Loading…
25
The old smith down the street told me my hammer grip was wrong and it fixed my elbow
I had been swinging with my thumb wrapped tight around the handle for about two years, and my right elbow ached every single night after a session at the forge. This older guy named Ray who runs a shop out in the east side watched me work on a bottle opener last month and just said, flat out, 'you're choking that hammer, that's why your arm hurts.' He told me your thumb should rest on the side of the handle, same side as your index finger, not wrap around it, so your wrist can stay loose and the hammer does the work instead of your forearm. I tried it on the next heat and it felt terrible for like three days. But by the end of that week I could swing my 2.5 pound cross peen for a full hour without the shooting pain in my elbow. Ray said most new smiths grip like they're holding a baseball bat and that's the number one thing he corrects. It also made my hammer blows land flatter, which I did not expect at all. Anybody else get told to change their grip way late into learning?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
the_claire12d ago
Oh sure, next you'll tell me Ray also fixed your car and saved your marriage. But honestly that thumb wrap thing is so real it hurts. I did the same dumb baseball bat grip for almost three years and just figured my elbow was supposed to sound like a bag of gravel every morning. My old teacher never said a word about it, which is wild since he watched me swing every single day. The part about the hammer doing the work is the kicker, because once your wrist loosens up you basically stop fighting your own tool. So did Ray charge you for that advice or was watching you suffer payment enough?
4