Dr. Bret Contreras

grew my delts i didn't get stronger at shoulder press or lateral raises i was just hitting them more frequently doing more volume you reach a point where you're sick of it and you're like i can't i don't want to do any more delt raises so it naturally lends itself to like four weeks spurts you know i do do it for four weeks then i throttle back and then with grip training i was always like man i will never be able to hold on to the bar with my max deadlift weight

And then I did a powerlifting competition a lot of years ago.

I'm like, shoot, I can't wear straps.

I got to strengthen my grip.

Well, what I learned was like chalk adds like 80 pounds to my grip.

Mixed grip adds another 80 pounds.

And using a really neural bar adds like another 80 pounds to my grip.

So I've gotten to where I almost deadlifted 675 once.

I got so close to being locked out.

But I could hold on to the bar.

Once I focused on my grip training for like –

two, three months, I got it super strong.

Now I don't have to train it that much.

Every once in a while I notice, okay, my grip limited my deadlift.

I got to train a few sessions and it's back to good.

It's like you blend that into your motor program or something.

Now you use it more and it's easier to maintain it for some reason, but you got to put in that work up front.

So these are just things that kind of lend credence to what you're saying.

So this was something in the, like, early 2000s.

I think his name was Brian Haycock.