Hook Grip Comfort

 I'm moving into maximal deadlifts on a bimonthly basis (every other month). This is a drop from my usual every week and every other month schedule. One of the big factors for me to drop this intensity is my grip. One of the worse reasons to miss a rep is because of gripping issues. Usually I just chalk up and use a hook grip to handle heavy deads. Recently, getting the finger and thumb position correct has become more and more difficult. Some days I can lift the weight like a dream. On other days shearing pain courses through my thumb as I lift the weight. I theorize this is because it is hard to get my fingers and thumbs into the perfect hook grip position to really get the weight lifted without screaming in winey pain. Looking at this from another perspective, I have long limbs and long fingers. My fingers want to wrap around the bar more than just once. This is probably an issue for most of us with basketball-gripping finger length. So a quick solution is to wrap the bar with a cloth.

 More specifically, two pieces of cloth wrapped around the bar at the point of  grip. Adding more girth to the bar should allow for a better hook grip with my long fingers. Also, the cloth adds a soft circumference to the bar. If the bar was a just a wider bar, the extra hard width would cause more exertion in the wrist and forearms. Good for building forearm and overall grip strength but not necessarily desired when the goal is simply to get the weight off the floor. Giving my theory a try and will post the results.

  Currently my guesstimated max deadlift weight is around 435-450lbs (197 -204kgs). I'm still aiming for a 500lb deadlift in late summer. It's is essential getting the grip issue corrected.