I don't hold with a lot of Gym-lore thinking. By that I mean you will not find me spewing out the usual nonsense that you find in fitness magazines.
I fervently believe that strength, fitness and fat-loss come from adding muscle to your body and that you do this by lifting weights via compound movements and by gradually increasing the weight you lift.
"Okay, okay" you say..."so what has this got to do with increasing my Dead-lift?"
Well, it goes like this. I offer a solution to getting fit and strong in the shortest amount of time and get a hoard of excuses as to why these exercises can't be performed.
For exercises like Dead-lift and Bent-over row...the limiting factor or objection is grip. Picking up heavy bars puts a huge strain on your grip and your grip will probably give out before everything else.
So here is what to do to instantly improve your grip.
- Do NOT use lifting hooks or straps...they will only make your grip weaker over time.
- Do use a technique called "White Knuckling". When you grab hold of the bar, squeeze the bar as hard as you can as you lift. This activates and recruits a whole host of muscles, sinews, ligaments and fibres within your body. Allowing you to pick up much heavier weights, or making heavy weights seem a lot easier to lift.
- On the last repetition of each set, hold the bar for a count of 10 before lowering it. So if you are doing 5 reps per set, hold the bar for a count of 10 on the 5th repetition of each set. This will help build your grip strength.
- Use chalk to improve your grip. We didn't realise how effective chalk is to lifting until we tried it. Absolutely amazing how much it improves grip. It is also very cheap, peanuts cheap. There is a down-side to using chalk...the dust cloud and mess. But you can get around that with Troll chalk balls or Eco Balls or even liquid grip. All are highly recommended and won't get you thrown out of the Gym for making a mess and they are all still very cheap.
- When the weight gets very heavy, switch to using a split grip...commonly known as an over-hand and under-hand grip - one hand over the bar (palm of hand facing towards your body) and one hand under the bar (palm of hand facing out away from your body). The same sort of grip you would use to hold a Baseball Bat.
There you have it...5 simple tricks to instantly and dramatically increase your dead lift. Incidentally, with the exception of the split-grip, these techniques can be used to increase/improve your bent over row, dip, pull-up/chin-up and bench press.
So quit your stalling, quit your mewling and give it a go. I guarantee you'll be stunned at the results.
