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Your Grip is KILLING Your Gains (FIX THIS)

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Rating: 4.0; Vote: 1

s that knife-like stabbing pain that you get on the inside of your elbow every time you try and grip a bar or pull-up bar during any pulling exercise. This can be problematic in terms of your ability to do a heavy deadlift, weighted chinup, pullup, row, curl or even a lat pulldown. The fact of the matter is however, you are in complete control of how to fix this. In this video, I-m going to show you the anatomical reason for this overload and how to offset some of that load on all of the exercises mentioned above. Secondly, I want to try and show you how important it is to not just grip the bar or barbell without thought but to make sure it is in the right place in your hand to minimize the unnecessary stress being driven towards that inner elbow. Let-s start as always with some anatomy. The muscle in the forearm most responsible for causing this pain in the elbow is called the flexor digitorum superficialis or FDS for short. This muscle has two heads to it, the radial head and the humeral ulnar head. It is the latter that is most responsible for the pain being felt at your elbow. With attachments that feed through the wrist and insert on the middle phalanx of the ring and pinky finger, it is this head that is being asked to incur the forces that we are subjecting it to via heavy weighted chins, deadlifts and rows (or even bodyweight versions of the chin or row. This is just not something this small muscle is equipped to handle. The solution in all environments (whether it be on a pull-up bar or training with a barbell) is to fix two things. First, you need to fix the placement of the bar in your hands to better provide your body to mechanically leverage your ability to handle high load stresses. Secondly, you need to be aware of the tendency of the ring finger to want to dominate given it-s leveraged position relative to the other fingers when you close your hand down to grip, and understand how to minimize that. When it comes to the chinups and pullups, the first thing you want to do is change how you are gripping the bar. It all revolves around the middle knuckle of your fingers. On the pull-up, you want to make sure that you cannot see this middle knuckle from beneath the bar. If you can, then this means that you are losing your grip and the bar is drifting to the end of your fingers. This causes a high strain on this flexor tendon we spoke of. On the chinup, you want to be sure that you can see this knuckle. Here, if you do not, it means that you are once again losing your grip and allowing the bar to stress the distal tendon attachment too much leading to high strain and stress on the elbow. To minimize the ring finger from dominating this exercise, you want to do the following. Place a band around the bar as shown. It should create two laps of band that you can now rest your fourth and fifth fingers on. The increased height changes the length tension relationship of the tendons in these fingers causing them to contribute less to the grip. The forefinger and middle finger are now much more active in the grip and better capable of withstanding the high stresses without killing your elbows. On barbell work the best thing you can do is temporarily switch to a hook grip. The hook grip, while initially uncomfortable, can be a lifesaver. It gives you a chance to immediately shift the load from the ring and pinky fingers to the middle and index finger by virtue of the mechanics of the grip. You should instantly take any stress away from the elbow that you may be feeling. Make these substitutions and I promise you will overcome your pain in the elbow that is allowing your grip to stand in the way of your gains. It-s details like this that matter and, when addressed, can take you to a new level of gains you never thought possible. If you-re looking for a step by step plan for training like an athlete and taking your training seriously, be sure to head to athleanx. com via the link below and grab the program most aligned with your current physique and performance goals
Date: 2022-04-22

