In reviewing my answers to a commenter named, Mark, I realized that some of the information in my answers might not be seen by others who either had already read the article or who do not read comments. I am also disappointed that some of these points are not mentioned in any of my books and I don’t see myself returning to them to perform an update. I find it convenient to reference my books as, in them, my struggle to convey unwieldy concepts has already been endured.
Therefore, herein I repeat the comments, my answers, and offer some refinements to my answers. In addition, I include some new insights that have only recently emerged from dialog between me and Gus Diamantopoulos (Toronto, The Strength Room) related to this subject. [Gus spearheads our joint project to write extremely precise exercise instructionals. This project is an extreme linguistics challenge.]
Note: Within the quoted comments and answers I make edits and further comments within these brackets: {…}.
[Understand that a pull-up exercise and a pulldown exercise are essentially the same exercise with regard to the motion of the body and the musculatures involved. The only difference is that in the first, the body is pulled upwards to handles while in the second, the handles are pulled down to the body.]
Mark, inquired:
You recommend a neutral grip (which I generally prefer for all my HIT exercises). If someone only has access to a regular straight pull up bar, is a standard pronated grip still acceptable (for someone with healthy shoulders who wants them to stay that way)?
My Answer:
In this case you describe, a pronated grip is required to obtain the correct humeral attitude for the hanging traction; however, this grip places the hands and wrists in their weakest position.
Although Kirsch fails to explain this, he does aptly suggest the use of wrist hooks and provides sources for them. They are absolutely required for the pronated grip that is required for the hanging traction on a regular, singular straight bar. [Of course, for performing the pull-up or pulldown exercises {regardless of kind}, a pronated grip is contraindicated.]
Wrist hooks are even advisable for many subjects who are afforded a way to grip handles that allow a neutral grip.
Note that gloves often make gripping more comfortable but also require a stronger grip because the gloves' material make{s} the handles effectively larger and therefore more of a gripping challenge.
Warning: A Source of Possible Confusion (and I don't believe explained in either my book or by Kirsch): When we mention "neutral grip" we mean a grip whereby the hands are midway between fully supinated and fully pronated. This attitude is NOT the "neutral" or "zero" of standard anatomical position.
Standard anatomical position depends on the image {Explained later} of a subject standing in such a way that all major joints of the body are in their natural or "neutral" or muscularly relaxed positions, EXCEPT the wrists and forearms. This standard position has the hands fully supinated (thumbs pointing laterally) requiring deliberate contraction of the supinating musculature. A truly neutral position is with the thumbs pointing anteriorly instead of {directly} laterally.
Words
All of this discussion—again—hinges on linguistics. And the discussion of these hand placements and attitudes is the epitome of linguistical frustration.
A significant requirement in the solution of this frustration is the use and/or creation of terms to employ in the discussion. In the previous paragraph, I mentioned “placements and attitudes.” Without agreed definitions of these terms, further discussion is a morass. Therefore:
Positioning is the general concept of where and how to rest a body part. Under this heading, placement is where we rest the body part and attitude is how that body part is orientated.
For example, for typing this my right hand is placed on the desk and immediately behind the keyboard. But what is its attitude?
My hand’s attitude is with its heel down and not up or laterally or medially oriented. And the hand is open and not closed into a fist. The precise description of my hand’s attitude is far more complex than its mere placement.
Vitally important aides in describing body part positionings are the anatomical standard guidelines used by the medical and biological communities. Gaining fluency in these standards is foundational to precise descriptions of positioning as well movement between positions. Note that describing movement of a body part is exceedingly more challenging than describing a static state of that body part.
Inadequate Words
Mark referred in question to a “regular straight pull- up bar” and I tried to improve upon this with “regular, singular, straight bar.” My attempt was still inadequate. Of course, Mark and I probably understand one another, but do other readers get my figurative arm waving in the clouds?
Without photos or drawings, my language does not provide for certainty of accurate conveyance. But even with these graphics, a caption is extremely difficult to compose that can assuredly express the difference BETWEEN a bar or handles for performing a pull-up where by the humeri swing in mostly sagittal (not mid-sagittal) planes VERSUS a bar or handles for performing a pull-up whereby the humeri swing in a common frontal plane.
For instance, both Mark and I described the bar as “straight.” However, for this exercise in mostly sagittal planes (a mostly sagittal plane for each arm), separate handles might be employed and both would be straight just like are the handles for performing the exercise in the frontal plane. So straight doesn’t really get us anywhere, and by the way, nor does regular.
