Benched with my thumb riding the bar for a long time. Switched to full grip for the last few months, but gonna try thumbless for a bit 'cause my right elbow has been janky lately.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Benched with my thumb riding the bar for a long time. Switched to full grip for the last few months, but gonna try thumbless for a bit 'cause my right elbow has been janky lately. [/quote]
You know I’ve always wanted to give this a try, felt it might be a best of both worlds deal. Never gone heavy with it though.
I have always preferred a false grip. I have switched back and forth. The false grip seems to be better on my shoulders and elbows. Never had a problem with a bar slipping out. Now that I have said that, I look forward to it happening the next time I bench.
[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Benched with my thumb riding the bar for a long time. Switched to full grip for the last few months, but gonna try thumbless for a bit 'cause my right elbow has been janky lately. [/quote]
You know I’ve always wanted to give this a try, felt it might be a best of both worlds deal. Never gone heavy with it though. [/quote]
I love it, man. Not really sure where I picked it up, but it basically forces you to keep everything in line. I also bench with a closer grip so it just feels like it keeps everything “tight” for me. Now that I think about it, just gonna go back to that.
I also squat thumbless, and do probably 50% of pullups, curls, extensions, etc… thumbless as well. No real rhymes or reason there, just what feels natural.
I always did full grip, but changed it up for pressing about 6 months ago, based on some articles on here… which has conflicting opinions. Interestingly, the recent Ruskin article talks about using full grip to avoid the potential injury from repetitive stress due to passivity, which the thumb switch you all talk about may alleviate.
So, I’m kind of torn… I don’t notice much of a difference one way or the other. W/ OHP, I feel I get better leverage thumbless, but I feel I can grip it harder w/ a thumb, which may help.
Since most opinion seems based on performance, and I don’t see much of a difference, I’m thinking I’ll train w/ a thumb (for bench, at least), but go for PRs thumbless. Of course, lack of specificity may undermine that… so, I don’t know.
Thumblesswith3fingers#
I prefer benching with a falsegrip. OVH as well. I will usually switch it up on how my hand feels that day. Naturally switches to a false grip on presses.I never liked the hook grip on deadlifts I try to stay overhand until my grip gives out, Then its over under both thumbs over.
I go thumbless for both OHP as well as bench.
I’m surprised so many thumbless grips here. I prefer to squeeze the hell out of the bar and attempt to keep my wrist as straight as possible when benching (seems to alleviate shoulder stress for me anyway). OHP I don’t feel much of difference either way, but I also don’t OHP a whole heck of a lot.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I’m surprised so many thumbless grips here. I prefer to squeeze the hell out of the bar and attempt to keep my wrist as straight as possible when benching (seems to alleviate shoulder stress for me anyway). OHP I don’t feel much of difference either way, but I also don’t OHP a whole heck of a lot. [/quote]
I still squeeze the hell out of the bar with a thumbless grip. That and trying to bend it have really been helpful cues.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I’m surprised so many thumbless grips here. I prefer to squeeze the hell out of the bar and attempt to keep my wrist as straight as possible when benching (seems to alleviate shoulder stress for me anyway). OHP I don’t feel much of difference either way, but I also don’t OHP a whole heck of a lot. [/quote]
I still squeeze the hell out of the bar with a thumbless grip. That and trying to bend it have really been helpful cues.[/quote]
I’ll have to play around with it. I just don’t feel like I can generate the same tension. It is probably just a matter of practice though.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I’m surprised so many thumbless grips here. I prefer to squeeze the hell out of the bar and attempt to keep my wrist as straight as possible when benching (seems to alleviate shoulder stress for me anyway). OHP I don’t feel much of difference either way, but I also don’t OHP a whole heck of a lot. [/quote]
I still squeeze the hell out of the bar with a thumbless grip. That and trying to bend it have really been helpful cues.[/quote]
I’ll have to play around with it. I just don’t feel like I can generate the same tension. It is probably just a matter of practice though. [/quote]
It’s different for sure. Part of it is that I don’t have pinch grip for shit, while my crushing grip is pretty substantial. My thumb contributes very little to my grip in most circumstances, while my other four fingers can do a whole bunch of damage. Captains of Crush grippers can help in that regard, haha.
yeah whether thumbs are wrapped around or not, I’m usually concentrating on squeezing my middle, ring, and pinky fingers anyways. Thumb doesn’t seem to be where ‘sqeezing the bar’ helps, at least for me
Hmm interesting.
Wrapping the thumb changes the angle of the humerus in the press, which in turn changes how you activate the pecs. Having done both for long periods of time, my current opinion is that benching with a thumbless grip should only be done to alleviate pain and get around injury or to specifically target the triceps more. Otherwise I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to optimally activate the biggest muscle group in the movement.
Also, the injury concerns are silly. Going from full to false grip raises the injury risk from like .0001% to .0002%. So yea , it’s more risky, but competely irrelevant from a practical standpoint. The Russian who died last year when he dropped a bench on his chest was using a full grip, if we’re going to throw n=1 cases out there.