Monkee Grips vs Fat Gripz: Which Builds Grip Strength Faster?

If you’re serious about building grip strength, you’ve likely run into two popular tools: Fat Gripz and Monkee Grips. Both make pulling, carrying, and lifting harder — but which one actually builds grip strength faster?

Let’s take a closer look.

What Are Fat Gripz?

Fat Gripz are thick rubber sleeves that snap onto barbells, dumbbells, or pull-up bars. Their main job is to increase the diameter of the bar, forcing your forearms and hands to work harder to clamp down.

Benefits of Fat Gripz:

• Add variety to curls, rows, and pressing movements.

• Portable and easy to toss in a gym bag.

• Solid for building forearm size and crushing strength.

Limitations of Fat Gripz:

• The bar is still rigid and offers a ledge to hold — you’re clamping, not creating friction.

• Limited carryover to dynamic grip demands like climbing, OCR, or calisthenics.

• Better for bodybuilding-style training than for functional grip endurance.

What Are Monkee Grips?

Monkee Grips are rope-based attachments that hitch to any pull-up bar, beam, or tree branch. Unlike Fat Gripz, there’s no horizontal ledge to lock your fingers around. Instead, your hand has to generate friction to stop sliding down the rope. That makes every rep brutally harder and more realistic.

Benefits of Monkee Grips:

• Trains grip through friction and instability, not just thickness.

• Builds tendon and ligament strength as much as muscle.

• Mimics real-world grip challenges like climbing, grappling, and OCR.

• Works for dead hangs, pull-ups, farmer carries, and rows.

• Comes in Level 1 (entry) and Level 2 (advanced) for progression.

Limitations of Monkee Grips:

• Pull-ups and hangs become difficult quickly (a positive, but humbling for beginners).

• Less suited for pressing or curling movements compared to Fat Gripz.

Which Builds Grip Strength Faster?

If your goal is pure grip strength, tendon resilience, and endurance, Monkee Grips win — hands down.

• Fat Gripz thicken the bar, making your hands squeeze harder around a stable ledge. Great for pump, but limited in scope.

• Monkee Grips remove the ledge, forcing your hand to create friction against gravity. That means more demand on your fingers, palms, and forearm flexors every second of the hold.

This makes Monkee Grips the better tool for:

• Dead hangs and pull-ups.

• Obstacle course racing and Ninja Warrior training.

• Functional, real-world grip strength.

Fat Gripz are useful for arm-building accessory lifts, but Monkee Grips dominate when the goal is functional grip that transfers to everyday strength and performance.

Can You Use Both?

Absolutely. Use Fat Gripz on curls, rows, and presses to pack size onto your forearms. Then switch to Monkee Grips for hangs, carries, and pull-ups to build tendon strength and friction-based endurance. Together, they give you a full-spectrum grip program.

Final Verdict

So, Monkee Grips vs Fat Gripz — which builds grip strength faster?

For functional grip power, tendon resilience, and carryover to climbing, calisthenics, and OCR, Monkee Grips are the clear winner. They don’t just make the bar thicker — they force your grip to work the way it does in the real world.

If you want stronger hands that last longer on the bar, carry further, and never slip when it counts, it’s time to train with Monkee Grips.

🦍 Ready to build unshakable grip? Get your pair today at www.monkeegrip.com