During Iron Hour Yoga, holding your weights in the proper manner will help you to get the most out of your exertion and ensure a safe and effective practice.
There are three positions in which to hold your weights: pronate, supinate and hammer grip. A pronated grip is when the back of your hands are facing the ceiling and your hands are wrapped around the weights with palms facing down.
In the standing series, during the lat pulls in Warrior II, you start the posture with a pronated grip. On the floor series with weights, the dumbbell chest presses require a pronated grip.
The second way to hold your weights is the supinated grip. A great way to remember supinate is to think of “soup.” Remember the movie, “Oliver” when little Oliver Twist with upturned hands asked for more soup? “Please sir, I want some more!”
Just like Oliver, whenever you supinate your grip, make sure your palms are turned upwards! The first biceps curls we do in the standing series is done with a supinated grip.
The third hold is the hammer grip. This is an easy one—imagine you are holding a hammer! Instead of holding the weights so that they are parallel to the floor
(pronate or supinate) in the hammer grip, the weights are perpendicular to the floor!
The second biceps curls in the standing series is done with a hammer grip. This will work a different part of the biceps muscles than the supinated grip.
For each of the three grips, make sure the back of your hand is in the same plane as the back of your forearm. Don’t bend your wrist too far forward or too far backward—imagine you have a ruler taped to the back of your arm and hand so that you can be sure to keep the carpel tunnel open as much as possible!
During Iron Hour, make sure you get the proper grip!
