This program helped Brandon Smitley solve his grip issues for the deadlift and will help you do the same. The first and most important advice I can give you about grip is to simply train your grip. It is something that you know will hold you back so you must be training it. If your glutes were weak you would train them so don’t neglect your grip either. For deadlifting you are looking at increasing your “closed hand supporting strength”. TIMED HOLDS Think of grip strength like any other strength, in order to make it stronger, you have to train it heavier. Adding 10s holds or deadlift negatives just builds grip endurance and doesn’t actually make you any stronger. Just like doing high reps with a weight you can already bench will not make you any stronger. Actually, you want to avoid doing timed holds or high rep work as this will thicken your hand and make it even harder to hold onto deadlifts. STRAPS A big thing I learned from Steve Goggins, a long time ago, is train what you are training. If you are training pin pulls then put straps on and train pin pulls. Don’t listen to the bullshit about “I never use straps”, those people are just so fucking weak that they can’t pick any- thing up that out paces their grip. So they use the “I don’t use straps” as a crutch to make excuses for their pathetic deadlift. I use straps all the time. Pullups, pulldowns, shrugs, most of my back work is done with straps, why? because I’m training my back, not my grip. So don’t listen to those a-holes about the straps, they can’t deadlift w/straps more than they can without not because they have great grip, but because they have a weak deadlift. I double overhand DL 950 from a high pin and when I went to 1050, I couldn’t do it, but I could with straps. Do I have a weak grip? No, I have one of the best grips in the World; I just have a really strong back. For this program you will work your grip on 2 days/week until a meet starts getting close, 8 weeks out, then knock it down to 1x/wk to save your nervous system. Just continue to do Day 1 over again for the 8 weeks going into the meet. Only on the week of the meet you do no grip work as that will come at the meet. Remember that grip training is extremely hard on your nervous system, even though you don’t have to do a lot of weight for certain types of lifts. The two days should be separated by at least 2 days, if not 3. It isn’t as important to decide what days you do it on, just that you do it. I do mine during rest periods for lower max effort work as it doesn’t take any more time or really waste my energy. If I’m going to do really heavy grip work (high rack pull), then I do it on my upper days so that I’m not wearing out my back like I would be if it were on a lower day. For these fat bar picks you need to dig the webbing of your thumb into the bar really hard and feel your whole hand, and especially your thumb, squeezing the bar.