Episode 43: How to Strengthen Your Grip for Heavier Deadlifts
Hey there! 👋 I'm Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains), personal trainer and host of the Coaching Corner podcast. In this episode, we’re talking about how to strengthen your grip to lift heavier weights.
In my over 10 years as a fitness coach, I’ve found that grip strength is the number one limiting factor for many exercisers in doing deadlifts. I’ve found a lot of success, however, by having my clients practice a variety of pulling and hanging exercises, which I discuss in the episode.
This discussion in this episode was recorded while I was live on my Twitch channel for my weekly fitness stream. Make sure to follow or subscribe to me at Twitch.tv/jaydigains so you can participate in future discussions!
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Jayd (00:00):
If you want to do power lifting, if you want to compete, if you want to get really, really strong, you do want to work on your grip strength and train to the point where you can hold the amount of weight that your legs can push. So what I do with my clients is I on a deadlift day or a back day or a poll day, and sometimes I have 'em. It depends on how bad their grip strength is. I might have them do these types of exercises every day, that specifically target developing grip strength. Hey there. Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I've created this podcast so that I can share the tips and wisdom that I've gained over the last 10 years working as a personal trainer and fitness coach. In today's episode, I'm going to share one of the discussions that I had with a chatter on my Twitch channel.
(00:58)
This chatter was asking me about how to perform the hook grip, which is a style of grip for deadlifts, and this grew into a larger discussion on how to strengthen your grip strength. Now, grip strength is, in my experience, one of the main limiting factors for most exercisers when it comes to performing deadlifts and being able to lift as much weight as their legs can handle. So in this episode, I give some tips and exercises that I recommend and I use for my clients to help them to develop their grip strength so that they can lift bigger weights. Before we get into the episode, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel. If you're watching on YouTube, this will allow you to get notified anytime I drop a new video. If you're listening to this podcast, make sure that you follow the channel so that you also get notified anytime there's a new episode and it gets delivered right to your device. If you would like more information about me and the services that I offer, you can head to my website. That's jaydigains.com, J-A-Y-D-I-G-A-I-N-S.com. Check out my membership where I offer exclusive training tips, nutrition tips, recipes, meal plans and training programs with new content added every month. You can sign up right from my website and without further ado, let's get into the episode.
(02:19)
I know it's not back poll day, but I'm wondering if you can show how to do a proper hook grip. Just learning over here, if you don't mind. I don't think I am the best person to demonstrate a proper hook grip because I do not lift with a hook grip. You know, who could actually teach you how to do a hook grip would be Ben Rice and he streams pretty frequently. He is a much, much better source. I don't think I could really demonstrate it so well because I don't like it. I don't do it and I probably don't do it. Well, I can't stand it when I deadlift. I do a mixed grip. I do over under when I'm doing heavy. If I'm just muscle building and I'm not doing heavy, I just use straps. I tried in the past and I was like, fuck that.
(03:05)
No, never, never, never. No. Why do I want to squish my thumb? Why? I couldn't even tell you what the benefits are. People say it helps them to retain better grip on the bar. That's not my experience though. Even with mixed grips, your deadlifts are really struggling and it's not the back. Is it your grip strength then for certain? Because if it's your grip strength, it's always a good idea to work on your grip strength no matter what, regardless of what grip you use on deadlift. Grip strength is the number one limiting factor for most people that I train when it comes to working their deadlifts up. I'd say grip strength and core strength. So it's usually overall it's the upper body that is the limiting factor for most people's deadlifts, whether that's not having the core strength to be able to keep your torso rigid while you are bearing a lot of weight, or it's the actual strength of the arms and being able to hold the amount of weight that your legs need to get the stimulus that they need to grow and get stronger.
(04:14)
So if you do struggle with the bars just rolling open, right? There's a couple of things that you can do. Hook grip is not one of the things that I suggest because I hate it personally, but I'm also like I don't use it myself. So I couldn't really give a whole lot of guidance on that. But basically it's just embrace the pain is kind of the answer. Also, because I'm very small, I am a five three duet, so I am not a dude. I don't have really big hands. So that probably has to do with why hook grip is especially terrible for me. If I was using a girl bar like the little 35 pound Bella bars, I might be able to do it more comfortably. But with an Olympic barbell, it's just a pain city. But if you want to do power lifting, if you want to compete, if you want to get really, really strong, you do want to work on your grip strength and train to the point where you can hold the amount of weight that your legs can push.
