Starting Strength

supported by the body will be in its best balance, both during the movement and at lockout, when the bar is vertically plumb to the middle of the foot, as discussed earlier. An assistance exercise like the barbell curl or the goodmorning intentionally moves the bar out of line as a part of creating the resistance for the exercise.
     
    Grip and arms
     
    Grip errors are common even among experienced lifters. The grip on the bar is the first part of your temporary relationship with the barbell that is referred to as a set . If that grip is wrong, none of the reps in that set will be optimal because the relationship of the body to the bar is determined first by hand position on the bar. For instance, an uncentered placement of the bar on your back results in an asymmetrical loading of all the components under the bar – that is, more weight on one leg, hip, and knee than on the other – as well as a spinal shear. A careless approach to grip placement can result in problems with heavy weights. Most people, as discussed earlier, will need to take an even grip somewhere between the score mark and the end of the knurl.
    There is, however, an important exception to this rule: for a trainee whose shoulders have significant differences in flexibility – as might result from an injury – a symmetrical grip on the bar will result in an asymmetrical bar position on the back. A tight shoulder on the left side, for example, prevents the upper arm from assuming the same angle as that used on the uninjured right side. The tight shoulder thus drags the bar out toward that side, resulting in the bar’s being off-center left and out-of-level on the back. If this is your situation – and it might require a third party or a mirror to identify this, since it is not always easy to feel – you will need to experiment with your grip until you find the right position for each hand. Centered loading of the back should be your primary concern at this stage.
    As we discussed earlier, the thumb should be placed on top of the bar so that the wrist can be held in a straight line with the forearm. The vast majority of people, however, will prefer to hold the bar with a thumbs-around grip. At lighter weights, this is fine because the load is easy to keep in place. But when heavier weights are being used, the grip that results from thumbs-around can create its own problems. Most people have a mental picture of the hands holding up the weight, and this usually ends up being what happens. The bar sits in the grip with the thumbs around the bar, the wrists are bent back, the elbows end up directly below the weight, and nothing really prevents the bar from sliding down the back from this position. People who do this will eventually have sore elbows, a horrible, headache-like soreness in the inside of the elbow that makes them think the injury occurred doing curls. If the elbows are underneath the weight, and the force of the weight is straight down (the nature of gravity is sometimes inconvenient), then the wrists and elbows will unavoidably intercept some of the weight ( Figure 2-34 ). With heavy weights, the loading can be quite high, and these structures are not nearly as capable of supporting 500 pounds as the back is.

    Figure 2-34. Incorrect (A) and correct (B) use of the hands and arms under the bar. Elbows should be elevated to the rear with the hands on top of the bar, not placed directly under the bar, where they intercept part of the weight.

    If the thumbs are on top of the bar, the hands can assume a position that is straight in line with the forearms when the elbows are raised. If you are accustomed to letting your wrists relax into extension and letting your elbows drop, your grip might be too narrow for your shoulder flexibility, and a slightly wider grip would make straight wrists easier to maintain. You might also need to actively “curl” the wrist into what will feel like flexion if you have been passively allowing it to extend. In the correct position, the wrist is straight, neither flexed nor extended; none of the weight is over any part of the arm, wrist, or hand; and all of the weight is on the back ( Figure 2-34 ). Learn to carry all of the weight of the bar safely on your back before your strength improves to the point where this same weight carried in your hands – and thus on your wrists and elbows – can become a problem.
    Occasionally a person gets misled into thinking that it is okay to put the hands out so wide