Deadlift Grip: Straight, Hooked, Mixed

[Gary Gibson]

I did my first max conventional pull in a long, long time yesterday.

Now, I've been using the sumo when I'm training up to a max effort for a meet and have discovered that a hooked grip is much more effective for me with this deadlift style. I tend to windmill a lot when using a mixed grip during sumo.

But yesterday hooked just wasn't feeling as strong as I worked up to a max conventional pull. Mixed grip felt much, much stronger. Windmilling do to the asymmetrical grip is a lot less of a problem when one's legs are close together.

Hook grip still works fine for heavy conventional pulls at training intensities, but for the very heaviest efforts in the conventional style mixed grip feels the strongest.

[Greg C]

Funny you should mention this.

I used the mixed grip today (a thumb issue) for my work set (I normally use hook for everything), and I felt just plain off. I've used it before, but not in a while. For some reason, hook just feels not only more balanced (duh), but also just plain stronger for me.

Hmmm....

[Ian Kovtunovich]

I had a biceps tendon tear several years ago (the ever-popular SLAP tear), and the mixed grip scares the shit out of me. So I hook it. I'm only pulling 360 so far, though, so maybe it's not an issue. It often feels like I've had my thumbs in a vise when I'm done, but I assume that's normal, so fuggit.

[PVC]

I haven't found windmilling to be a problem as long as I'm aware that it'll happen a little bit and adjust accordingly. If you put a ton of effort into trying to force the bar to be 100% parallel with your coronal plane you're wasting your time, because with a mixed grip the bar will necessarily be on a slight angle relative to this plane. If the weight's heavy enough, it'll find this angle no matter how much you try to force it not to, and the more you try to force it away from this angle the stronger the windmill effect will be.

[confuzzl3don3]

Found this thread when i was searching for hook grip and thought i'd just post my question here since I can't be bothered making a new thread. I just have 2 questions.

1) How exactly do you do the hook grip? I basically just gripped the bar with my thumb under my fingers, but as I was re-reading over the powerclean section in SS and the hook grip part it seems in the picture that the finger tip of the third finger was covering the fingernail of the thumb. Thinking logically, i'd assume the position would be slightly different for each person, because if i do this, i don't actually grip the bar but leave a gap with the bar hanging on that area. If i actually grip the bar, the middle part of my third finger covers the thumb. So i guess i was just checking how you are meant to actually grip the bar with the hook grip.

2) And just out of curiosity, what is the aforementioned windmilling?

[simonsky]

Found this thread when i was searching for hook grip and thought i'd just post my question here since I can't be bothered making a new thread. I just have 2 questions.

1) How exactly do you do the hook grip? I basically just gripped the bar with my thumb under my fingers, but as I was re-reading over the powerclean section in SS and the hook grip part it seems in the picture that the finger tip of the third finger was covering the fingernail of the thumb. Thinking logically, i'd assume the position would be slightly different for each person, because if i do this, i don't actually grip the bar but leave a gap with the bar hanging on that area. If i actually grip the bar, the middle part of my third finger covers the thumb. So i guess i was just checking how you are meant to actually grip the bar with the hook grip.

2) And just out of curiosity, what is the aforementioned windmilling?

1) the weight of the bar will crush your thumbnail into your "fuckyouing" finger thus making it less of a grip issue because it kinda hods the bar on its own without you even thinking of it

haha sorry for the poor explanation.

[BrotherIron]

I hook grip the bar for all pulling movements and have pulled 550+ lbs easily.

[confuzzl3don3]

1) the weight of the bar will crush your thumbnail into your "fuckyouing" finger thus making it less of a grip issue because it kinda hods the bar on its own without you even thinking of it

haha sorry for the poor explanation.

So...grip bar completely like it shows on the picture regardless of what part of my middle finger is on the thumb and don't worry about anything else?