11 Grassroots Strength™ Tips
When training your lats for maximum bench carryover, keep your grip medium to wide and focus on pulling with your elbows (not your hands). Use a full grip (straps or not, grab and squeeze with all fingers).
A close grip (not so close you tear up your wrists or elbows) for triceps work will always carryover to your bench better than a wide grip. The closer grip will have more effect on the muscles that actually press the bar.
When you bench, try to push your body away from the bar, not the bar away from you. This is a mistake I see over 90% of the time and it is caused by not getting your body tight and wedged into the bench. Get the shoulder blades together and down and use your legs to drive your upper back into the bench.
Close-stance safety bar low box squats will solve the majority (but not all) of falling forward problems in the squat.
If you can't flex it then DON'T ISOLATE IT. You need to have control of your body if you're going to do isolation movements. If I asked you to flex your pecs, it'd probably be easy. You can make those boobies bounce with pride. Now what if I asked you to do the same with your triceps, delts, hamstrings, or lats? If you can't, why in the hell are you doing tight isolation bodybuilding cable work? Hmm... never thought of that one, did you? Stick with the presses and rows and build muscle first. You can't flex bone.
When setting up for a conventional deadlift, line the bar up with the top of the quads. If you have bigger quads, the bar will be further from your shins. Keep in mind that this is a general guideline. Pull how you feel is best for you. When I help a lifter learn to pull, this is one of the first cues I start with and if needed, will work the bar closer to the shins from there.
If you don't know your foot position for a conventional deadlift and need a place to start from, try hanging from a chin bar and simply drop to the floor. Normally, where your feet land is your best pulling stance. I think I read this in a book or article from Fred Hatfield 30 years ago and it's always been a great starting point.
Try doing alternate dumbbell triceps extensions while keeping one dumbbell in the locked out position instead of at the bottom. This is one way to still work the triceps hard while using less weight and putting less strain on the elbows.
There are very few things that I've seen work when it comes to help with dropped deadlifts due to grip. Dumbbell holds, however, are one movement that's shown great results. Grab the top of a hex dumbbell, making sure that you don't touch the numbers. Grab, stand, and hold for as long as you can. If you can go over 20 seconds, up the weight. See this video from Dan Green and I - it goes over what I feel are the real reasons for most grip problems.
Grip work is very hard to recover from (more so for beginners), so keep it to one or two times per week. Once every four days is a better option.
Another movement that will help your grip for pulling is to use binder clips. These are the big paper clips that have a black end on them (and other colors). Use these like you would use grippers, but only use your thumb and little finger. You can work all fingers, but the little guy is the first to go. Ed Coan told me this one.
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