I've been using mixed grip for a while now and I noticed when I do chinups the right side of my body goes up quicker than my left. Should I ditch the mix grip and use straps instead?
Id say the imbalance is coming from something more so than just the mixed grip if it is that noticeable. Straps arent bad but you could just on your lighter set switch hands or even try to keep them that way for a bit and see if it improves.
Eh, people tend to make too big a deal about the mixed grip muscle imbalance thing. Just switch back and forth. When you do your work sets, use the grip your strongest with.
The biggest thing to worry about with mixed grip is that it can sometimes cause a person to twist a little with the weight which can cause hip and back problems and for me it caused my right lat (the under grip hand) to tighten up and shorten a little. These are issues that took a couple to a few years to pop up. I do my form and speed work without straps to stay in the groove, but for my rep and heavy work I strap up and my SI joint and shoulders have thanked me.
I had an imbalance (and still do) so I switched grips the past year. The imbalance wasn’t just from the mixed grip, like Reed mentioned, I just didn’t get the left side tight. Having my left hand under feels easier to get the left lat tight. My fiancee still tells me my left lat is smaller whenever I ask every couple months, lol. I always tell myself I should do db rows for my left side after each session but I get lazy. I think I’ll just do a single set of 20-30 reps after each session since that’ll take less than a minute to do.
I’ve been trying to use hook grip and can’t get to my working weight yet but I think it’ll eventually get there in a year.
[quote]lift206 wrote:
I had an imbalance (and still do) so I switched grips the past year. The imbalance wasn’t just from the mixed grip, like Reed mentioned, I just didn’t get the left side tight. Having my left hand under feels easier to get the left lat tight. My fiancee still tells me my left lat is smaller whenever I ask every couple months, lol. I always tell myself I should do db rows for my left side after each session but I get lazy. I think I’ll just do a single set of 20-30 reps after each session since that’ll take less than a minute to do.
I’ve been trying to use hook grip and can’t get to my working weight yet but I think it’ll eventually get there in a year.[/quote]
Try doing some dead hangs from a pullup bar with a hook grip on days you don’t deadlift, it will help kinda deaden the feeling and build some callous on your thumbs. Also just commit to the grip and use it for atleast 1 working set if you haven’t already.
[quote]cparker wrote:
Try doing some dead hangs from a pullup bar with a hook grip on days you don’t deadlift, it will help kinda deaden the feeling and build some callous on your thumbs. Also just commit to the grip and use it for atleast 1 working set if you haven’t already.[/quote]
I tried it but the pullup bar is wider than a barbell and I’m only able to get one finger on my thumb nail. Instead I tried loading up a bar with weight and using a hook grip to hold it with one hand. That seemed to work well. I’ll start doing that after squat sessions too.
I did forget to use chalk when using hook grip last week so that should make a difference, lol.
Sorry for stealing the thread.
cparker: Thanks a lot for the tip! Holding the hook grip for time last week really helped. Today I was able to do half of my main work for paused deadlifts with hook grip and it felt great. The positioning feels identical to using straps. I had to use straps for all my mat pulls but I feel confident I can fully convert soon. It just took some time figuring out how to place my thumb and kind of relaxing it to get it in the right position.