There was a time where (and you guys wont believe this, given I’m Mr Gorilla Grip) I could BARELY free my arm from his CLUTCH!
- Yes, there was!

Truth be told, I’m damn glad that time was there, and it was there.

I’m damn glad for the long run I got bullied at school, and no-one helped out – the opposite, actually.

I’m damn glad I wasn’t fit naturally, have genetics that are prone to the polar opposite despite the fitness machine I am NOW – and I’m glad I was never naturally strong.

And a host of other things.

And yes, that I was super PHAT at a certain point (but never a lazy phocker).

All of this has helped developed the never say die spirit in me, never giving up, going the whole humpty or not at all – the “brutally honest” character I have, the brutal and full fledged nature (and true) of my books, writing, and my workouts – and all else.

I would never have it any other way, I’d rather have it tough, learn how to fend for myself as opposed to the coddled BS today (even my Mom agrees there about the coddling and stupidity in school these days – where teachers are more interested in make up and phones, and end up throwing the entire term’s syllabus at the kids right before the exams, and do precisely F all the entire term – yes, true story! – and you know if Mom agrees with me, it’s true!).

Anyway, incident I’m referring to was in high school.

Eleventh or 12th grade perhaps.

Mayank Singh was his name, I believe. We took the bus home together. Hehe.

And we’d often get in each other faces.

His house is still near mine (the Indian house that is).

And one fine aftenoon we were fighting over something, grip or something, my friend kept saying ‘Mayank’ was fat, I was solid (I was sKINNY, lol) – and one thing led to the other, he gripped my forearm.

I tried all I could, I could barely budge my arm!

I gave him a piece of my mind.

He just looked at me and stared – “You could barely free your arm!”

And that, like another friend Rajinder once told me “Make yourself indestructible!”

IT’s the polar opposite fitness and grip wise these days, of course, most of my classmates are happily or not married, and ALL are so rotund – or most – you would never recognize them (if you knew them growing up).

But anyway, wasn’t all bad growing up for me, I did put the Gorilla Grip on a guy’s neck – left marks no less – in 8th grade.

Curiously enough that was the time when I went to Taekwondo class regularly, did NOT have a pot belly (you, if you’ve seen my skinny photos growing up, I weighed 60 kgs soaking wet perhaps in high school would not believe the pot belly part, but believe me, ninth grade onwards it was there – lack of exercise and too many Colas showed – to me at least! not to mention when the guys pinch gripped that phat around the waist, hehe – painful shit!) … and watched lots of WWE.

After I did that, I got a beating at home (for some reason as y’all know my parents wouldn’t look at what the other guy did , and their philosophy till this date is one of “keeping the peace”, not reacting physically – mine has always been, or wanted to be – pound him back x 10 – not just pound him back, pound x 100 really, so he doesnt dare to do it again – not so much permanently disable the fucker, but damn close, and I’m that way today as well and so it shall BE) … and WWE, well lets just say I watched it on the sly *them chokeslams, hehe*.

Taekwondo, well, that was stopped in ninth grade for some stupid reason “pressure of studies” or some crap, I dont even know, I still remember my instructor stopping one day in the middle of the road, asking me why I didnt come to class, smiling at me, I still remember him on his bike, good guy he was – not just because he praised my pushups even at that age!

Anyway – as I passed “Mayank’s” house today either in my head – or in real life, you decide – hehe – seems the same to me sometimes, it’s so vivid all of it, and spoke to a guy there who was tending to a lady – I ended up interrupting.

Lady didnt mind at all apparently, she was more than glad to chat it up with us.

Nice lady!

Maybe she had this feeling deep down inside that years ago, this dude was the skinny boy going with her rather “stronger” son to school – who knows, I dont know, she never saw me, but these things permeate!

Then, the joke I almost forgot to tell y’all about, I told my daughter, but she of course said it wasn’t funny, but it’s a bad joke, inside joke, but those are the funniest if you catch the drift (like when Rocky once asked Adrian “why cows wear bells” because the horns dont work, hehe)…

This Aussie fast bowler back in the day Adam Dale, this friend of mine (Mayank) would pronouce his name (last name) as “Dah-leigh” (as in “Dahmer”, “Ashleigh”) due to the Aussie accent he heard on TV (and then got confused with the Indian one too – hehe – back then India didnt have that much cable or exposure to down Under anyway) …

I told him the right way to pronounce it.

He said OK.

But from there on it became a running joke, “Dale Aa Gaya, Dale!”

(Dale is coming!)

(he did quite well against India did Dale sometimes!)

The way he pronounced it in Hindi was the way I said, except in Hindi that way it means “put” – which is how you say “bowled a ball” in hindi …

Given it was cricket, the joke stuck.

Not so much for my daughter TODAY. Hehe.

Anyway ……………..

Moral of the story – train your grip HARD – because your very life might depend upon it.

(not just that story – read the story of Sig Klein as well on Gorilla Grip (Advanced!)).

(and there are plenty more I could recount and tell ya)

Grip isn’t something you train at the end and forget about it, it isn’t a “by product” of your training all the time, in fact grip and core workouts are so damn important you need to dedicate entire workouts to them – and remember that YES, grip training is damn near as important as BREATHING.

Lots of people think that “size” is what matters forearm wise and otherwise.

Nope.

I’ve seen skinny guys with amazingly strong grips, and weak grips, I’ve seen phat phockers with even weaker grips, ditto for a lot of boobybuilders.

It matters what you DO – not how you look, although if you train the way I do – you’ll get a hell of a lot of constant compliments passed your way daily, that I guarantee, and we can’t argue with that can we. Hehe.

Anyway – to end –

The two books that will build a cast iron grip like no other –

Gorilla Grip, Gorilla Grip (Advanced).

Please, before you get them – read these two things –

One, get them in that order, no, you cannot just skip to advanced level first.

And two, the baseline BEFORE you get them should be 0 Excuses Fitness, else YOU, my friend are truly putting the cart before the goddamned horse…

And thats that.

Back soon.

Best

Rahul Mookerjee

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