Sunday, August 2, 2009

Deadlift Grip Advice From Rickey Dale Crain

The arms are straight, and the bar lies in the fingers, like it is holding a hook. Thumb should be overlapping one or two of the first two fingers.

The bar should "not" be squeezed. Rather, it should just lay in the fingers/hand. Only the thumb should be flexed, or squeezed, not the hands, not the forearm. If this is done incorrectly, most likely, the bar on a very hard pull will slip out of the hands. Also if the hands are rotated as you grip the bar, it will most likely slip out as the weight pulls down, and pulls the rotated hands back to a straight up and down position. One does not have to have a strong grip to hold onto large amounts of weight. I have a very poor grip and grip strength and have never lost a deadlift, i.e. 716 at 165lbs.

From Advanced Powerlifting Techniques by Rickey Dale Crain

3 comments:

Sperwer said...

I can only imagine that the strength of his thumbs is inversely proportional to the self-described weakness of his grip. :-)

Rocks said...

This question has nothing to do with grip strength……

I think that most people who lift weights would agree that there are some basic fundamental lifts that you should be proficient at before you start throwing in the fancy stuff. Squats, dead lifts, pull ups, bench press, shoulder press, and maybe even the clean are pretty basic and fundamental exercises. I don’t see a general consensus when it comes to stretches. There seems to be a million and one different stretches and mobility drills for everything from your pinky toe to your tiniest neck muscle. In your opinion what are the basic fundamental stretches or mobility drills that need to be mastered in order to achieve general and healthy flexibility? In other words what is the squat, and dead lift of stretches?

Boris said...

Sperwer,
I agree - there's no way RDC has a 'weak' grip. But, his point about the position of the bar in the palm is a good one that a lot of people miss.

Rocks,
Great question and I'll think on it a little more - probably make a blog post about it. Here are my initial thoughts:

A properly performed 'downward dog' pose is a solid stretch that hits most people where they need it.

The following exercises, if done well, are pretty good at maintaining overall mobility:
*squat (and variations)
*pull-up
*Bulgarian split squat (and variations)

Here was a blog post I made about daily stretches:
http://squatrx.blogspot.com/2009/04/daily-stretches-for-health-strength.html