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Comments and reviews: 10

Red
I had this pain exactly for over two months and i didn't know what i was doing wrong. I used to do pull ups at pull up bars and everything was fine. But when quarantine happened i had to workout at home. So because i didn't have a pull up bar to properly grip, i would use my doorway. I had tremendous pain but i didn't know from what. Figured it was from doing something wrong, but i was determined to keep on going. And that was because i would grip the doorway with just my fingers, and put most of the stress there.
What fixed it for was that i kept on going. Even with the endless pain. I guess my tendons got strong enough to endure it and not feel it? I don't know. But the pain is now gone for over a month and i keep crushing the pull ups. And it is so much harder on the forearms without a proper grip that you feel that your forearms are giving out. Something i never felt in a pull up bar. My biceps were fatigued first before i could feel my forearms. But with the doorway its the opposite. So i guess i get to train a part of me that is left behind in terms of development. So my take on it is if a tendon hurts, just keep pushing through and the body will adapt.
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Garth
OMG! Thank you Jeff! I hope you get these comments because I have been suffering with golfers elbow for 2 years now and it's been killing me! I've had it bilaterally for a while and I finally got my left elbow to heal (I'm right-handed) and every time I start to feel better, I go right back to lifting again and it resurfaces. The one bright spot to this virus is that I haven't had to shake someone's hand in a while and that used to kill me. This vid is amazing to those of us suffering with this ailment - not even cortisone shots helped me. I really do miss doing pull-ups. Now I can already feel the difference with these tips. If you are ever in Orlando I owe you a nice bottle of wine. I don't care what Jessie says about you, you are alright in my book. Thank you!
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shizzlebizzfizz
Recently I've had an issue with my left ring finger where the finger meets the palm, some sharp needle like pain in it from doing squats and deadlifts. Most likely from poor grip form. Is the way he talks about knuckle position the same principle he is talking about around 5: 30 can be applied to doing stuff like what I mentioned just making sure to have your knuckles be parallel with the floor since the pull-up and deadlifts are both using the same pulling from your hands (not talking about the rest of the motion from the body just strictly from the hands? Or is the hook grip method the only way for that specific type of pulling?
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Andrew
I-ve struggled with golfers elbow for 2 1/2 Years now and as a full time tennis coach it-s had a massive impact on my career. I-ve managed to get my elbow to what feels like 90% healed but this band trick is fantastic and hopefully will take me to 100%! Bent over rows (1 example) is usually a killer for my elbow but with this trick it-s pain free! I really appreciate videos like this and how over the past few years you have opened my eyes about how to condition the body from a biomechanical side! Thank you for allowing us access to your knowledge and experience: ) from Andrew Spencer (uk)
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athleanx
Thank you, Jeff, so much, - that is so helpful! I did feel pain in my medial elbow, and absolutely didn't understand what's going on. i was just like -ok, i am beginner and to feel the pain after training is normal, because everybody talks about these -no pain no gain, come on, pull that shit etc- and at the same time No info about basic things you have explained here. And now i realized that there are so many small details in a grip technique and our body & if we do things the right way will be safe from injuries.
Thank you, trainer - for sharing your knowledge!
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besighyawn
I weirdly had golfer's elbow when I'd casually play tennis instead of the side -tennis elbow- usually happens. Recognized my weird grip used mostly my ring finger during swings. Also led me to realize when I struggle during lifts, my grip would weaken and my ring finger would take most of the stress contributing to elbow pain. Once I recognized that, started focusing on balancing my grip and elbow pain went away in a week.
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Daniel
Years back, didn't that tip on bending the wrist back while doing curls include gripping the weight in your fingers (rather than your palm? It's possible I misinterpreted a video back then, but that's what I did in the first place which caused the golfer's elbow I'm still dealing with. I believe I first felt it about three years ago. Been dealing with it in both elbows since.
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David
I've been doing chin ups with a deeper grip and have not experienced pain in the elbows! Thanks!
But I'm a bit confused about the mechanics of the hook grip. If using the band takes the focus off the ring and little fingers by increasing the distance between those fingers and the bar, wouldn't inserting the thumb under the index and middle fingers take the focus off them?
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Odedishelanu
jeff my pinky tends to the left i broke it while i got my butt kicked fighting at school (16 y'o) didnt do a pull up for the next 3 or 4 years my first pull up was at almost 20 and now (dont hate me jeff) muscle ups are my favorite exercise well thanks for the videos and advice and not killing my gains (:
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Hrithik
thanks for this amazing video, I'm suffering from this problem for quite some years but after this video I'm able to correct my grip which helps me go for heavy weights. I even tried to seek some advice from doctors about this problem which every time arises, but nobody explains you this good than Jeff does.
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