How you hold on to your dumbbells and barbells could influence muscle activation and, in some cases, joint discomfort.
When you’re in the zone at the Club, you may mindlessly pick up a pair of dumbbells or a barbell, take a deep breath, and begin to quickly pound out your reps. But given the impact your grip style can have on an exercise’s benefits, you may want to be more intentional with your set-up.
Reminder, there are four main grip positions: overhand (aka pronated), underhand (aka supinated), neutral, and alternating. With an overhand grip, your palms generally face away from you, and it’s commonly used for exercises like pull-ups, bench presses, and overhead shoulder presses, says Lonnie Sutton, a Tier 3+ trainer at Equinox Highland Park in Dallas, Texas. (Deadlifts and rows are the exception; your palms will face toward you while overhand.) Your palms typically face toward you with an underhand grip, involved in chin-ups and biceps curls, while your palms face toward one another with a neutral grip, used during hammer curls and cable triceps push-downs, he adds.
There’s also an alternating grip, during which one palm faces toward you and the other faces away; it’s primarily used for heavy deadlifts, during which your lower-body muscles are powerful enough to lift the weight but your grip isn’t strong enough to hold onto the bar, Sutton explains.
RELATED: The Rise of Strength Training
The grip you use for any given exercise can impact which muscle groups are most heavily targeted, says Sutton. A pull-up and a chin-up, for example, work the same muscles by and large, but the latter will call more on your biceps. A hammer curl — a dumbbell curl performed with a neutral grip — will work your brachioradialis (a forearm muscle) more than the traditional biceps curl, he notes.
Similarly, “during an overhand row, you're going to tend to pull higher to the chest, versus an underhand row, you're going to pull lower on your body,” he explains. “So that'll change how much biceps you're working proportionately.” Some research backs this up, too: An overhand grip created significantly greater activation of the latissimus dorsi than an underhand grip during a lat pull-down, a 2010 study found.
Certain grip positions may also put less stress on your upper-body joints, a win for folks dealing with or recovering from injury; a neutral grip is generally the easiest on the wrists and elbows during pulling motions, says Sutton. Regardless of the grip style you choose, you’ll generally want to position your hands on a barbell, pull-up bar, or EZ bar so your thumbs are aligned with the crook of your elbows, he suggests. This ensures your radioulnar joint is in a neutral position and your elbow is able to move effectively, he explains.
RELATED: Lift Heavy to Live Longer
Keep in mind, these are just general guidelines. And though your muscle activation can be influenced by your grip style, it can also be impacted by how the weight is distributed in your hand, whether you’re pulling from your pinky side or your thumb side, and if you’re twisting your wrist throughout the movement, says Sutton. The bottom line, he says: “Play around with grip positions or where you're holding the weight in your hand — if you do have an injury or something doesn't feel right — to just make the exercise better fit your needs or feel comfortable.”