I (39 M) kinda had an awakening of sorts. For starters, I go to the gym on occasion. Yet, I get discourage because for the amount of time I go, I never really saw any improvement. And when I walk around, I’d envy the guys who can bench press their own body weight, something I couldn’t do even when I was 180. Mostly because I couldn’t get comfortable bench pressing heavier weights. But on top of that, aside from my high school football coach showing us the basics, I never had a fitness or lifting trainer that demonstrated proper techniques of lifting.
Well, today as I was casually scrolling through the world of Reddit, I saw a video of a man bench pressing and having the bar fall on his chest with what looked like an incredible amount of weight on it.
I kept looking at the video over and over again and couldn’t figure out what he did wrong. Then I read the comments and someone pointed out that the lifter was using a “suicide grip” and not a “standard grip.”
When I read that, I immediately went “wait…there’s a different grip to bench pressing?” Another posted a picture of the difference of the two grips and…that’s when I realized that I’ve been using the suicide grip my entire life!
I immediately called my wife (42 F) and told her my discovery! I was thinking she was gonna laugh this off and call me a dumb ass…but she took it to a whole new level!
Her words were “Are you serious? How can you be so stupid! No…no…please…for the sake of any possible deities in this universe… are lying to me right now?”
When I told her its the truth and then explained what I learned and how this might be the reason why I never felt comfortable with heavier weights on the bench press…she went off on me again for what seemed like an eternity! With her ending “even I, a woman from Turkey, who goes to the gym 1/100th as much as you do, knows how to grip a bar properly! Everyone knows how to grip a bar, idiot!”
I asked her if she can show me even a little bit of support and encouragement on my new discovery, but the last thing she said “how can I support someone who is this stupid!?” Then hangs up on me.
Welp, guess I’ll just go to the gym now and try out this new form.
TLDR: found out I’ve been using a different grip while lifting my entire lifting life, shared it with my wife, and got ridiculed by her.