Grip Strength Test for Men Over 40: Norms, Risk, 12-Week Plan

A grip strength test is the cheapest health check you are not doing. In two very large studies (about 140,000 adults across 17 countries, and about 500,000 in the UK), every 5 kg lower grip came with roughly 16 to 20% higher risk of dying during follow-up, and in one of them grip predicted death better than systolic blood pressure did.

Key takeaways

Key takeaways

1. In the PURE (Lancet 2015) and UK Biobank (BMJ 2018) studies, each 5 kg lower grip was associated with about 16 to 20% higher risk of death during follow-up.
2. These are associations. Grip is a marker of overall strength and health, and no trial has shown that grip training alone lowers mortality.
3. Test properly: same device, same posture, alternate hands, record your best reading, and retest every six to twelve weeks.
4. The median Canadian man has 48.4 kg of grip at 40 to 44 and 41.1 kg at 65 to 69. Below the 10th centile, or under about 27 kg, is worth raising with your doctor.
5. Improve the number by getting stronger overall: carries, hangs and heavy pulling three times a week inside the 15 moving minutes of the 2% Solution.

That does not mean squeezing a gripper will make you live longer. Grip is a marker. It tells you something about the strength, muscle and general robustness behind it. This page covers what the research shows and where it stops, how to test properly, Canadian norms for ages 40 to 79, and a 12-week plan built on carries, hangs and heavy pulling. It is coaching information, not medical advice. If you want the bigger picture on fitness as a risk factor, start with my executive health guide.

What does grip strength predict?

The best-known evidence comes from the PURE study, published in The Lancet in 2015. Researchers measured grip with a Jamar dynamometer in 139,691 adults aged 35 to 70 in 17 countries, then followed them for a median of four years. Each 5 kg lower grip was associated with 16% higher risk of death from any cause, 17% higher risk of cardiovascular death, 7% higher risk of heart attack and 9% higher risk of stroke. The authors reported that grip predicted all-cause and cardiovascular death more strongly than systolic blood pressure.

The UK Biobank analysis by Celis-Morales and colleagues (BMJ, 2018) looked at 502,293 adults aged 40 to 69, followed for about seven years. Per 5 kg lower grip, risk of death from any cause was 16% higher in men and 20% higher in women. Cardiovascular death risk was 22% higher in men and 19% higher in women. Adjusting for smoking, BMI, physical activity, sitting time and diet only slightly weakened those links.

A 2022 dose-response meta-analysis in Ageing Research Reviews pooled 48 studies with more than 3.1 million participants aged 35 to 85. It found a close-to-linear inverse relationship between grip and all-cause mortality, with risk reductions across roughly 26 to 50 kg of grip. In plain terms: more grip, lower risk, across most of the range you will see in adult men.

Why would a hand squeeze say anything about your heart?

Grip is a quick proxy for overall muscular strength and for the habits that build it. People who lift, carry and stay active tend to have stronger hands. People who are frail, ill, underfed or inactive lose grip. So the number reflects a lot of things at once, which is exactly why it predicts well.

What grip strength does and does not prove

All three of the studies above are observational. They show association, not cause. The UK Biobank authors say plainly that reverse causation and residual confounding cannot be ruled out: someone with an undiagnosed illness may already be losing strength years before the illness shows up. The PURE authors called for trials to test whether improving strength reduces mortality and cardiovascular disease. I could not find a trial showing that grip training on its own lowers death rates.

There is one interesting hint in the other direction. A 2017 Mendelian randomisation study in Scientific Reports, which uses genetic variants as a natural experiment, found that each 1 kg of genetically higher grip was associated with about 6% lower odds of coronary artery disease and 7% lower odds of heart attack. That suggests strength itself may matter, but it was one study using two genetic markers, and it is far from proof.

Also worth knowing: grip is not a perfect stand-in for total body strength. Richard Bohannon's 2019 review in Clinical Interventions in Aging warns that grip may not always reflect overall strength and suggests pairing it with a leg strength measure. Grip is a dashboard light. Fix the engine, and the light follows.

Do not chase the number for its own sake. Use it to check whether your training is building a stronger body, and to flag a drop worth asking about.

How do you do a grip strength test properly?

You need a hand dynamometer. Hydraulic and electronic models are both fine, and many physiotherapy clinics and some gyms have one. The protocol matters more than the device.

There are two common protocols, and they produce different numbers.

The Canadian Health Measures Survey method, used for the Canadian norms below: stand with feet slightly apart, hold the dynamometer in line with your forearm, arm down at thigh level and away from your body, elbow straight. Squeeze hard. Do two attempts per hand, alternating hands. Your score is the best single reading from either hand.

The Southampton protocol, published in Age and Ageing in 2011 and widely used in research: sit in a chair with fixed arms, forearms resting on the armrests, wrist just past the end, thumb pointing up. Squeeze as long and as hard as you can until the reading stops rising. Do three attempts per hand, alternating, six in total, and record the best.

