First of all, your hands are not too small to hook grip! If a 48 Kilogram Chinese Girl can hook grip than you freaking can too!
Most of us will have some type of bicep injury through our lifetime career and it will change our process of deadlifting. Well, in the last 18 months Chemotherapy had taken it's toll on my body and I've had a couple of small bicep tears, tricep tear, and some lat tears that have all greatly changed my ability to deadlift, especially how I can grab the bar.
Just look at that beautiful bicep under the shoulder!
In January of 2016 I was so torn up and weak that my training max on Deadlifts were 140 KG (308 Freedom Units). And I mean that by attempting a 308 deadlift meant that I risked serious injury in the process. Most of my training for several months was in the low to mid 200 lbs range for sets of 3-5 reps. Through this process I had to suck it up and do one thing that I swore that I'd never do, I used straps! I hate straps and it takes so much out of my body tightness just getting down to the bar and setting the straps that I have no air left to explode on the way up BUT I was at the point where it was either use straps and deadlift or just sit in a chair and look at my deadlift bar. So I put on straps.
After months of fighting rep after rep, twinge after twinge, I was finally at the point where I could ditch the straps and pull. I tried over/under and it put some odd stress on my shoulder, lat, triceps, and biceps. I switched to hookgrip and BAM I pulled! And every week I pulled a little more and a little more till I had well over 700 lbs on the bar by October.
A lot of people were watching my videos and commenting "Wow, that was Hook Grip too!". Yes, yes it was. It was also on an Eleiko Weightlifting Competition barbell that has knurling like shark's teeth! Everyone complains about how rough the knurling is on a Texas Deadlift Bar and every time I grab one it feel's like a baby's bottom to my hands.
All I heard were excuses after excuses as to why people couldn't pull hook grip. Pain is often the number one reason that I hear, so I made this video just to address that issue!