I’ve considered using cross bar to assist in this distinction. This seems to help if I can convey the idea that cross indicates that the bar is a horizontal bar that extends across the body’s vertical orientation. [With this previous sentence, I inadvertently exposed other, deeper assumptions in our communication trap. It shows that Mark and I both assumed the bar to be horizontal and the body vertical. And since it’s possible to devise a pull-up or a pulldown exercise with the body in a horizontal format, pull-up and pulldown become questionable names for the exercises. We will move on in the discussion as we ignore this.]
And let’s not forget that perhaps cross handles might be better as we have already alluded and will further explain.
One piece of the solution is to state that the pull-up or pulldown performed with the humeri sweeping in the frontal plane is the one that exclusively uses parallel handles. This works, but only with the understanding that the mostly-sagittal sweeping version uses a bar that should NOT really be straight or uses handles that should NOT be parallel.
The idea that the pull-up or pulldown in mostly sagittal planes must be performed with a straight solid bar (handle) derives from the Nautilus dictum (Arthur Jones) declaring that a fully supinated grip is required to place both the gripping muscles and the biceps in their strongest positions. This information is a mixture of fact and fallacy, although it was an overall improvement in how to perform these exercises.
While a pronated grip certainly compromises gripping strength and destabilizes the wrists, a fully supinated grip is extreme and uncomfortable, if not intolerable. This extreme also compromises the crucially important gripping contribution of the pinkies (fifth digits). The best solution to both is a neutral grip.
And while a neutral grip is well accommodated with parallel handles in the pull-up or pulldown performed in the frontal plane (sometimes called a behind-the-neck pull-up or pulldown), the neutral grip is not accommodated with the common straight singular bar that predominates performance of the pull-up or pulldown performed in the mostly-sagittal planes. Ideally, handles must be angled to allow for a neutral grip.
More on the Neutral Grip
In my answer to Mark, I stated—referring to standard anatomical position—that, “A truly neutral position is with the thumbs pointing anteriorly instead of laterally.”
I missed this slightly. A neutral grip—whereby the tonus of the supinating musculature and the pronating musculature are roughly balanced—occurs with the thumbs of most subjects pointing somewhat inwardly (medially) in the picture I reference and shown in the next section. This corresponds to the palmer surfaces of the hands oriented directly medially.
Arthur Jones predicated his stance that a fully supinated grip was required for pulling movements on his mistaken conclusions about the strength curves of muscles. As I explain in several of my books—Cams Within Cams, The History of the Design and Function of the Vintage Nautilus Compound Position Biceps Machine, An Evaluation of Nautilus Inventor and Founder Arthur Jones’ Contributions to Exercise—Arthur had many resistance curves for his equipment backwards or way off.
The Neutral Position versus A Mid-Range Position
These two positions ALMOST NEVER coincide IF we reference the common image of a subject standing in such a way that all (except the wrists) major joints of the body are in their natural or "neutral" or muscularly relaxed positions like in the drawing below! The only exception that I can readily think of is—AGAIN—the supination-pronation excursions of the hands and wrists.
As I stated in my answer to Mark, the neutral position is not at the official anatomical zero in this image. It is actually somewhere in the middle of the excursion.
But this foregoing image is misleading as a breakout image of the wrist (below) with its associated nomenclature shows the neutral position to be exactly how we prefer to express it.
A discussion of the mid-range has occurred in recent years in regards to static (isometric) exercise. We stress that almost all static exercises should be performed in a mid-range position for the range-of-motion (ROM) of the involved body parts. Note that I state “a” mid-range position and not “the” mid-range position. For the purposes of performing a static exercise that avoids painful positions of a debilitated subject as well as other possible concerns, the mid-range is loosely demarcated. And this looseness is perhaps looser than what we might estimate to be the neutral position.
I’m fairly certain that I have not expressed these observations comparing the neutral and mid-range positions before…
The preceding discussion provides a mere inkling to the extreme linguistic challenges to exercise instruction and research. The presently prevailing linguistics underpin a culture of ignorance and gibberish that is a bulwark opposing enlightenment.
For those desiring a technical treatise on the fundamentals of exercise, please download the free book, Transitioning from TSC to Feedback Statics at baye.com. Therein, you will encounter a thorough discussion of inroading, the central theme of exercise and exercise definition. An extensive glossary is included.