 20 repetitions, 2 to 3 times a week to build hand strength. Or you can do fingertips dumbbell curls with a light weight dumbbell (try 2 ½ lbs. to start). Place it in the palm of your hand, and let it roll slowly to the ends of your fingers. Grip the dumbbell with your fingertips and curl the dumbbell back into your palm. Start with 2 sets of 15
repetitions, and increase weight and repetitions up to 3 sets of 15 to 20 repetitions after you are used to the weight.
Next exercise: good bicep curls-standing or seated. Start with a weight you can do 3 sets of at least 10 reps with. Keep your elbows pressed against the sides of your waist, forearms straight out from elbows,lower the weights to just before your arm is straightened out, then slowly curl up until the weights are about 5" from your biceps. Do these reps slowly, the entire range of 1 rep should take about 5-7 sec.
This will work your biceps, forearms, and grip.
Last, but very good for your wrists:
Take a heavy duty rubber band-one of the thick ones than are about 1/4" wide, and put it over your left hand, resting above the thumb. Take your right hand, and slide it under the rubber band so your hands are now palm to palm in a "prayer position. Arch your hands so there's space between your palms. Press your fingers together, and arching your palms pull your wrists back about 2". This exercise is difficult to do at first-try to do 10 reps. Build up to 2 sets of 20 reps each. This strengthens and opens up the connective tissue in your wrists With any sport, practice makes you that much better, so another form of conditioning is building up your ride time. If you have not ridden longer than 15 minutes in the last 4 months, you will not have the stamina to go for a good cruise in the canyons. Start building up your ride time in increments. Don't overdo it, and remember to keep a relaxed grip on the handlebars. Hanging on with a death grip willfatigue your shoulders, and may cause you to ride in a leaned forward position, putting weight on yourarms. Instead, use your abdominals and legs to hold yourself up. This will prevent you from leaning onyour arms.
Trouble Shooting:
Do your hands feel strong, but you notice your wrists are sore after you get done riding?
You may need to adjust the angle of your levers to your clip-ons, or adjust your clip-on’s height. If you arenoticing a dull, numbing, carpal tunnel type pain, try rotating your clutch and brake down so your grip positioning is better. This will take about 5 minutes to do, and you will notice the difference the first time you ride.
Another problem can be your clip-on height. Try lowering or raising your clip-ons for a more comfortable position-about 1/4" lower or higher is often all the adjustment that is needed. However, if you are the type that likes adding gadgets to your bike, Helibar risers will raise your clip-ons, or you can just put on race
clip-ons-they're built for lower riding position. (One word of caution, riding with your clip-on position too low can cause pain under your shoulder blades or strain your traepezius muscle in your shoulders.) If you've adjusted your clip-on height and still feel like you're over reaching, try lowering your seat.
A Cure for gripping your handlebars too hard: relax. Take more frequent breaks with riding and get off the bike and stretch out a little bit, do some shoulder rotations and arm stretches. You can also get gel grips if you are tensing up while riding. If you feel as though you are "reaching" for the controls while riding, you can also try adjusting your seat height to keep you from leaning on your arms.
If you have done all these things and you find you are still experiencing pain-see a doctor. You may have stained muscles, or a more serious problem.
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