Chris Rice is a well known grip strength athlete. He has hosted his own "grip meetings" and has been awarded for his dedication to the sport. He also is an experienced rock climber and avid grip tool hobbyist.

Background Information:
(Name, age, weight lifting/grip training/rock climbing information, and anything else you would like to make known, and most importantly your proudest accomplishments of your sports. That can be more than one.)
Chris Rice

Age – 58

Height – 6’ 2”

Weight – 198 to 200#

I started lifting in 1959 at age 11. I got a steel 110# set for Christmas that year and I’ve been at it ever since. It’s sure changed over the years; when I started everybody thought it would make you muscle bound and there was almost no information on how to train that an 11 year old in a small town could find. I just lifted them, usually for hours at a time – we did routines that were absolutely crazy by today’s standards. I wanted to get big so badly but had no clue how to do it. John McCallum in Strength and Health said to do 20 rep breathing squats so I did sets of 30 or 40 or more because I only had a hundred pounds for several years. Some times I think all the information we have about training today holds us back, kids are stronger now than we were but we were a lot tougher and longer lasting then. For many years, I lifted to help me in my other sports; only in the last several years have I lifted just to be stronger at lifting. I started Olympic lifting in I think 2002, and qualified for the World Masters Games in 2004. The only problem has been that as I did so much lower rep stuff, I lost a lot of my overall fitness, something I’m working hard to change right now. My proudest moment in Grip was winning the Deisel Award at GGC 2005 – it was voted on by the other competitors and truly means a lot to me.

1. What first got you interested in grip training?

I guess I started actually doing grip work as grip work for events when I found the Grip Board in 2003 but in reality, I’ve always worked my forearms and hands since day one. Years of trimming trees and hard labor jobs probably didn’t hurt anything either. Not long after I started rock climbing, I found a book called Power Forearms by Health for Life. It was basically a bodybuilder forearm routine but may have turned out to be the best thing I could have ever found. It helped balance all the climbing I did and no doubt saved me many injuries from uneven development. I believe to this day that all newcomers to grip training should do several months of it or something like it before specializing. I still do that program to this day on a regular rotation. I don’t think much of our grip training carries over that directly to rock climbing – it doesn’t hurt of course but there are better ways to develop pure climbing strength that most grip people don’t do very often. The best exercise you can do in the weight room for climbing is Finger Curls. The overall grip training certainly sets you up for quick climbing specific strength gains when you start climbing though.


2. What grip strength-related goals have you recently accomplished and what goals do you still have left?

I have this list I made in 2005 at age 56 – it’s called the 60-60 list – meaning 60 goals by the time I turn 60 years of age. It’s not only grip strength but a variety of physical goals that I hope when accomplished will result in a fairly well rounded overall older strength athlete. I’m about 2/3 of the way right now but what’s left is the tough ones for me of course. It’s actually about 70 things I’d like to accomplish but that’s OK, if I make 60 of them, I’ll be real happy. I can always change it to a 70 – 70 list. I just keep chipping away at it – we’ll see if I make it or not. One big grip goal is to pinch my bodyweight on David Hornes Euro Pinch setup in a competition – I got 197.48# at GGC 06 at a bodyweight of 198# so I’m real close. Randall Strossen put it up on the IronMind site – man, I never dreamed I’d ever end up on there.

First of all, you have to be well rounded and have stood the test of time to make my list – there have been a lot of big strong guys come through the sport of grip and then disappear in no time at all; even if they did great things, they don’t make my list.

First is the Mighty Atom, Joe Greenstein, then Slim (the Hammerman) Farman; I grew up reading about these guys and they were childhood heroes. Then guys like Dennis Rogers, a modern day strongmen who just keeps hanging in there, strong for life. The only young fellow on my list would be Pat Povilaitis, not only because of his strength but for being such a great example of how a strongman should be in his life, lifetime drug free and willing to help anyone – and of course tremendously strong. Pat is mentally the strongest guy I know in strength today.


4. What is your favorite grip tool?

I am completely a non specialist – I just believe that a huge variety of equipment and exercises is a better way to train and will result in a much stronger and more overall balanced and injury free lower arm and hand. I own most of the grip toys being sold today as well as several unique items I have made for myself. My least favorite is certainly grippers, I find them incredibly boring. I just can’t work them very long at a time, which may explain why I’m not as good on them as other things.


5. What would be your favorite piece of grip information for a beginner?

If you’re not working the whole body and think you can sit on your butt in front of a computer screen squeezing a gripper and end up with a world class grip, you are sadly mistaken. You seldom find world class grip strength on a puny little untrained body. The biggest mistake I see is not developing a base or foundation of overall body along with forearm, wrist and hand strength before starting on the highly specialized routines - that results in injuries almost every time.

