How & Why To Hook Grip In The Snatch & Clean
The hook grip is a pronated grip in which the thumb is trapped between the bar and the first and second fingers, depending on hand size.
This is an eventual necessity to maintain control of the bar during the violent explosion of the second pull.
It’s important to understand that the thumb is itself wrapped around the bar inside the fingers and not simply pinned parallel against the bar.
The fingers then grab onto the thumb to pull it farther around the bar. This is very important—you don’t simply smash the thumb flat against the bar; you grab it with the fingers and try to pull it farther around the bar.
The thumb also creates a ridge for the fingers to dig into. Rather than just wrapping around the bar, which is smooth and has no real points of purchase, and squeezing, the fingers now have a protrusion to hook onto—not only does this make gripping something easier, but because it’s your own thumb, it’s actually naturally reinforcing your grip security.
The hook grip also creates a system that balances the tendency of the bar to roll like a mixed grip for a deadlift.
In the hook grip, the fingers become the pronated hand and the thumb becomes the supinated hand, so that the bar will try to roll out of the thumb in one direction, and out of the fingers in the opposite, eliminating to a great degree the spinning element of grip loss.
Read more here
This is an eventual necessity to maintain control of the bar during the violent explosion of the second pull.
It’s important to understand that the thumb is itself wrapped around the bar inside the fingers and not simply pinned parallel against the bar.
The fingers then grab onto the thumb to pull it farther around the bar. This is very important—you don’t simply smash the thumb flat against the bar; you grab it with the fingers and try to pull it farther around the bar.
The thumb also creates a ridge for the fingers to dig into. Rather than just wrapping around the bar, which is smooth and has no real points of purchase, and squeezing, the fingers now have a protrusion to hook onto—not only does this make gripping something easier, but because it’s your own thumb, it’s actually naturally reinforcing your grip security.
The hook grip also creates a system that balances the tendency of the bar to roll like a mixed grip for a deadlift.
In the hook grip, the fingers become the pronated hand and the thumb becomes the supinated hand, so that the bar will try to roll out of the thumb in one direction, and out of the fingers in the opposite, eliminating to a great degree the spinning element of grip loss.
Read more here