Whichever you pick, these rules keep the number honest:

• Use the same device, the same posture and the same time of day each time you retest.
• Warm your hands first and skip the test straight after a heavy pulling session.
• Set the handle so the middle of your fingers sits on the bar.
• Record both hands. A big gap between sides is useful information.
• Retest every six to twelve weeks. Grip changes slowly, and weekly testing is noise.

If you want to compare against the Canadian table below, use the standing Canadian method.

Grip strength by age: Canadian norms for 40 to 79

These reference values come from Statistics Canada, published in Health Reports in 2016 using Canadian Health Measures Survey data from 2007 to 2013 (11,108 Canadians aged 6 to 79 in the analysis, after excluding people with conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and high blood pressure). The measure is maximum grip from either hand, in kilograms, using the standing protocol above.

Read it this way: the 50th column is the middle Canadian at that age. The 10th column is the level that only one in ten people falls below.

The shape matches the big British dataset. Dodds and colleagues (PLOS ONE, 2014) pooled 12 British studies with 49,964 people and found men peak at a median of 51 kg between ages 29 and 39, women at 31 kg between 26 and 42, then hold to midlife and decline from there. Their median for men was 50 kg at 40, 48 kg at 50, 45 kg at 60 and 39 kg at 70. They defined weak grip as 2.5 standard deviations below the young adult peak, which works out to about 27 kg for men and 16 kg for women.

The practical takeaway for a man in his forties: the decline is gentle until about 55, then it steepens. You have time, but the slope is coming.

What should you do with a low number?

First, check the test. Retest on another day with the same protocol. Low readings are often technique, a cold hand or a sore wrist.

If it holds, place yourself in the table. Here is how I would read it:

• Above the 50th for your age: good. Keep doing what builds it, and retest twice a year.
• Between the 10th and 50th: common, and very trainable. This is the group the 12-week plan below is for.
• Below the 10th, or below roughly 27 kg for a man: treat it as a flag, not a verdict. Book a check-up and tell your doctor the number, then train.
• A drop of 5 kg or more since your last test without a training reason: ask your doctor about it before you assume it is fitness.

Because grip is a marker, the fix is not a gripper on your desk. It is getting stronger overall, especially through the posterior chain and upper back, with plenty of loaded holding. Grip comes along for the ride. If you want context on why low fitness is such a big risk factor in the first place, read why low fitness can be riskier than smoking.

A 12-week plan to improve grip strength

This sits inside the 2% Solution, the framework I have taught since 2015: 30 minutes a day, about 2% of your 24 hours, made of 15 minutes moving, 5 minutes still and 10 minutes reading. The plan below uses the 15 moving minutes on three days a week. On the other days, walk, ride or do whatever else you enjoy.

You need a pair of heavy dumbbells or kettlebells, a pull-up bar and a barbell or trap bar. Any gym has these.

How to run it:

• Each session fits in 15 minutes after a short warm-up. Rest as long as you need between sets; the goal is quality holds.
• Avoid straps on the pulling day. Let your hands be the limiter, and drop the weight if your grip fails before your back does.
• Progress by small steps. Add distance or load to carries, time to hangs, weight to pulls. If a session leaves your elbows or forearms sore the next day, hold the load steady for a week.
• Use the 5 still minutes on the same day for a few minutes of slow breathing. The 10 reading minutes can stay whatever you are reading.
• Retest grip in week 0, week 6 and week 12 with the same device and protocol.

Carries are also directly useful for anyone training for HYROX, which I am training for in December 2026 and which includes a farmers carry station. CrossFit BC, which I co-own, is an official HYROX Training Club.

What a fair goal looks like: a few kilograms over 12 weeks is a solid result for someone who has not trained grip before. The more important change is the one behind the number: stronger pulling, better carrying capacity, more muscle.

When should you talk to a doctor about grip strength?

Grip strength is a screening number, not a diagnosis. Talk to your doctor if you notice any of these:

• Your grip is below the 10th centile for your age, or below about 27 kg as a man.
• It has dropped noticeably without a training reason.
• One hand is much weaker than the other and it is new.
• You have numbness, tingling, pain or swelling in the hand, wrist or forearm.
• Weakness comes with unexplained weight loss, fatigue, falls or trouble with daily tasks.
• You have a heart condition or high blood pressure that is not under control and want to start heavy holds or lifting.

Bring the number and how you measured it. A dated reading with the protocol written down is far more useful to a clinician than "my grip feels weak". If you have just had an executive health assessment, here is what to do after one.

What to measure this week

Find a dynamometer (a physio clinic, your gym or an inexpensive home model), run the standing Canadian protocol, write down both hands and your best score, and place yourself in the table. Then run the first four weeks of the plan and retest at week six.

If you want help building a plan around your number, your schedule and the rest of your health picture, that is the work I do in one-to-one executive health coaching. The easiest first step is a free 20-minute call.