This 1 Minute Routine Makes Your Deadlift Instantly Stronger

One minute. One habit. A huge difference in how your deadlift feels and performs. Try this before your next pull—you’ll feel it immediately. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains.

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Don't start deadlifting before you've done THIS

It's simple. It's fast. And skipping it could wreck your deadlift. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains and demonstrates.

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The BEST Grip for Deadlift!

There is one correct way to grip the bar in the deadlift, and it's probably not what you think. In the 5th video in our Saturday Shorts series on fixing the deadlift, Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains what's up.

(A Blast from the Past video originally published on 11/26/22)

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Why is EVERYONE Failing Their Deadlifts? (WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?)

A lot of people are failing their deadlifts for a reason that's completely and easily preventable. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains and demonstrates.

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The Hook Grip - Some Clarifications

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 11/18/19)

We discussed the rationale for using the hook grip quite a while ago, and in light of a few recent conversations, I thought a few clarifications might be in order.

When do I use the hook grip?
Use the hook grip when pulling a barbell from the floor. Specifically, use the hook grip for cleans, snatches, and heavy deadlifts. I suppose you could use the hook grip for rows as well, but I’d probably recommend that if your row requires a hook grip, simply use straps instead and save your thumbs for your other pulls from the floor.

Don’t hook your presses, i.e., don’t use the hook grip anytime you are pushing a barbell - this includes bench presses (regular, close grip, incline, etc.), presses, jerks, and push presses. This is just silly, and your friends will give you no end of grief for doing so. You only perform the hook grip when the wrist is in tension, and this means that you only hook pulling movements, movements where - if the weight is heavy enough - your grip might fail.

Does the hook grip always hurt?
Yes. And no.

Yes, because of course there is quite a bit of pressure on your thumb, and at first, you will find this to be quite . . . uncomfortable. If you feel like screaming like a 3-year-old at the end of your deadlift work set, congratulations, you’re among friends.

No, because eventually you won’t notice the discomfort nearly as much as you do at first, and more importantly, you will stop caring. You are a lifter, and you’ll have more important things to complain about, such as having to unload all the plates from your massively heavy deadlift that you just pulled . . . because you used the hook grip. Everyone who uses it adapts to it, and you are not a special snowflake. Yes, you.

Why does the hook grip work so well?
When taking a normal, double-overhand grip (i.e., without the hook) on the bar, you’ll notice that you have four fingers on one side of the bar and only one finger (your thumb) on the other side of the bar. It is the thumb that fails you when the load gets heavy - it leads a lonely existence on that side of the bar, and it doesn’t have any friends to help.

The hook grip remedies this situation by allowing the other fingers (primarily the middle finger) to help the thumb maintain its purchase on the bar. I suspect that the thumb also starts to fail in the non-hooked grip due to the angle of attack it has on the bar - note its somewhat “from-the-side” approach to gripping the bar compared to the other fingers’ perpendicular approach to the bar - but I haven’t given this enough thought just yet. Nonetheless, suspicions abound.

Now you know, and in time, I think you’ll be hooked on this grip.

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Taping Your Thumbs for the Hook Grip

In less than 3 minutes, Phil shows you 2 easy ways to tape your thumbs for the hook grip, whether you're snatching, cleaning, or deadlifting. Milo tries to help, too.

(This is a Blast from the Past video originally published on 03/19/22.)

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