The Man w/ the Golden Gun Fitness Thread
11-01-2017, 12:11 PM
Quote: (10-31-2017 04:26 PM)Steelex Wrote:
I don't know exactly how and why, but I think it'd be wild to assume there isn't a connection.
However if you think about it from an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense. The guy who tried to lift the rock his back couldn't handle probably tore a spinal erector. In a pre historic time, this would probably mean you were dead meat and wouldn't pass on your DNA. The guy who didn't hurt himself lived on to procreate.
Granted, this is just speculation, but I think pulling heavy weight off the floor you can't hold without tricks is a recipe for injury.
With all due respect, from an evolutionary point it doesn't makes sense. It makes sense to lift a rock -or a heavy tree branch- using a mixed grip. This is not to defend the mixed grip but rather to point out that the injury comes from a different source.
The weakest link in the exercise is the grip, this is why you must hack it in order to lift more. A mixed grip makes you stronger, and a hook grip makes you stronger, and chalk makes you stronger. The stronger grip is probably the hook grip, but it takes thousands of repetitions to master. In my particular case, I learnt with the mixed grip and personally it is what I knew at the time and all I know. This is not to say that I will not try the hook grip. An advantage of the hook grip is that it makes your grip stronger, for what I am reading.
In my personal experience, I have always used a mixed grip and never suffered an injury. Lifting 435 lbs at a 170 lbs body weight is 2.55 body weight, after years of performing the deadlift. So the source of the injury must be something else.
So back to the weakest link, the next weakest link is your shoulders and the bicep tendon attaches in that area. I am going to guess that in order to make a heavy lift - and to make it easier on the shoulders-, you slightly bent your elbows and incidentally put the entire weight of barbell on your biceps and tore the bicep in the process. What the overhand grip does is to prevent the elbows to bend. If you use a mixed grip and you don't bend your elbow, you have nothing to worry about.
Lifting with barbells is not natural, and it is not the most efficient way to exercise, nor to build strength. It is the best we have available? For most of us, probably yes. Is the most fun? For most of us, probably yes. This is the main reason why it is extremely important to learn and stick to perfect form to avoid injury.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
— Robert Heinlein