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I've been having some difficulties deciding the best possible grip width. I have heard to the armpit and length of the elbow, but I was wondering everyone's personal experiences experimenting with different grip widths.

Ubermancer wrote:I've been having some difficulties deciding the best possible grip width. I have heard to the armpit and length of the elbow, but I was wondering everyone's personal experiences experimenting with different grip widths.

Yea, handgrips vary from person to person and from coach to coach. The idea handgrip (that all of my coaches have taught me) has been the length of you elbow, or less if you can get it (I have A LOT of trouble shortening my handgrip...)

The smaller your handgrips, the easier it is to swing and get inverted. So, if you can get a small hand grip, that's a good thing, just don't make it too short.

My hand grip is about my elbow plus my thumb, but it's a little to large and I get yelled at a few times by coach about it.

Jump on a horizontal bar like you were going to swing from it...

There's your ideal grip...

If the pole is a monster, it may need to be widened up to an inch - 2".

What powerplant said.
Plus read this, too narrow or to wide of a grip can be a hinderance. This is what petrov has to say about it.
oops sorry i forgot to add the link! http://www.iaaf-rdc.ru/eng/docs/pub/0001e.html

Yeah check out Petrov's speech at Reno for a more in depth explanation of the effects of different grip widths... It's a little tough to follow, but I guess that means you'll learn something else each time you watch/listen to it!