If you are serious about building over all strength, you should not neglect to develop your forearms and hands. The stronger they are, the more weight you can move when working out with dumbbells and barbells. There are as many ways to develop your hands as your imagination will allow; a lot of the tools you can use can be homemade.
For pinch grip exercises you can take a softball and drill a pilot hole partially into it. Next screw a lag hook into the pilot hole. You could then just run a small chain through the hole in a plate and hook the ends of the chain onto the hook. Grasp the ball with a full grip or just your finger tips and lift. Add more plates or a heavier one for more weight.
A variation is to use a hockey puck. Drill a hole into the center of the hockey puck and screw in a lag hook. For a stronger setup insert an eye-bolt through the hole with a washer on either side of the puck with a nut on the top side to hold it together. This is a great finger tip pinch grip tool.
Two inch thick patio stones work great, you can get them from about 12” x 12” up two 24” x 24”. If you have two of them, you could carry one in each hand and do a farmers walk to get more of a whole body workout. Squeezing and holding on to patio stones really gives your arms a great workout.
