Effortlessly twisting a fresh yellow lid isn’t about the sourdough toast. Your grip naturally starts to lose some of its bite when you hit midlife, and the lab coat wearers reckon this is worth paying attention to. Research found people in the Bunnings-on-a-Saturday age bracket with stronger grips also had a much better overall quality of life, even after accounting for body size, education, and how healthy they considered themselves. It’s not because they can scoff what’s in the jars, but because grip strength is tightly yoked to your overall muscle strength and has also been associated with everything from bone health to longevity. So, while having to suffer the humiliation of having to use a tea towel prop to get into the pickled beetroots isn’t a medical diagnosis, it could be giving you a surprisingly useful clue about how well the rest of you is holding up. Here's how to do it better. 

Hang Like A Flying Fox For 30 Seconds

You don’t need to spend the night dangling from a Moreton Bay fig, but buying a pull-up bar and hanging from it twice a week can increase shoulder strength by around 11% and improve upper-body throwing performance by about 5%. You don’t even need to bang out pull-ups. Just hang from it to stretch out your spine, feel taller and the rest of your body will get stronger.

Put Your Inner Kimberley Cattle Farmer To Work

The farmer’s carry is about as complicated as farm work gets: pick up something bloody heavy and walk with it. It works more than your grip too. Farmer’s carries activate key lower-back muscles by 9–11% more than simply holding the same weight, and doing them with one hand produces up to 24% greater activation in one lower-back muscle than a plank. Grab two reasonably heavy things and carry them for 20–30 seconds. Your grip, core and back all clock on before you've even unpacked the Coles shopping.

You don't have to bounce up like you're grom again. Just aim to stop sounding like you're reversing a rusty trailer every time you stand up. A little strength training, a few sneaky daily habits and some extra support from ingredients like creatine can make a real difference. That's exactly why we built Revive5, to help support the strength and energy to keep doing the things you enjoy. Have a crack at the longevity test by seeing if you can stand up from the floor without using your hands, to see if you need the tips above. The goal isn't to get younger. It's to keep mentally saying “Easy, I've got this” instead of “Hang on a sec.”


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