How to Properly Hold a Barbell With a Crochet Hook
As we said earlier, there are three ways to hold a barbell if you’re worried about your grip slipping . You can use straps; you can turn your palms in different directions (mixed grip); or you can hook your thumb under your fingers, a technique known as the hook grip. The hook grip is more secure than the mixed grip and is necessary for exercises such as snatches and cleans where a mixed grip is not possible. Yes, it hurts. Yes, you’ll get used to it.
I’m happy to say that after six years of training and competing in weightlifting (where the hook grip is not feared or discussed, but simply a part of life) I now believe that the hook grip is not nearly as painful as is commonly believed. And yes, I am the person who wrote in the previous article that the hook grip “hurts like hell.” This is partly because I’m used to it, but partly because I’ve done it wrong before. So here are some tips on how to get comfortable with the hook grip.
Use a thinner bar
This is advice for everyone, but especially for people with small hands (including most women). You’ll find a wide variety of barbells at most gyms , and not all of them have the same handle diameter. Some are thick and strong; they are difficult to grip and can be used for squats or bench presses where it doesn’t make much of a difference. Bars designed for deadlifting or Olympic weightlifting will be thinner and easier to grip with your fingers.
So make sure that the bar you are trying to grab onto is not very thick. If you have large hands, any regular barbell will do – usually a 28mm handle. Deadlift bars tend to be a little thinner at 27 millimeters, and women’s Olympic weightlifting bars are the thinnest of the regular bars at 25 millimeters.
If you’re having trouble trying to grab a regular bar, try a women’s bar and see if you can master the snapping technique. I used to think I “couldn’t” hook a regular bar, but after learning how to properly hook a women’s bar, I found that I could hook a men’s bar without too much trouble.
Place your thumb so that it is parallel to the bar.
A common mistake—and one that causes the hook grip to hurt far more than it should—is placing the thumb incorrectly on the bar. Don’t assume your thumb is going under the bar; these are not pliers that resist your fingers. You also don’t want to grip the bar with your thumb, as if your thumb’s job was to grip the bar. The purpose of the thumb in a hook grip is to create a barrier of sorts to prevent things from sliding off.
I took a few photos of me setting up my grip on the bar so you can see exactly how I do it. (I’m sure every lifter has their own quirks, but mine should be a good example to convey the basics.) Here’s how I set up my grip:
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First I find the position of my hand on the bar (usually aligning my hand with the knurling or rings ).
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I press the webbing of my thumb against the bar, which allows me to move my thumb away from my body and have the side of my thumb touch the bar.
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When I return the rest of my hand to its place, my middle finger crosses the thumbnail perpendicularly . (If you can only remember one checkpoint to check if you’re doing everything right, remember this.)
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With the rest of my fingers I loosely grasp the crossbar. I don’t have to squeeze – the hook holds everything in place.
The exact positions will depend on the size and shape of your hands, and you may find that you grip the bar slightly differently with a wide grip (snatch grip) than with a narrower grip. But make sure that your thumb runs more or less along the bar, parallel to its length. (It may be helpful to think about pointing your thumb toward your little finger.) You should avoid pinching your thumb with as many fingers as possible, and you should not try to wrap it deeply around the bar. If you feel pain in your thumb joint, where your thumb meets your palm, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Exercise
Will it still hurt? This is the first time you’ve gotten heavy, yeah. But you’ll get used to it faster than you think. If you commit to using the hook grip as much as possible and using it as often as possible, the adaptation process will only take about two weeks. If any pain, bruising or calluses appear, they should be mild, roughly parallel to the length of the thumb, and located on the side of the thumb, not in the middle of the ball of the thumb or on the knuckle.
During this time, grab everything you can with your hook. If this means you’re only holding the hook during your deadlift warm-up, but once you get over 135 pounds on the bar you can’t handle it, that’s fine for that day. The next time you deadlift, you’ll probably be able to lift 135 pounds just fine, and you might have to go back to your old 225-pound grip. Soon you’ll be hooked on everything. To get more practice, grab every crochet exercise you can (rows, etc.) just for the sake of practice.
Once you get used to the hook grip, pain won’t be an issue, but I’d be lying if I said your thumbs would always feel great. If I’m doing a multi-rep exercise, I’ll use straps rather than a hook grip for 10 heavy reps in a row. Some lifters like to tape their thumbs. This provides a slight compression so the pressure won’t hurt as much and will also prevent the knurling from digging into the skin. You can use regular athletic tape as long as you leave a cutout for the knuckle, but it’s more common these days to use a stretchy, grippy thumb tape like this one over the entire thumb.