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pulling on a weight that seemed too heavy even to break off the ground when tried with a double-overhand grip, only to find that it goes up surprisingly easily when the grip is alternated. The back will not pull off the floor what the hands cannot hold, due to proprioceptive feedback that tells the back that the weight is too heavy. When the grip is flipped and the hands don’t slip as the load increases off the floor, the back doesn’t receive the signal that makes it stop the pull. A long, heavy deadlift can get dropped from higher up the legs with any style of grip, but most lifters cannot even break a weight off the floor that is so heavy that it opens the hands at the start of the pull. Deadlift straps have a place in training, but judgment must be exercised here; they can cause as many problems as they solve. Straps can allow heavier back training if grip is the limiting factor, or they can cause grip to be a limiting factor by preventing it from getting strong if they are used too often with too light a weight.

The hands are prone to callus formation as a normal part of training. All lifters have calluses, and need them to protect the hands from blisters and tears. Skin adapts to stress like all other tissues do; skin thickens precisely where it receives the stress of abrasion and folding. Calluses are bad only if they are excessive, and gripping the bar incorrectly causes excessive callus formation. Most lifters do this and have never considered the role of the grip in callus formation. Heavy calluses tear frequently, usually on the distal palmar crease (and most often into the base of the ring finger because ring wearing has already produced a starter callus there). A torn callus makes the rest of the meet a challenge, eased only by some lidocaine gel that you might have in the gym bag if this has happened to you before. But if the bar is gripped correctly, callus buildup is kept minimal and the problem is not nearly as bad.

Figure 4-6. (Left panels), (A) Gripping the bar correctly, well down into the hook of the fingers, will reduce the amount of callus development. (Right panels), (B) Gripping the bar too high in the hand will allow the bar to slide down into the fingers, folding the palm skin as it goes. This folding along the area between the distal transverse crease and the proximal digital crease causes most callus formation. If they become excessively thick, calluses can tear off during heavy lifts and ruin the rest of your day.

When you’re setting the grip, if you place the bar in the middle of your palm and wrap your fingers from there, a fold forms at the distal end of your palm, right before the area where your fingers start. When you pull the bar up, gravity shoves this fold farther down toward your fingers, increasing the folding and stress on this part of the skin. A callus forms here as a result, and the presence of the callus amplifies the folding problem by making the fold even thicker. If you grip the bar farther down toward your fingers to begin with, it can’t slide down much because it’s already there. This is actually where the bar needs to be, since gravity will pull it there eventually. And since the bar should stop there anyway, you might as well start in this position. You also get the advantage of having less far to pull the bar; if it is farther down in your fingers, then your chest is up higher, your position off the floor is easier, the bar locks out farther down your thigh, and the bar has a shorter distance it has to move before being locked out.

Figure 4-7. Hand surface anatomy. The bar should be between the distal transverse crease and the proximal digital crease.

Equipment can contribute to callus formation, and this fact applies to all the lifts. A bar with an excessively sharp knurl is an annoying thing to have to use in the weight room. Older bars usually have better knurls than newer bars; either the older ones are worn smooth or they were made more correctly (it seems that companies decided to start making Texas Chainsaw Massacre knurls in about 1990). Bad