Grip Supercompensation

[zinedine kilbane]

Hi guys,

Thank you all for doing this Q&A, its full of great information. Had a quick question about deadlift programming/recovery. I have a meet coming up in about 4 weeks so have been lowering my volume and increasing intensity with some singles and triples and will not pull for 10 days before the meet with the idea being that I should recover well and be fresh to hit a decent PR. The problem is that on heavy pulls my grip tends to give out before my back/legs, most info about decreasing deadlift volume seems to be based on the idea of allowing your back sufficient time to recover and supercompensate.

I’m just wondering about the grip, as it is a smaller muscle group will it respond to the reduced volume in a similar manner? So reducing volume and taking a few days off should I expect my grip to improve proportionately along with my overall back/leg strength, or will my grip likely give out at the same numbers as currently?

If any of you have any previous experience with a similar situation that would be great as it will help me pick my attempts for the meet.

Possibly relevant background info :
been running a modified Madcow intermediate programme for aprox 4 months with alternating weeks, Week 1: deadlift to top set of 5 on Monday, then to triple at 2.5% above it on Friday with a back off set of approx 75% x 8, week 2: Wednesday deadlift to top set of 3-5 with previous Friday weight depending on how it feels. Week 3 : to top set of 5 on Monday with previous Friday weight etc). Recent top set 425lbs x 5 @ 200lbs bodyweight. Also I pull sumo as my arms are too short to pull conventional without mashing my nuts.

[Tom Campitelli]

Whether or not you need to take 10 days off from pulling heavy before the meet is debatable. Depending upon who you are and how beat up you are, you might actually detrain a little. Since you are pulling sumo, you are also not working your back in the same way as with conventional. I am sorry to hear about your short arms. T. Rex had short arms and that was one bad motherfucker. As an aside, there has never been a cooler animal to walk this planet than T. Rex. One of my few regrets is that I will never get to see a T. Rex alive (from a safe distance, of course).

It is unlikely your grip is failing from too much work. More likely, you need a little more work. Consider some farmers walks, double overhand backoffs, holding on to the bar after your last rep for a while, or doing super short ROM double overhand rack pulls to help with your grip. I wouldn't do any of that more than five or so days before the meet, but something in there may help you.

Lastly, the simpler your programming is, the better.

[idlehands]

Well. Used to be. Now that we know they had feathers all I can picture is a goofy rainbow looking meat eater
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...rd-d589uam.jpg

[Tom Campitelli]

Heresy.

[Sean Herbison]

On the other hand...

[Tom Campitelli]

Now that is more like it.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Most people who train grip train it hard and often. You can train it more frequently than you can deadlift with fewer systemic recovery effects.

But my favorite dino was the pterodactyl. Why? Because Uncle Walt said so in that scene of them cliff diving into the ocean in Fantasia. I saw a couple hundred of their latter day ancestors (pelicans) off the coast of El Segundo on my lunch hour. They were having an aerial feeding frenzy as they hit the ocean like sacks of wet cement after schools of fish. With apologies to Les Nessman.

[mkgillman]

Is this going to turn into slash fiction?

[Simon Rest]

[zinedine kilbane]

Thanks for the advice Tom but I believe palaeontologists have recently discovered that this is the most accurate depiction of a t-Rex during the Jurassic period