A Must Have Item For Your Home Gym!

Ironmaster Fat Grip Adapters Review

Ironmaster Fat Grip Adapters review and photos by Kevin B.

I have the 2" Ironmaster Fat Grip Adapters on the dumbbells shown in the photos below. I like them, a lot. So much so that those are my preferred handles for nearly everything I do. When I bought the fat grip adapters I also purchased a spare pair of Ironmaster quick lock dumbbell handles.

Each adapter is fastened to its handle with four screws, so I knew it wouldn't be quick or easy to remove them or put them back on in between different exercises. I figured I'd use the fat grip adapters for light weights and the normal handles for heavy weights.

I've been using the Fat Grip equipped handles for almost everything though.

I use them for bench press and overhead press. I really like them for pressing movements because the fat grips better distribute the weight of the dumbbell in the hand.

Prior to purchasing these adapters, I remember a few times when doing pressing exercises where the skinnier dumbbell handle would press on a fold of skin in the palm of my hand.

When you're holding a heavy dumbbell, it is hard to make an adjustment, so I'd just grit my teeth and finish the exercise. But on one occasion, the palm of my hand hurt for a day or so afterward. I've never had this problem with the fat grip adapters.

The girth of the handle forces the hand to stretch out more. The creases of skin in the palm of the hand don't get a chance to fold over, getting trapped by the dumbbell handle.

It really surprised me that I was able to use the adapters for heavy (for me) pulling exercises too. I've been doing dumbbell bench rows with 95lb dumbbells. It was hard to pick up the dumbbells the first few times I did them, but my grip adapted.

At the moment, I'm limited not by my grip, but by the strength of my upper back as I have trouble getting the last bit of the range of motion when doing these rows. I've also used them for farmer's carries with 105lb dumbbells. Here the strength of my grip is a limiting factor.

I would be able to carry heavier dumbbells, or I would be able to carry the 105s further, if I were to use the smaller diameter handles. However, for me anyway, the point of doing farmer's carries is to work the grip. I don't think I would get as much benefit from it, grip-wise, were I to use the smaller diameter handles.

We do use those spare handles though. My wife uses them when she works out with me. She rarely goes over 20 lbs with them. I use them too for some of my shoulder (p)rehab, just for convenience.

Here are a couple of photos showing the handles side by side:

It is interesting, too, to compare the Ironmaster Fat Grip adapters to the FatGripz product.

I measured the diameter of a plain Ironmaster handle (in the knurled grip area) at 1.25". The diameter of the Ironmaster Fat Grip adapter measured 1.95". (So the Ironmaster Fat Grip adapter is 0.05" under the nominal diameter of 2.0 inches.)

The diameter (roughly) of Fat Gripz placed on an Ironmaster Handle is 2.44". The problem with measuring the Fat Gripz diameter on the Ironmaster handle is that there is a sizeable gap at the slit where you put the grip on the handle. Thus, you get a different measurement if you place the one side of the calipers over the gap area when measuring. When measuring the diameter reported above, I picked a spot roughly 90 degrees away from the gap to do the measurement. I measure the size of the gap to be at around 11/16".

Here are some photos with Fat Gripz thrown into the mix:

Read more about the Ironmaster Fat Grip Adapters