Finger pulling, the archaic continental corollary to arm wrestling used the middle finger.
One finger lifts (also quite archaic) use the middle finger most often.
There’s a reason for this, your middle finger is your power finger.
Squeeze each of the four fingers into your palm. You’ll feel the most meaty section and the largest percentage of the forearm activate when doing this with the middle finger.
(This may be part of the reason hook grip functions how it does… anatomically advantageous.)
Whatever the overhand deadlift variation, be it a regular barbell or an axle, when focusing on pulling through the middle finger, and focusing my power through it’s wrap around the bar and pressing it into my palm…that’s when I hit overhand PRs.
We’re so disconnected from the physical as a society that simply wrapping our hands around a thin barbell is something so foreign to us that we don’t know how to do in the best manner.
9/19/18 : I pulled 365 doh (double overhand) without chalk in a humid environment.
The truth of the middle finger and it’s grip power, something I’d known instinctively for a while, finally came to words.
That rep was completed due to pulling through the middle finger, in a chi like manner focusing on pressing the tip of the middle finger into palm, and feeling the forearm engage.
(You want to squeeze through the middle finger. This is best understood in practice using a pinch grip.)
Peace,
-J