When to Work Your Grip Strength So while improving your grip strength won’t exactly make you live longer, should you ever directly train your grip strength? First, Anderson mentions that if somebody is having a complaint around their wrist, elbow, or hand, she will integrate grip strength work into rehabbing, especially for tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow, two overuse injuries caused by irritation or damage to the tendons that run from the hand to the elbow.