(05:19)
So what I do with my clients is on a deadlift day or a back day or a pull day, and sometimes I have 'em, it depends on how bad their grip strength is. I might have them do these types of exercises every day that specifically target developing grip strength. So to develop grip strength, you can do exercises where basically you're just holding weight at your sides. Farmer carries are like the perfect example of this. I like to actually warm my clients up with farmer carries. What else are they called? They're called farmer carries. Farmer walks. They have a couple of different names, but essentially what you're doing is you're holding at your sides and you're maintaining a tall posture as you walk. You're just walking while holding weights, a grocery carry, if you will. And the challenge is to just keep holding the weights as long as you can or whatever interval of time.
(06:14)
With my clients, I'll usually give them a distance point, like walk with this weight to that point, turn around and come back. Or you can set a timer and say, I'm going to walk continuously with this weight for 45 seconds to a minute or more. You could warm up with that or you could add that as an accessory on other training days. Other carrying exercises would be things like Romanian deadlifts or rose, sorry, not rose. Well, yeah, rose actually too. But lunges like reverse lunges, forward lunges, walking lunges, those are other exercises where you're just basically holding the weights at your side for extra resistance. Of course, like rows actually doing rows, standing rows or rows with the dumbbells. Another really great way to train up your grip strength and just your upper body strength and your back strength. A lot of kettlebell exercises are awesome for developing grip strength and coordination.
(07:13)
So kettlebell swings and kettlebell swing variations are all really good for developing your grip strength. Hanging just dead hangs, dead hangs. If you have a pull-up bar or a TRX strap where basically you're doing any kind of a hanging exercise can help you with your grip strength as well. If you have access to an assisted pullup machine, that's also helpful. But you can also use super bands to help you as in an assisted pullup. So any kind of hanging or pulling up exercises aren't pulling exercises in general. The thing is, if you had to be careful how much you fatigue your grip before you actually do your deadlift sets, specifically if you're trying to lift as much as you can in your deadlifts. So I would say do what you need to do just to warm up. Warm up intensity. Do as many of your deadlift sets as you can without any aid if you have a lot of sets.
(08:07)
My program right now is based on the JU juggernaut training systems program, so I have a lot of sets. I have 10 sets of deadlifts that I have to do on my deadlift day, so I do as many of my sets as I can with no straps. But then for my amra set, my last set, I'll just go ahead and use straps for that. So that's another approach that you can do is just do as many of your deadlift sets and reps as you can with no aid and then finish your workout with straps just so that your legs can get the stimulus they need without your hands limiting them. And then as accessories, after you've done all of your deadlifts or on a separate day when you're recovered, do all of these other types of grip training exercises and do it to fatigue, do it to muscle failure where you can't hold the weight any longer.
(08:56)
And over time, that will get your grip strength up to the point where you can handle more weight before your grip fails with your deadlifts, you would end each workout with a farmer's walk distance until I can't hold the weight, but the other day I did, so almost three days later my forms are still struggling though I hear they're supposed to recover quicker the first time you do it or whenever you progress the exercise, you're going to have soreness. You are going to have that delayed onset muscle soreness. It's always going to be worse whenever you add something new or you do something for the first time, it should get better over time, but some people are always sore. Don't get me wrong, some people are always sore no matter what, but it should get better over time. But anytime you add something new, just know that you're going to probably have some delayed onset muscle soreness with that, especially the assist for the last set.
(09:48)
Yeah, I mean, honestly, how many days a week are you working out? If you're working out like four days a week, just do some grip strength exercises in every single workout, even if it's not a pull day, and that can gradually bring your strength up over time, but it is going to take a while. Don't get me wrong, especially considering how much your legs might need in terms of weight to get challenged, it may take a long time for your grip strength to be there. This is especially the case for my female clients. A lot of my female clients are very, very strong in their lower bodies when they first start working with me and forever. Women just generally have more muscle, more percentage of their muscle is focused on the lower body just by nature versus the upper body. And so it just takes a really long time to catch the upper body up to the point where you can hold what you need to hold for your legs to get challenged.
(10:41)
So you want to play. It's a delicate balance between doing what you need to do, lifting only what you can actually carry so that you catch your grip strength up and balancing that out with using AIDS so that you can get the stimulus that your muscles need in order to actually get stronger and grow. But yeah, that's what I do with my clients. That's kind of my approach to it. Thank you so much for watching this episode of The Coaching Corner podcast. Again, I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. If you have any questions or comments, make sure to leave them in the comments below this video if you're watching on YouTube. Also note that you can join me while I'm live on my Twitch channel. Just make sure to give me a follow on Twitch. That's Twitch.tv/jaydigains. Follow the channel so you get notified when I go live and you can join me and ask questions or share your progress. I love to hear from you guys. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure you prioritize your self-care, drink some water, eat some veggies, eat some protein, and I will see you soon.
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