How to Hold the Barbell in the Deadlift
Deadlifts are a great way to work almost half of the muscles in your body, especially your hamstrings and back. But if you can’t hold on to the bar, it’s tricky. Here are some tips, especially for deadlift newbies, on how to make sure your arms aren’t your weakest link.
Think which way your hands are facing
If you don’t think about it too much, you are probably grasping the deadlift bar with your palms facing your body. This is called a “double overhead grip” and is actually one of the most difficult ways to hold a barbell when it gets heavy.
The problem with this grip is that when the bar is pulled down, your fingers move away from the palm. And the more the fingers are extended, the more the bar rolls downward. If the bar is heavier than you can easily hold with your fingers, the bar will eventually slip out of your hand.
Stop this by using an alternate grip with the palm of one hand facing you and the palm of the other toward you. The bar will roll in one direction as your right arm is tiring, but in the other direction as your left arm is tiring. As a result, the bar won’t go anywhere.
Which hand should be which? I recommend switching. I prefer to hold my right hand on top, so I do most of my warm-up sets the other way around and switch to my preferred grip for the hardest sets of the day.
Learn to catch your grip
If you stick your thumb under your fingers, the bar has little or no way to break your grip. This is the hook grip commonly used by Olympic lifters for the snatch and clean and jerk. It’s also handy for any heavy lift, though warning: it hurts like hell.
With heavy weights, you pinch your thumb between your fingers and the bar. If the bar has aggressive knurling (texture), so much the worse. I know athletes who love grabbing the grappling hook and others who hate it. If you’d like to give it a try, here ‘s an illustrated article that explains it in detail . You can also bandage your thumbs to relieve pain a little.
Use chalk
The chalk absorbs some of the sweat, making the bar slippery and easier to hold on to . This is common in powerlifting gyms and Olympic athletes and is absent (or even prohibited) in many commercial gyms. Liquid chalk is a good option if you need to steal it .
Use straps depending on your goals
Lift straps come in a variety of styles, but they all do the same job. You attach them to your wrists and then wrap the straps around the bar, starting on the side facing away from your palm. (Here’s a video showing what I mean.) With straps, you don’t have to worry about your grip at all; the strap will take care of everything.
Straps are a controversial issue in the world of lifters, not because there are any problems with them, but because certain types of gyms will insist that if you can’t lift without straps, you have nothing to lift at all.
This is clearly bullshit. If your back and legs require a 300 pound deadlift but your grip can only handle 200 pounds, should you really forget about half-body workout just because your grip hasn’t caught up yet? What purpose could this serve?
Use straps instead when using them brings you closer to your goals than not using them . If you are using an appropriate grip (such as an alternate grip) and still cannot complete your deadlift sets, you need stronger arms. So you might be doing grip exercises, including the farmer’s walks and as many deadlift warm-up sets as you can, without straps. And then you pull the straps out when you don’t want the grip to restrain you.
For example, I have no problem with my grip on my max deadlift sets, but my coaches have instructed me to use straps on my high rep Romanian deadlift sets. This is because they are not designed for grip exercises and they want me to feel refreshed the next workout. It’s all about your goals.
If you are competing, take into account the rules of your federation. In powerlifting, you only count what you can lift without straps, so you need to figure out how to train for that. In power competitions, straps may be allowed, so the deadlift will not be a problem for you. And if you’re only training to build strength and don’t care about competition, lift it however you want.