Author: MuscleReview

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Deadlifting without Calluses

francodeadlifting

I’m a big fan of the deadlift.  It’s one of those foundational strength and mass builders that packs on muscle like few exercises can.  This exercise has a tendency to give me calluses on my  hands, and that used to be fine with me: I considered them a badge of honor in my younger days.

But my wife hates them, and this has changed my attitude considerably.  I started wearing training gloves (something I never did in my single days), but that didn’t seem to help very much.

That’s when I ran across this helpful tip: try gripping the bar in a slightly different way.  Grabbing it in the middle of your palm (like you are going to bench press) really doesn’t make much sense because it will pinch the skin as it pulls towards your knuckles.  Grab the bar lower in your hand (where it’s going to end up as you pull) and you’ll avoid calluses.  I tried this today and it works–I didn’t notice any reduction in grip strength and it drastically reduced the pinching/callusing.

The point of the deadlift is to build strength and muscle–not nasty, bleeding hands.  Check out the video below for a visual.

Holiday Weight Gain

holiday-weight-gain-in-the-us

It’s the time of year when people start regretting all the ham, cakes, cookies, and other holiday treats they’ve been eating.  You may have heard that the average person gains about five pounds during the holidays.   I decided to do a little research to see if this is true.

One study followed almost two hundred adults for a year to see how holiday eating (Thanksgiving through New Year) affected their weight.  They were weighed preholiday, holiday, postholiday, and a year later.   The study showed that most adults did put on extra weight during November-January, but it only averaged about a pound (.37 kg to be precise–as shown above).  Obese individuals tended to gain more, and 14% of the subjects did indeed put on five pounds. Here’s something else the researchers discovered: most of the subjects in this study never lost the weight they gained during the holiday.  The damage done was never reversed.1,2

This research backs up what we already know from personal experience and/or observation: weight gain is accelerated in the holiday season.   Most people don’t gain five pounds, but whatever they do gain stays with them (presumably for life).  It’s one contributing factor to the problem of obesity in the US.

One solution is to use the momentum of New Year’s resolutions to undo the “damage” caused by holiday eating–make a plan to drop a few pounds (more if needed).  There are plenty of good programs available to help you get started.

References:

1. N Engl J Med. 2000 Mar 23;342(12):861-7. A prospective study of holiday weight gain.

2. Nutr Rev. 2000 Dec;58(12):378-9. Holiday weight gain: fact or fiction?