The Hook Grip

What's up guys, we're back.

This week we're focused on your thumbs. We're talking about the hook grip. Barbell cycling is a premium in Olympic lifting, specifically in the sport of CrossFit. It's a skill that is highly demanded and often at loads it's hard to hold on to for long periods of time. It's very important in pushing the demands of your fitness to the next level, because if you can't cycle reps and you're always dropping it due to lack of grip strength or grip endurance it's certainly gonna make a difference and create a ceiling on the way that you're able to continue to improve.

What we want to do today is focus on utilizing our grip on the bar to our biggest advantage. At some point even in your wondering max pursuit, your power that you're able to put into the floor and into the barbell is going to cause the bar to shift in your hands. What we see more often than not is a traditional grip where our fingers wrap around the bar and then our thumb around our fingers. The hook grip is the opposite. We set the base of our palm against the bar, our thumb then goes around the bar and then our fingers – primarily our pointer and our middle finger – are going to go over our thumb. That contact is going to feel a bit uncomfortable, you might even feel weak in that position at first. You will start to understand that this grip is indestructible. The biggest detriments is you might get some dead skin on your thumb and your iPhone may no longer respond to the touch of that skin anymore. But by using tape, you can protect the skin and prevent that from happening. Keep in mind that athletic tape is known to cut off some circulation, so be aware of what you're using. It can be your best friend to help you in 1 rep max, powerlifting, strength development, and with all of the Olympic lifts. 

Coming up we will get you some great videos and tutorials on drills that I personally use in order to help me to learn better ways to cycle – not just to clean but also the snatch – in my training so that I can actually practice losing the hook grip and also regrouping the hook grip. Get out there, get your thumb around the bar, fingers around the thumb for almost everything you do, just not driving your car.