Often overlooked-grip exercises
For the first time in my 5 years of weight training I've started focusing on grip strength just like I do chest, back, or legs. As you go up in weights, your grip [I don't use wraps] begins to limit your progress whether you know it or not.
I do 4-5 exercises, most of which are pretty difficult to describe. Previously, I just did the one where you hold the bar and arm's length similar to shoulder shrugs and then work your forearms by raising the bar etc.
Now I do almost entire day just on grip exercises. I work out the top and bottom of the forearm in an isolated fashion for starts [dumb bells or cables].
After that, I have progressed to gripping two 35 lbs plates together [hands on top using my fingers to hold them] with my back against the wall and raising it towards my shoulders/back to arm's length for 10-12 steady reps x 3 sets. I warm up doing 1 handed versions with 2 10's but I can do so many reps I really need two 20's to properly work out my hands individually.
Then I do several isometric holds to strengthen forearm/wrist/biceps which involve a preacher curl type position and holding it with a 50lbs dumbbell for 1-1.5 mins per arm several time.
After that, I do one of my favorite exercises because it takes everything you've got. I do the farmer's walk with 100's for 40 meters which includes doing two very slow 'u-turns' three times or for three sets, however you look at it. After that your grip is pretty much gone but I use 'ivanko's gripper' or something along those lines set between 125-150 after I get home.
These have improved almost all my lifts. Specifically, my dead lifts and my shoulder shrugs have improved 15-20% beyond what they were 'on schedule to do' after doing this work out for about 4 weeks, about 1.5 times per week [every 4-5 days].
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"You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time,
but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."- Abraham Lincoln
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