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Hand Training With A Rice Bucket
I’ve written about training the hands with a rice bucket before, but the video below helps to illustrate some of the specifics.
I first learned about the rice bucket as a young baseball player. Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton popularized it. He credited the rice bucket for developing the necessary hand strength to throw his tight slider. Several other well known pitchers used the rice bucket as well (ex. Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens).
The rice bucket is also useful for fighters. It is important to have strong, enduring hands. Not only will strong hands be less susceptible to injury, but the added grip endurance allows the fighter to continually clench the fist when striking round after round. A fighter who lacks grip endurance will struggle to clench the fists on impact, particularly when the hands are wrapped with gauze, inside small competition gloves.
The rice bucket is an inexpensive option for hand work.
The Specifics
I fill each bucket with approximately 20 pounds of rice.
To fill each bucket, I use “extra long grain” rice. The 50 pound bag below cost less than $15. Smaller bags could obviously be purchased for personal use. I buy the 50 pound bags to fill up multiple buckets.
In summary, the rice bucket may seem odd, but it is actually quite useful and can be used almost anywhere. If you are looking for an inexpensive hand training option, a bag of rice may just what you need.
11 Comments so far
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Wow, thanks Ross. How long till u see results?
Very effective, I remember watching Clemens do this training years ago. Interestingly enough, I came across a paper by Dr. Ellington Darden (of HIT fame), discussing do similar work with mud.
I like the ability here to train finger flexion (gripping) and extension with the same tool. Good for longterm joint health.
great idea!!
this is useful for any sport using hands
here’s a link for more exercise info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzcbgpes3is
Do you have to change the rice once in a while?
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Mufabo – The rice will last a long time (years)
great workout. as dodo said this is a great way to work the extensors and flexors muscles. I have a silly question, wouldn’t the rice get bugs with time? is there a substitute for rice to perform these exercises? thanks.
Just got my own bucket with just 5lbs of rice. Probably will need more, but its working for now.
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Great idea! For how long do you do it each time? How many times a week? Maybe it is said in e video, but I do not have access…