How does the mixed grip DL affect shoulder flexibility?

[khal]

Hi Rip, firstly thanks for your books. For the last few months I've been doing Squats and Presses every session (one day on, one day off; no weekends. On study leave so can afford to do nothing but train and eat) and Deadlifts (1 set of 5) alternated with Power Cleans (5 sets of 3).

BW: 107kg, 178CM, 19 years old.
Sq: 140kg
Dl: 160kg (introduced a belt only recently, so the lack of a belt ha held back progress)
Pr: 61kg

Anyway, still got plenty of fat and plenty of room to get stronger so I'll keep at it.

The other day I asked my brother to take a picture of the way I grip the barbell in the squat due to a tightness (no pain, just no flexibility) in the left shoulder and noticed that in the right side, my wrists are straight (almost textbook) but my left shoulder and elbow seems to be a bit lower, and my wrist seems to be bent. The only asymetrical work I do is the Deadlift where my left hand is supine. could this contribute to my imbalance in squat grip.

Lastly, not sure if this is relevant, but I seem to favour my left leg (only when I'm grinding out the fifth rep of the last set) and recently 'tore' (very minor, very little pain) a muscle in the front of the thigh. Did no rehab work just repeated the workout next session and it was gone. Could this have something to do with my Squat grip?

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u334/grahhl/P0132_22-12-09.jpg


Thanks!

[Mark Rippetoe]

Have you ever had a shoulder injury? And I'd never presume to say conclusively from here, but you may have a short left leg. It happens a lot. This has nothing to do with your shoulder.

[khal]

Have you ever had a shoulder injury? And I'd never presume to say conclusively from here, but you may have a short left leg. It happens a lot. This has nothing to do with your shoulder.

Now that you mention it when I was first learning the lift i did have pain in the inner groin on the left side and it felt like it was a hard tissue thing. It's now gone and I had completely forgot about it until now.

Taking a closer look at the picture it does seem as though one hip is lower, but I'm not sure if that's due to the was the camera was positioned, I'll definitely look into the leg issue.

No shoulder injuries, or at least any that lasted long enough for me to remember.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sometimes one shoulder is tighter than the other shoulder. Sometimes it corrects itself with attention to a symmetric position, sometimes it doesn't. You will not die from this.

[Gary Gibson]

Sometimes one shoulder is tighter than the other shoulder. Sometimes it corrects itself with attention to a symmetric position, sometimes it doesn't. You will not die from this.

Earlier this year I realized in horror that one of my shoulders was far tighter than the other. I realized this because the rack at my globo gym was shoved right up against a mirror. One elbow was way lower than other. A few months of concentrated effort to raise it seems to have sorted out the flexibility issues. "Flexibility" is just your nervous system learning to accept a new position.

[khal]

Earlier this year I realized in horror that one of my shoulders was far tighter than the other. I realized this because the rack at my globo gym was shoved right up against a mirror. One elbow was way lower than other. A few months of concentrated effort to raise it seems to have sorted out the flexibility issues. "Flexibility" is just your nervous system learning to accept a new position.

Not sure about your last sentence but I definitely found that since warming up with lighter weights using a more narrow grip made a more wider grip (pinky on the outer ring, my usual grip) more symetrical.

Also, I found doing that stretching thing where you grip the bar, leave it on the hooks and just lift your body up as if to set the bar lower down on your body stretched out the region pretty well.

Slowly incorportating pullups, by doing negatives and dips so hopefully that helps also.