This week I recorded a live webinar on the topic of deadlifting and biofeedback. Leading up to the webinar where I did a live Q&A, I asked people to send in questions ahead of time. One of the questions that came in was a very good question, and I knew that it was a little bit outside of my wheelhouse, but I knew that it would be perfect for the one and only Jonathan Fass  – my good friend and go-to expert analyst. I wanted to bring Jon on to the call, but due to various technical and scheduling difficulties that proved impossible. Nonetheless I was able to record a call I did with him the same day, and put this question to him. Here was the question I received:

“Thanks for all the great information. I am also a huge proponent of the deadlift as it has helped relieve me of some chronic back pain I had when I was younger. However, I work in a physiotherapy clinic doing mainly post rehab and fat loss here in Winnipeg and I’m having some real trouble shifting our physios over to this way of thinking. They always say “there are better and safer ways to accomplish the same thing” but I feel the risk is worth the reward. Could you point me towards any research or even just speak about changing perspectives that many health care practitioners hold (that may be out of date)?”

 

And my conversation with J-Fizzle:

Hope this helps you!

I want nothing more than to help you improve your deadlift. I can and will talk about deadlifting for hours. As you may know, I even wrote a book on the deadlift. One of my favorite things is when a client comes up and says “Hey, I have a question about my deadlift.” I’m all “LETS DO THIS.”

During the book process, I did several webinars and conference calls for various groups or people who asked me to speak to their audience. I found these to be REALLY fun to do, as you can imagine someone who loves talking about the deadlift would.

I then realized I should do a webinar that is open to all of YOU. This is your chance to ask the burning questions you’ve had about putting pounds on your deadlift, avoiding back pain when deadlifting or any other related topic.

To kick off the webinar, I’m going to give a short presentation on how to implement biofeedback and cover some of the most common questions people ask when it comes to implementing biofeedback in their training.

Then I’m going to get to your questions, as well as do a live Q&A.

You should go sign up right now.

In addition to the webinar – which is next Tuesday – I have also put together 3 videos covering some important deadlift topics. These are topics that come up again and again with clients and in coaching groups, so I wanted to give you a leg up.

The old lifting adage is that if you can’t hold onto it, you can’t lift it. This is pretty obvious, and it doesn’t really give you any new information to work with. If it’s supposed to be a motivator to train grip strength, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Let me tell you what IS a motivation to train your grip: being able to pick up something that others can’t even budge off the ground because their fingers slip right off it. Success breeds success, and that kind of thing breeds an awfully strong desire for more success. Like this:

That lift alone was enough motivation for another year of grip training. Most people will never even budge an Inch dumbbell off the floor.

What is Open Hand Strength?

Open-hand grip training is the kind of grip training that allows you to pick up large, awkward objects without convenient handles. These are things that are big enough that they prevent you from wrapping your thumb around your fingers as in a traditional barbell lift or lifting something with a thin handle. Hence, open hand. Common lifting objects to test and train this type of grip strength include:

York blobs, which are heads of old York dumbbells that have been cut off. Lifting a York 50 is considered an elite level of grip strength:

Fat handled dumbbells, such as the famous Thomas Inch dumbbell, or modern circus bells like the Sorinex Bosco Bell.

Axles are incredibly popular in strongman competition, as well as forming a cornerstone of the grip sport trio of lifts.

The Rolling Thunder rotating handle from Iron Mind is another staple in the grip athlete’s arsenal.

Train It

You want to train your hands to pick up large objects. Good.

First thing’s first, if you’re willing to spend a little money than you need to get yourself some Fat Gripz. I feel like a broken record because I write about them so often. Here’s the thing, though: Prior to the invention of these cheap and handy silicone sleeves, you had to spend at least several hundred dollars on hard-to-find equipment. Now, for about forty bucks, you can turn anything into a fat-handled object.

Simplest thing to do? Put Fat Gripz on everything you do for 8 weeks. Pull-ups, deadlifts, rows, and presses. The works. You will see you hand strength go through the roof.

Next simplest hand-strengthener: Meander over to the dumbbell rack. Stand a dumbbell on its end on the ground. Grab it from the top with your fingers and thumb. Try to pick it up. Adjust the weight accordingly.

One of my favorite things to do with any grip lift is a 2-minute deadlift challenge. See how many times you can pick it up off the ground in two minutes. You can either stick to one hand at a time, or use both.

The big picture for training open-hand strength is to start with something that you can’t wrap your hand all the way around, and pick it up. If it’s too hard, make it a little bit lighter or easier. If it’s too easy, make it a bit more challenging.

Ready for a Challenge?

I don’t know where it originated, but a couple years ago my friends Adam T. Glass and Matt Brouse started doing this fat dumbbell challenge as a way to progress towards the Inch dumbbell. It’s a genius way to train because you get a very different training stimulus from each the three movements. Here’s what you do:

Load a fat dumbell handle (or Fat Gripz on a regular dumbbell handle) with an amount of weight that you can one-arm snatch. Work up to your max snatch that way.

Now add more weight, working up to a clean max.

Finally, continue adding weight until you work up to a deadlift max.

You can also train this in reverse, but the idea remains the same.

I haven’t tried this particular challenge in a while, so I’ll post my score later this week. Give it a shot, and post your numbers in the comments.