I like to encourage exercisers of all ages to deadlift—and lift heavy. The challenge with deadlifting heavy quickly becomes one’s ability to hold on to the bars. Even with decent grip strength, the bar will begin to slip. Straps should not be used by beginners—barring any anatomical issue. (The grip will never strengthen.) An alternative for many lifters is the alternate grip—one hand is pronated (overhand grip) and the other is supinated (underhand grip). This limits bar slippage, as one hand prevents the bar from spinning in one direction, while the other prevents spinning in the opposite direction. The problem with the alternate grip is that it affects the shoulder positioning causing the bar (i.e., the body) to rotate toward the supinated hand. The result can be muscle imbalances in the hips and back that can lead to injury.
I have long favored the alternate grip and just tried to focus on bar/body control. Recently, though, I have begun to work on developing my hook grip—the grip used by Olympic weightlifters.
The hook grip involved holding a barbell by gripping the thumb between the barbell and the first and second fingers rather than wrapping the thumb beside the first finger. This grip prevents the bar from spinning out of the grip of the thumb in one direction and out of the fingers in the other direction. As such the fingers pull the thumb around the bar, and the thumb provides a better grip for the fingers.
The difficulty with the hook grip is that it hurts at first. It takes some time to get used to the grip and to feel comfortable. The thumb doesn’t like getting squeezed.
If new to the hook grip, practice it on your warmup sets. Over time, us it on progressively heavier sets until you are you using it for all heavy pulls (e.g., deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, shrugs, etc.). Embrace having a new callous on your thumb and enjoy the added weight you will be pulling.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!
