What are they used for?
Use weight lifting straps to keep going when your progress begins to stall; they strengthen your grip during pulling movements like deadlifts, pull-ups, and rows. You’ll be able to add reps or weight to your workouts, or lift more frequently. Try them sometime; the difference is like night and day.
Using them increases your effective strength. Unless you are injured, your grip is probably the weak link during compound pulling movements. When you take your grip out of the equation, the progress you make seems to go on and on without stalling.
Grip strength takes a huge hit during heavy deadlifts. With the exception of the lower back, the forearms take the longest out of any of the muscle groups to recover from a max-strength workout. Grip fatigue limits your other pulling movements, even after several days’ rest. This is doubly true for older lifters who need extra recovery time between workouts.
Unless you use weight lifting straps, you don’t realize how important your grip strength is. A strong, reliable grip nets you more reps during your pull-up sets and lets you add significantly more weight to the deadlift bar. Unless you’re injured, your grip is the weak link in your pulling movements.
In short, you get three benefits from weightlifting straps:
- More frequent workouts thanks to the grip assistance.
- Heavier weight during deadlifts, rows, and weighted pull-ups.
- More reps during sets of un-weighted pull-ups.
The downside of using weightlifting straps
Obviously, if you never train your grip, it will remain weak. Don’t use weightlifting straps every time you work out. They can help you reach your goals if you use them strategically, but don’t use them as a crutch or they’ll hamper your progress.
Weightlifting straps should only be used for certain things:
- Recovery from injury. When your hands, fingers, or wrists are injured, weight lifting straps mean the difference between working out and vegetating on the couch.
- Absolute max effort lifts. Your grip will never handle as much weight as your back and legs. Without weight lifting straps, you have to use an alternate grip and risk pulling something out of whack, or a hook grip and risk wrecking your thumbs.
- High-rep sets of pull-ups. Lifting straps get you an extra rep or two. You’d be surprised.
- Holding a heavy dumbbell during calf-raises.
- Heavy shrugs. Your traps can handle much more weight than your grip. To grow your traps without affecting the rest of your pulling workout, use straps.
Weightlifting straps: review of different types and brands
No weight lifting strap review can be complete without mentioning the basic, time-tested model. It is nothing more than a flat length of heavy cotton, approximately a foot in length, with a loop in one end. For most purposes, this inexpensive style is perfectly fine.
You can find padded lifting straps which put a layer of neoprene foam between the cloth and your skin. If comfort is your thing, go for it; the additional cost is negligible. Valeo padded lifting straps are heavily-advertised and well-regarded among trainees, but the truth is that such a simple item varies very little between manufacturers. Schiek straps appear almost identical in design.
Leather lifting straps look good, but the extra expense is hard to justify. There is no benefit to having leather instead of cotton lifting straps.
Some manufacturers offer fancy padded wristbands or gloves with straps or hooks built in. These may be useful if you are suffering a chronic injury, but I have never seen a weight lifter use them regularly. Try to avoid wrist and hand injury and you should have no use for exercise hooks, power hooks, or any other new variation on a proven theme.
Harbinger makes a full range of weight lifting devices. I have a pair of Harbinger lifting straps and they’ve served me well for years. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to go wrong with such a simple item. Your best bet is to comparison shop, compare the price differences, and go for whichever is least expensive. There is very little difference between makes and models, unless you want fancy features like extra padding or built-in hooks.
Here is a complete list of weight lifting straps at Amazon.com
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thomas – thank you for the website. It is very informative and useful. I have been a former skinny guy lifting for awhile, and I have come here to learn about Hex Bars and Kettlebells (I was led here by the broken arm kettlebell guy’s posting on Amazon)
I used to use straps religiously for weighted pullups and deadlifts. Over time, I weened myself off them and, along with my interest in rock climbing, have developed a strong grip. What I have noticed is that with the significantly better grip, I am apply the added strength significantly better in non gym situations, like yard work, athletics, or helping someone move. Those benefits I have found are superior to the extra rep or two I may have gotten with the straps. What good are all those hours in the gym if I can’t easily carry the heavy end of something up a flight of stairs?
I guess what I am trying to say is that advising people to spend extra time at the end of a workout developing grip strength through, say, gorilla hangs or farmer’s walks, may be more beneficial long term than advising the use of straps.
Thanks for commenting, you make very good points.
Good grip strength is important for quality of life. In Do forearm curls work?, I argue that grip strength is more important for weight lifters — and everyone — than big, showy forearms.
Unfortunately, it takes time to develop a strong grip.
Young guys who are eating a lot and lifting heavy can work out the biceps indirectly 3 times per week. They can work out their lats and back 2 times per week.
But the grip is another matter entirely. It can take a week to recover from a fatiguing grip workout. The forearm muscles, and especially the connective tissue in the forearms, takes much longer to recover from fatigue than the back or biceps. I believe that the forearms and the grip limit the rate at which guys on a bulking program can increase size and strength in the back and biceps. If these guys wait for the forearms to catch up, they’re squandering the opportunity to take advantage of newbie gains.
Early in a weight-lifter’s “career” is the time to try to gain weight as quickly as possible without worrying about grip strength. Train the grip later. My theory is that they shouldn’t try to focus on grip and lats simultaneously. Most skinny beginners have no grip strength. For these beginners, holding a 50 or 60-pound dumbbell during a set of bent-over DB rows taxes the grip more than the lats.
Again, I like the points you make. You’re not one of the internet tough-guys who says, “wrist straps are for weaklings…” I just think they are a useful tool during the heaviest pulling sets, in that phase of your workout career when you’re trying to add weight to the bar every time you lift.