Grip training is different than training for most strength sports, - in general, grip isn’t scary, painful, or exhausting like a heavy Clean and Jerk or squat, etc. and you don’t get much feedback to tell you to slow down or back off when you should. There are too many people getting hurt now because they want to specialize before they are ready. Bending especially can result is some career ending injuries if you don’t prepare your body properly before hand and train to bend instead of making every bend a PR attempt.

I started in 1983 and was pretty much self taught at first. I’d been climbing about 3 months when I loaded up and went out west, hoping to find partners to climb with. I climbed Devils Tower with people from Switzerland , Stettners and Keiners routes on Longs Peak with a guy from Texas, and got stormed off the Grand Teton with two guys from Georgia. I’ve been lucky enough to have climbed in most of the climbing areas here in the United States. I climbed Denali in Alaska in 1990 – that was my first big mountain. In 1993, I went to Ecuador and tried Cotapoxi and had to come down because my partner got attitude sickness at about the 19,000’ level, almost to the summit. In 1996 I went to Nepal and climbed Lobuje East and Imse Tse, two 20,000’ peaks in the Khumbu region near Mt Everest. My oldest son went with me on that one. Climbing was also a family sport for us, my wife still climbs 5.10 sport in her 50’s and two of my sons still climb sometimes. I had my grandson on the climbing wall at 2 years old so generation #3 is starting now.


7. What tools or equipment are your favorites to use when rock climbing.

All the stuff that keeps me alive when I fall off.


8. What is your proudest rock climbing achievement?

It’s actually not rock climbing but mountaineering, but probably standing on the summit of Denali(1990), my first and toughest big mountain. My happiest moment was climbing in Nepal with my oldest son and summiting Lobuje East (1996) with him at my side.


9. What was your most dangerous rock climbing experience?

I once pulled off a huge block of rock which went crashing down the face towards my belayer. I jumped away from the block and landed on a ledge maybe 20 feet below me, twisting my ankle to where it turned black and blue immediately. I started yelling for my partner with no answer for several minutes. I thought he was dead but finally he yelled back. He later said he was just too scared to talk for a while and had to get control of himself. It was pretty lonely up there for a few minutes waiting on him to answer and wondering if he was alive. A day and a half later, when we got off the mountain, my ankle looked like nothing had ever happened.


10. How do you train for rock climbing both in a conditioning and in a strength sense?

Training for technical rock climbing and training for the mountains is completely different. Climbing is still the best training for climbing but it’s not always possible to do enough of it living in the Midwest like I do. Having climbed for so long now, my technique is as good as it’s likely to get, so I concentrate on climbing, Astanga Yoga for my flexibility and core strength along with a fairly standard weight training routine with a lot of pulling and side lunges etc for my legs. For the mountains, I add in one hundred hundreds – which is just 100 straight full squats with 100 pounds – it’s worked well for me for years in helping me hump packs up big hills, by the time I can do them straight through without stopping, my legs (and lungs) are ready. Of course the mandatory cardio work – that used to be running hills but as my knees started to go, I switched to a Concept II rower.


11. How much longer do you plan on rock climbing?

Well, hopefully forever at some level, climbing gives me as much pleasure now as ever, even though I can’t climb routes of quite the same difficulty rating as a few years ago. Most of the classic mountain routes go off around 5.9 or easy 5.10 or lower and while that’s harder for me now than it used to be, it’s still real doable, especially if I can find some strong young guy to lead the long sustained pitches. I’m talking trad routes, sport climbing is just practice at this point for me.

The places it takes you, sometimes you’re way back in the mountains when the sun comes up, and it’s all reds and pinks and blues and grays, and it’s so beautiful it just takes your breath away. It’s like it must have been thousands of years ago, before man messed it all up.


13. What have you yet to climb that is still a goal of yours?

I have a list of climbs a mile long I’d still like to do, but I’d like to do at least one more big mountain while I still can. Big mountains can be brutally hard and I know I can’t do them forever.

I’ve been stormed off the Casual Route on the Diamond on Longs Peak in Colorado 3 times now so that would have to be high on the list for an alpine rock climb.

For plain rock climbing, I want to climb another 5.12a route before I turn 60 – that’s on my list.

One final thing, too many guys are all over the internet, reading and chatting when they should be lifting – get off the computer and go workout. It works better that way! And compete, don’t just be a gym lifter – everyone thinks they have to be able to “win” their first meet. That’s crazy, go and have fun, meet people and make friends. My first Olympic lifting competition I got beat by a girl and a blind guy – a true story – but it started me into a whole new world of lifting. Get out there and see the world, try new things, being the strongest guy in your garage doesn’t mean much. Training is supposed to enhance your life, not BE your life, get out there and live!