In his monthly newsletter, Arnold Schwarzenegger shares tips and insights on weight training based on his decades of experience as a seven-time Mr. Olympia champion. His advice can range from how you achieve the mind-muscle connection for how you have adapted your workouts to avoid injuries as you age.
Most recently, Schwarzenegger answered a fan’s question about his bench press technique, specifically in relation to his grip: When you perform this move, your thumb isn’t wrapped around the bar. This is called a suicide grip, something that men’s health he usually doesn’t advise, and the more you hear Arnold talk about it, the more you’ll understand why.
“I could give you a whole page of reasons why I did it, but this newsletter is about being honest,” he wrote. “The reality is there was no reason, and I mostly did it on the incline bench just because it felt good.”
The purpose of the suicide grip is simple: you’re taking a joint out of the equation. When you wrap your thumb around the bar, by default the bar ends up sitting a bit higher in your palm. That means you have to find a good wrist position, and in many cases, that’s moving the bar away from the forearm bone. It’s one more thing you have to control when you bench press. The suicide grip fixes that: Because you’re not wrapping your thumb around the bar, it’s easier to position the bar right over your forearm bones (radius and ulna), and that makes it easier to keep your forearm perpendicular to the ground. the ideal angle needed to generate force on the bench press.
The problem is that this creates a lot of risk. Because your thumb isn’t wrapped around the bar, you have much less control over the bar, opening the door for it to slip from your grip and crash into your body. That’s why we in men’s health Do NOT advise using the suicide grip, especially if you are new to the bench press. It’s safer to learn to grip the bar tightly, protecting yourself from injury and other problems.
Also, wrapping your thumb around a barbell (or even dumbbells and kettlebells) offers other strengths beyond safety. Fully gripping the bar helps mitigate the risks of the bench press, and it also allows you to capitalize on the principle of irradiation: By creating maximum tension through your forearm muscles as you grip the bar, you can more easily activate the stabilizer muscles in your upper arm. all times. your shoulders, forearms, and mid-back.
Arnold himself acknowledges the risk of injury associated with this technique in his newsletter. “It’s called a suicide grip for a reason,” he said. “Only do this if you have a spotter with you, and make sure you have a real spotter, not someone looking at your Instagram while you’re losing weight.”
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