USAWA

Hey Jim, nice attempts. Earlier this year I started doing 1-a dl with the goal in mind of breaking the USAWA Open/All record in my weight class. I did the same thing as you, going from straddle to standard style pulls. My reason for doing that was to assess what’s easier on my thumbs. Turns out, in my case, that it makes no difference on my thumbs, but from a pulling machanics perspective, the straddle seems to mitigate some of the leverage issues seen with the conventional way to pull with one arm. So now I pull exclusively straddle style.

A note on the thumbs, and I’d like to have your and others’ feedback on this. I have found that in my case, when I go real heavy, if I tighten my grip around the thumb as much as possible before I pull, the less pain I experience during the pull. It seems a bit strange to force an extremely tight grip prior to loading, but it seems to work during the pull in terms of reducing thumb pain. What are your and others’ experiences in that regard?

-d

I’ve found that if I slam the edge of a 5 pound plate down across the top of my thumbnail right before I “hook into” a one arm deadlift, the pain from the hook grip is much less.

WELCOME BACK DAN!!!!

Jim, I think you misunderstood. I’m not “crushing” my thumb before I pull, nor am I looking at changing pain perception. In what I’m doing, I feel as though the stronger grip around my thumb prior to the pull creates a stronger hold once I pull, in that the thumb then doesn’t open up on me. It seems to me that if the grip on my thumb prior to the pull isn’t that strong, then as I pull, my thumb opens up a bit on the barbell and that creates more pain, while still holding my grip on the bar, though.

I think that the above might, however, depend on hand and thumb dimensions so that not every guy experiences this the same way, if at all, and was curious about others’ experiences and if they experimented with it or not.

As to the crushing grip in benching, that’s a silly, old, and totally unfounded, not to mention ineffective concept. For pretty basic reasons of anatomy and physiology, it’s a silly notion which has also been dispelled by research. A few years back we already covered that in JOPP, so there’s really no need to hold on to that one anymore. 🙂

As to Pavel, I’m not even going to go there, other than to say that he certainly is a creative guy. The question, however, is whether creativity should have a place in physiology. Put another way, if you require bypass surgery, would you go to a “creative” surgeon or one whose surgical techniques are firmly grounded in principles of science?

-d

I never had much thumb pain when I did one-hand deadlifts, although I do recall having some pain when I first started doing them in competition. I never lost a lift in competition because of a grip problem and can recall missing only one deadlift in competition, and that occurred because of a problem with the bar.

I don’t have an Olympic bar with a center knurling, so when I prepared for competitions, I did so with a bar that was smooth, almost slick, in the center. I would work up to 244 a few days before a contest and assumed that if I could handle that weight easily on a smooth bar, then I should be good for about 350 in the contest, and that was generally the case. I got 356 off the floor during one contest preparation, but with that much weight and no center knurling, the bar came crashing back down very quickly.

I found through experience that I needed to make sure that my arm was perfectly vertical when I started the lift, with my hand and arm pushed to the left as much as possible. I gave a “tutorial” to Bob Karhan and Jimmy Malloy at one meet and this is one of the points that I emphasized.

Tom

Well, I just hope that this is one of those things where the “learning curve” is a bit extended. Hopefully I’ll either get used to the pain or just get better at the lift. I’ve only been hook-gripping for about a year, so I think I need to give it more time. And only time will tell…

-d