AN OLDTIME STRONGMAN’S 15-Minute Morning Routine. I particularly like the bit on an inexpensive and effective way to develop a powerful grip:

Take in each hand a corner of an ordinary sheet of newspaper (any kind of soft paper will do) and crumple it up until the four corners are brought into the palms of your hands, forming paper balls. Avoid assisting in the process by pressing the hands against the body. The result is surprising. Every muscle will be brought into sympathy with the muscles of the forearm in the effort to secure the last corner (to completely hide the sheets in your hands). . . .

Using these paper balls in the same manner as a grip-machine, by grasping them as tightly as you can and then releasing the grip without opening the fingers entirely, repeating this about seventy-five times a minute, will insure a powerful grip. Simple as this paper grip-machine seems, it is superior in many ways to any manufactured device. The writer has carried one in his coat pocket in cold weather to keep his hands warm by exercise and has repeatedly illustrated the strength of his fingers by tearing a corner off a full deck of cards, lifting with one finger a good-sized man by the belt, etc., feats that anyone can perform after persistent exercise.

So it turns out that newspapers are good for something other than lining bird cages.