Product Review: IronMind Captains of Crush

[diamondpete]

Product Review: IronMind Captains of Crush
http://ironmind.com/ironcms/opencms/ironmind/


For me, a product review starts with the purchasing experience. Being in Japan with the high shipping costs, I am cautious about ordering items that I cannot see first simply because a money-back guarantee for a $20 item that costs $15 to ship is not very useful or appealing to me.

So I sent an email asking about shipping charges and which models they would recommend. TEN hours later I received a clear, helpful response from Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D., President of IronMind. I placed my order on Aril 13th at 3 PM. I quickly received a confirmation of my order and was told they would ship the next day. I am in Japan and I received my Captains of Crush Grippers on the afternoon of April 19th!

How could it get better than that?? Well, it did! When I opened the parcel I was surprised (they were better than I had imagined) and impressed by the quality of the Captains of Crush Grippers. They are a first class product. They are guaranteed for one year but based on the high quality, they will last MUCH longer than that. If I have any complaint it would be that they are hard to close! LOL. I strongly recommend the Captains of Crush Grippers with NO reservations. The customer service from IronMind was first class and the Captains of Crush Grippers are first class!

MODELS: I bought the Sport @ 80lbs and the Trainer @ 100lbs. I will use the sport as a warm-up (though it is still a bit tough for me now) for the trainer and the move on to a # 1 when I am ready. I will definitely buy a #1@ 140lbs and #2 @ 195lbs when I get stronger. I am very impressed by the quality of this product.

[Newlife]

Great Post and review. I fully agree. Very high quality and worth the price.

[igunick]

you think you have high shipping costs? :p I have ordered the trainer and the n°1, and it costs me 18$ per item to ship :p

[GqArtguy]

Ironmind makes awesome stuff.

[pjb923]

Thanks for the review Pete. I have been thinking of ordering a set of grippers for a while now, and your review convinced me to finally place the order.

I got a Sport, Trainer and #1, they just arrived ar hour ago. My first impression was pretty much the same as yours. These things are no joke. They are in a whole different league than any of the plastic toys most people think of when you mention grippers. They are 100% metal and have knurling similar to most olympic bars.

The Sport is fairly easy for me and I probably could have skipped it, but it is nice for warming up and lighter work. The trainer is the perfect resistance for me right now. I can manage 8-10 reps at a time.

The #1 is a whole different beast. I am 6' 230lbs with 7.5" hands and I just barely managed to close the #1. I have a long way to go before even thinking about the #2. And I can't even imagine the strength involved in closing a #3 (280lbs).

On a side note, I also ordered a set of the "Expand-your-hand-bands". They are a set of glorified rubber bands used for training the extenson muscles of the hand. I figured I might as well balance out the crushing grip workouts. They seem well made and come with 5 different thickness bands. You get 2 of each thickness. The biggest one is almost a full inch wide and is very hard to open with 1 hand. They should also last me a long time.

[Chris Correia]

Thanks for posting the review Peter. I'll be getting some of those at some point not to far away.

[DKing]

Originally Posted by pjb923

The Sport is fairly easy for me and I probably could have skipped it, but it is nice for warming up and lighter work. The trainer is the perfect resistance for me right now. I can manage 8-10 reps at a time.

The #1 is a whole different beast. I am 6' 230lbs with 7.5" hands and I just barely managed to close the #1. I have a long way to go before even thinking about the #2. And I can't even imagine the strength involved in closing a #3 (280lbs).

I train with a guy who is working on closing the #4. Its nuts. Although with the different rules for official certification I don't think he is training very hard for it anymore.

Danny

[The Village Idiotz]

Beyond the benefits of the hand strength used while lifting weights is there any other reason why I would continue to increase my hand strength? Maybe to crush full beer cans?

[milkman21]

Originally Posted by The Village Idiotz

Beyond the benefits of the hand strength used while lifting weights is there any other reason why I would continue to increase my hand strength? Maybe to crush full beer cans?

Firm handshake for when you meet your ex-girlfriend's new catch... Or if more appropriate, for when your daughter brings home her new boyfriend.

Show those guys who's boss.

[pjb923]

Originally Posted by The Village Idiotz

Beyond the benefits of the hand strength used while lifting weights is there any other reason why I would continue to increase my hand strength? Maybe to crush full beer cans?

Don't forget about tearing phone books and decks of cards in half, exploding apples with your bare hands and ripping tennis balls in half.

But seriously, here is a quote taken from a new member over at gripboard.com.

I'm 55 yrs old. I run a small blacksmith business on the side. A few years ago I developed problems in my hammer hand. (Blacksmiths are very vulnerable to this kind of injury). I started doing some grip training and was very impressed with the results. My arm problems went away. I seemed to be a LOT stronger all around and most surprisingly my SKILL with the hammer took a big jump! Most smiths use hammers in the range of 2.5# to 3#. When I started having problems I was swinging a 2.5#. I can now swing a 4# hammer all day with no signs of joint stress!

Anyway I have come to the conclusion that you just cant have too much grip strength. Especially if you work with your hands.

So there are real world benefits depending on your line of work, and there are a lot of people out there that work with their hands.

[Chris Correia]

Originally Posted by milkman21

Firm handshake for when you meet your ex-girlfriend's new catch... Or if more appropriate, for when your daughter brings home her new boyfriend.

Show those guys who's boss.

I just keep on my shoulder holster.

[Chris-STL]

I've thought about getting something like this since we started climbing. Thanks for the review!

[nanook]

If you are really interested in hand strength, I would highly recommend John Brookfield's " Mastery of Hand Strength". There are many different aspects of hand strength and he covers them all.