How to Deadlift: Hand Placement and Grip

In the last post, we discussed foot placement for your deadlift stance and touched on why either a sumo or conventional stance may or may not be best for you. In today’s post, we will talk a little about hand placement on the bar and how it can impact your body position at the start of the deadlift. 

Sumo stance involves hand placement between your legs, while conventional stance calls for hands outside of your legs. There are variations for hand placement on the bar-snatch grip, for example-and they differ from person to person. However, in order to lift the maximum amount of weight, you must decrease the distance you need to go down to the bar (figure 1) via hand placement. Therefore, you’d want your arms to be straight down from your shoulders and not angled wider or narrower (figure 2). This will allow you to use the full length of your arms to its greatest potential when pulling. That is not always possible, depending on body type and leg positioning, so aim to get as close as you can.

Figure 1: Wider hand placement on the bar (on left) demonstrating that body starting position will need to be lower than if hands are placed narrower/closer on the bar.

Figure 2: Narrow and wide grip comparison.

Another consideration involved in deadlift form is grip. There are three popular ways to grip the bar: overhand grip/pronated grip, hook grip, and over-underhand/alternating grip (figure 3). Of those three, hook grip and alternated grip are the best for heavier deadlifts. An overhand grip will generally give out before the other two.

Figure 3: From left to right – Hook Grip, Pronated/Overhand Grip, and Alternating Grip

Accessories such as straps and chalk can be used as aids to help maintain your grip if you suffer from sweaty hand syndrome or are working with smooth bars that do not have good knurling. If you are interested in more information on those, you can read the article Weight Training Equipment and Aides. 

These variations in hand placements and grip add just a little uniqueness to everyone’s deadlift, depending on how you set up and what is comfortable for you. For example, if you have little hands and sausage fingers, hook grip will probably be more challenging and my guess is you will find an alternating grip more comfortable. Try some hand placements out and see what ones work well for you.

As always, thanks for reading!

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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