Hello everyone,

I've been crushing PPL the past 4 weeks and I did my 4th Pull workout yesterday. Since starting PPL I have become more comfortable with deadlifts and making sure my form is spot on.

However, I have noticed that when I reach the last few exercises, my grip strength begins to fail. For example, when doing dumbbell shrugs it takes a lot of effort just to hold the dumbbells - not because of muscle fatigue in the targeted exercise area. I just feel like my fingers have a hard time holding on to the dumbbell.

Is this normal? Would wearing some weightlifting gloves help towards the end of my workout to keep my grip on the weights?

Hello everyone,

I've been crushing PPL the past 4 weeks and I did my 4th Pull workout yesterday. Since starting PPL I have become more comfortable with deadlifts and making sure my form is spot on.

However, I have noticed that when I reach the last few exercises, my grip strength begins to fail. For example, when doing dumbbell shrugs it takes a lot of effort just to hold the dumbbells - not because of muscle fatigue in the targeted exercise area. I just feel like my fingers have a hard time holding on to the dumbbell.

Is this normal? Would wearing some weightlifting gloves help towards the end of my workout to keep my grip on the weights?

Hello everyone,

I've been crushing PPL the past 4 weeks and I did my 4th Pull workout yesterday. Since starting PPL I have become more comfortable with deadlifts and making sure my form is spot on.

However, I have noticed that when I reach the last few exercises, my grip strength begins to fail. For example, when doing dumbbell shrugs it takes a lot of effort just to hold the dumbbells - not because of muscle fatigue in the targeted exercise area. I just feel like my fingers have a hard time holding on to the dumbbell.

Is this normal? Would wearing some weightlifting gloves help towards the end of my workout to keep my grip on the weights?

You already have the answers you need, but yeah it's normal. No need to get gloves, just keep training and your grip strength will improve, plus I'll link you a video below that might help.

 

The other thing you can do is start using a monkey grip if you REALLY need to at the end of the workout this is where you hook your thumb under the bar or dumbbell instead of over - this will mean your forearms aren't working as hard and won't fatigue as fast. I wouldn't do it all the time, but if you have to do that every now and then or get wrist straps to make sure your breakding down the muscle your targeting without your forearms stopping you, that's OK.

 

I wanted to ask you about this, actually. After watching the video you had mentioned using 'thick bars'. I have to admit I'm the type to research something pretty extensively before I spend time / resources on it and I found a few, but not many, studies regarding this upsurgence of thick bar training. One of said statements presented the fact that by enlarging the smaller support muscles it could stunt the overall growth of strength or at least limit efficiency in the lift for the larger muscles in the lift.

Personally I'm basically skin and bones as it is, so I'm concerned about the potential limitations this might cause if it is grounded in any kind of truth.

Opinions?

No need to worry about it man. I have done a lot of training with fat grips and it hasn’t affected my ability to grow size.

 

Because you have to grip so much harder and activate more stabiliser muscles, yes it will mean you can’t lift as heavy. However, the idea isn’t to always lift with grips, just occasionally and you don’t have to do it on your compound lifts.

 

This way you can focus on increasing grip strength, size & strength 😊 

Alright, awesome. I just wanted to confirm, because frankly I have rustic old barbells and dumbbells, the really thin types to boot and they dig into my hands something awful because as mentioned I have like single digit bodyfat %... Not pleasant feeling metal on bone grinding lol