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

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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.
@Masangkay -My experience was similar(exc. for 20 p/u+50 haha), with using mostly thumbless, and going back to always using the full grip now. Your pullup specialization is exceptional. I knew Bill Fox, again another early RKC, that Steve F. may know, who could do a pullup with (2) 70's KBs strapped to his waist. As I recall, he weighed around190.
 
@Masangkay -My experience was similar(exc. for 20 p/u+50 haha), with using mostly thumbless, and going back to always using the full grip now. Your pullup specialization is exceptional. I knew Bill Fox, again another early RKC, that Steve F. may know, who could do a pullup with (2) 70's KBs strapped to his waist. As I recall, he weighed around190.
Yup - Bill is a strong, smart person. I believe he's authored an article or two here.

-S-
 
I knew Bill Fox, again another early RKC, that Steve F. may know, who could do a pullup with (2) 70's KBs strapped to his waist. As I recall, he weighed around190.

Two 70 pounders? That's monstrous. I think my best ever weighted pull-up was with a single 53lb/24kg bell. I wonder if I can still do that? Not sure I want to put my doorway pull-up bar through that though.
 
@Chrisdavisjr -He used to train at Steve Maxwell's old gym in jujitsu. He even had heart surgery as a boy, and admitted he could "only" DL about 330-350, but he never practiced it. His pullup strength was freakish. He mostly did snatches, with rounds on the heavy bag as his conditioning, and BJJ for sport. Not sure, but I thought Cotter was close to that number too, and I've seen him do double 70's for a single leg pistol, then with one leg, jump up onto a table top.
 
Yup - Bill is a strong, smart person. I believe he's authored an article or two here.

-S-

Steve, thanks for weighing in. For the longest time, I used a Bill Fox comment in my workout log, it was funny and very true about my freestyle programming. Wished I still had it.
(found it):
Very solid training, although the lack of esoteric training theory, elite performance goals and any mention of what form of periodization is being employed is somewhat troubling.

(here's another of Bill's): I can't understand how, given the training they did, the cavemen beat the dinosaurs.
 
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Two 70 pounders? That's monstrous.
@Chrisdavisjr, there are plenty of people who can do a pullup with that percentage of their bodyweight. I've done something in the same ballpark, a chinup with 48 kg and a pullup with 40 kg, and I weigh 69 kg or so. I think I did both of these while we were fooling around at the first Level II, or maybe it was the first CK-FMS. And Kenneth Jay did a pullup with me on his back. 2007 or so, if memory serves.

I think my best ever weighted pull-up was with a single 53lb/24kg bell. I wonder if I can still do that? Not sure I want to put my doorway pull-up bar through that though.
I'd wait for a more solid bar. We used to use a TAPS pullup bar - portable, although it did take a bit of time to set up and break down.

FWIW, although you can't go really heavy this way, I've come to really like pullups with my foot through the kettlebell handle as opposed to on a belt.

-S-
 
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