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Bodyweight Pull-up grip: Thumb over or under the bar

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Chrisdavisjr

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I've been alternating between practising my pull-ups with either my thumb hooked over the top of the bar with the rest of my fingers or wrapped around it. I've been finding the thumbless grip easier - rep quality is consistently higher, grip fatigue is reduced - but I'm wondering what the reason behind this might be and what other people's preferences are.
 
Hello,

I daily do pull ups, weighted or not. I just never use a "wrapped" grip. My thumbs are always hooked over the top of the bar with the rest of my fingers.

For I have been doing daily pull ups:
- this is the most natural way to me
- if I have to get over a wall / fence, this transfers better
- I work my "full grip" using grippers, climbing rope

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
Speaking of pull-ups... I’ve seen a guy do a one finger one arm pull-up. (Each side...)
In The Impossible Climb by Mark Synnott, either the author or Honnold mentioned that Adam Ondra could do that, with a finger in a hole of one of those Hangboards. Crazy strong.
 
In The Impossible Climb by Mark Synnott, either the author or Honnold mentioned that Adam Ondra could do that, with a finger in a hole of one of those Hangboards. Crazy strong.
Ondra is a phenom for sure. It’s not really my style of climbing, but I sure respect and understand the skill and strength involved.
 
Ondra is a phenom for sure. It’s not really my style of climbing, but I sure respect and understand the skill and strength involved.
Yes. I've watched several of the clips of Reel Rock on Red Bull TV. Good stuff. I don't climb, mtn. bike down cliffs, or wingsuit, but I can appreciate the hell out of it.

Not to compare to the above lists since there are no comparisons in the sporting world with the subject of the book, I'm reading WAR by Sebastian Junger. Puts my day,and life, in perspective.
 
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I've been alternating between practising my pull-ups with either my thumb hooked over the top of the bar with the rest of my fingers or wrapped around it. I've been finding the thumbless grip easier - rep quality is consistently higher, grip fatigue is reduced - but I'm wondering what the reason behind this might be and what other people's preferences are.
The reason it's called a tactical pullup is that it's practice for things like climbing into a window or over a fence. Thumbless and palms facing away is the only thing possible in those situations.

-S-
 
It seems I'm in good company! I think if I had a 28mm thick, knurled pull-up bar, I'd probably do my pull-ups with a hook grip but, otherwise, the thumb over the top seems to make sense for 'real world' applications (hoping I'll not have to climb over a fence or wall anytime soon).
 
Mechanically, it seems to me that thumbless grip utilizes the thumb in a way to spread your weight across more area, meaning less stress on the grip, where the wrap grip works in sort of an anti-rotational fashion.

I use thumbless grip for hanging leg raises, but wrap grip for pullups.
 
Mechanically, it seems to me that thumbless grip utilizes the thumb in a way to spread your weight across more area, meaning less stress on the grip, where the wrap grip works in sort of an anti-rotational fashion.

I use thumbless grip for hanging leg raises, but wrap grip for pullups.

I'm even lazier with hanging leg raises: I use weightlifting straps. I do the same when I'm hanging for the purpose of stretching out my lats and decompressing my spine; not having to grip the bar makes it much easier to relax into the stretch.
 
@Chrisdavisjr -It may just be me, but using lifting straps seemed to weaken my grip when doing pullups or HLR's. I did most of my training prior to getting rings, with a fat chinning bar, but have very long fingers.
 
My $0.02 as a pull up specialist has-been :) I used to be exclusively thumbless/thumb over up until several years ago. My crowning achievement was 20 pull ups with an additional 50 lbs. That was around 15 years ago. I've done reps with 135 before the 'Beast' ever existed. I've done 200 reps in a day GTG style for a few weeks just to see if I could. Nowadays, the pull up has been a standard auxiliary in most workouts rather than a primary movement. All of that past training was done 90%+ thumbless, but if I could go back I would have done it mostly with a full grip, thumb under and around the bar.

Why? I learned late in my pull up shenanigans that I had much less elbow and shoulder pain when I actually used my thumb and crushed the bar that I hung from. I liken it to the difference between dead lifting with and without the thumbs, however in the case of pull ups you are merely hanging from the bar when you don't use your thumbs; you can only squeeze it so much. When you grip and crush it, you and the bar become one. I can actually tell a big difference in the mind-muscle connection - I can feel my lats working harder and I can actively depress my scapula better under heavy loads. I also attribute the reduced elbow pain to the fact that crushing the bar stabilizes the wrist. Once you lose wrist stability - often from swinging or not pulling in a smooth trajectory - compensations occur at the elbow. This is more likely (though not guaranteed) to happen with the thumbless grip.

At the end of the day, one will do what works best for them. I used a thumbless pull up grip for the better part of two decades and have dropped it after learning how to make the full grip work better for me.

PS: I also switched my barbell military press grip from thumbless to full around the same time for a lot of the same reasons.
 
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