How to Grip Bars Correctly: Push vs. Pull Exercises

Feb 19th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Injury, Strength Training, Weight Lifting

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Push exercises put pressure on your wrists. Pull exercises pull the bar out of your hands. Gripping bars correctly prevents problems like wrist pain or torn calluses. This article will teach you how to grip the bar correctly.

Push Exercises. These are weight lifting & body-weight exercises where you push the weight/yourself away. StrongLifts 5×5 includes 3 push exercises:

A common error is to put the bar high in your hands, close to your fingers. Your wrists then roll back and get stretched by the weight. This causes wrist pain. Wrists wraps & wrists curls won’t help. You need to grip the bar correctly.

Left: incorrect grip technique, wrists roll back. Right: correct grip technique.

How to Grip Bars: Push Exercises. Put the bar close to the heel of your hands. Thumbs around the bar to avoid accidents. Squeeze the bar hard to increase power transfer to the bar. This also prevents the bar to move in your hands.

Left: incorrect grip technique, too high. Right: correct technique, close to the fingers.

Pull Exercises. These are exercises where you pull the weight or yourself against gravity. Stronglifts 5×5 includes 4 pull exercises:

The bar will slide down during pulling movement if you put the bar in your hand palm. This folds your palm skin, increasing callus formation. Bigger calluses rip off more easily, especially during heavy Deadlifts.

Torn calluses take 2 weeks to heal. Lifting feels uncomfortable, forcing you to lower the weight. It takes another 2 weeks for your skin to toughen up. During those 2 weeks the callus can rip off again.

How to Grip Bars: Pull Exercises. The solution is to put the bar close to your fingers. Grip the bar into the hook of your fingers. This minimizes skin folding, and thus callus formation.

If you gripped the bar incorrectly until now, the new grip technique will feel uncomfortable. Persist. Think of the benefits. Lower the weight if necessary, and keep practicing. You’ll get used to it.

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14 Responses to “How to Grip Bars Correctly: Push vs. Pull Exercises”

on 19 Feb 2008 at 6:17 pm1Mikey

Excellent post… commonly overlooked but just as important as tying your shoes.
on 19 Feb 2008 at 6:26 pm2Wazzup

I tend to grip the bar with my fingers (first phalanx ?) instead of with the palm of my hand. I does keep the bar from sliding, but does limit my grip.
on 19 Feb 2008 at 7:03 pm3Alex Kay

I’ll apply this to my dips when I hit the gym a little later, good reminder Mehdi!
on 19 Feb 2008 at 8:27 pm4A.J

calluses are sexy
on 19 Feb 2008 at 10:26 pm5Anavus

Ouch, those calluses look pretty nasty in that picture. Are those your hands, Mehdi? Did you do that just for the sake of the post? P.S. The word is “torn”, not “teared”.
on 19 Feb 2008 at 10:59 pm6Jorick

I dont entirely agree on the grip for the pull exercises. For me, grip is often the limiting factor (although I train with grippers) with deadlifts. I take the bar high in my hand like you do with push exercises so I can make a firm fist.

My calluses have never teared. I recommend training your grip so it won’t slip out of your hands in the first place, or treat your calluses with a file so there isn’t any calluses to tear in the first place.
on 19 Feb 2008 at 11:26 pm7Mehdi

@Anavus
Thanks for the spelling tip. It’s torn indeed, should have known that. Yeah my hand in the pic, torn callus during the summer doing power cleans without chalk.

@Jorick
Bar slipping is not the the problem, bar pressing against the skin folds is. This increases callus formation, thicker calluses tear more easily.

I used to put the bar in the palm of my hand on pulling exercises for years because I didn’t know better. You can make a firm first when putting the bar low as much as you can when putting the bar high. If not, you just need to get used to it.
on 20 Feb 2008 at 1:27 am8RT the Fitness Guy

One important thing I think needs to be mentioned is that a lot of this is caused by people trying to handle too much weight. If a weight is too heavy in the hand and the technique is sacrificed then we lose track of how the bar should be in the palm.

Great article.

RT
on 20 Feb 2008 at 1:39 am9o

http://www.beastskills.com/calluses.htm

This website has information on how to remove hand calluses. Useful info!
on 20 Feb 2008 at 2:03 am10Carl

Good info.

I think it should also be noted that using a thumbless grip for pull exercises is a good recommendation as well.

It minimizes bicep and tricep involvement in a pull movement.
on 20 Feb 2008 at 7:41 am11Wazzup

There is NO WAY I can pull serious weight without the use of my thumb. (nah, maybe if I use straps all the time)
on 20 Feb 2008 at 10:35 am12Mehdi

@Carl/Wazzup
You indeed lose strength by not using your thumbs.
on 28 Feb 2008 at 4:18 pm13berty

Thanks , thats all i needed to know , a solution for Callus forming on my palm lately. Oh yeah do remember to put on gloves!
on 28 Feb 2008 at 6:28 pm14Wazzup

Gloves make my grip even worse on pulls (an don pushes you really don’t need them).

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