Lifting Straps and Belts: How to Use Them Without Holding Back Your Progress

There are a number of accessories that can be found in gym bags dating back many decades. 

Lifting straps, knee wraps, and weight belts have been part of the gym world for at least 100 years. When used appropriately and in the right setting, these can help maintain volume load within a training session. 

Volume load is a very important concept to understand in resistance training. It simply means the amount of weight lifted for across a set of a given number of repetitions for any one muscle group in a session. Put another way, volume load = sets x reps x load for each exercise.

An easy way to understand volume load is to use squats as an example. Imagine performing 5 sets of squats, starting with the weight that is your 10-repetition maximum (10RM), and you rested either 30-seconds or 2-minutes between sets. 

If you were resting 2-minutes, that duration would be sufficient to dissipate the fatigue and would allow you to lift the same weight for each set of 10 repetitions - thereby maintaining volume load. 

When resting only 30-seconds, the insufficient recovery time between sets will force you to either drop the load so you can perform the same number of reps that you did in the previous set, or you would have to perform less repetitions on the same weight. As you can see, less rest between sets negatively impacts the volume load.

Any cause for a reduction in volume load is the reason why this concept is extremely important to understand. Muscle scientists have repeatedly shown that volume load is one of the most, if not, the most important variable when it comes to growing muscle, especially as we age. There appears to be a very strong correlation between volume load and healthy muscle mass in post-menopausal women. So, we take very seriously accessories found in the gym bag that can help preserve volume load in training sessions and across the training week.

When performing some pulling exercises – rows and vertical pulls (such as chin-ups and pulldowns) in the upper body and deadlift variations for the lower body - many often find that the small gripping muscles of the hands give way before the stronger thigh and hip muscles do, and that is the reason for stopping a set prematurely. This limiting factor, coming from the hands, will cause a reduction in volume load to be experienced in certain pulling exercises and will thereby reduce muscular gains over time.

The judicious use of lifting straps, used in anticipation of grip strength fatiguing before the larger muscle groups, is a perfectly acceptable accessory to use during a set. 

Many of my hardcore and old school strength coaching colleagues, however, would advocate the use of only lifting what your hands can hold, with the intention of having no weak links between hands and large muscle groups. But I see no reason why we need to resort to such draconian perspectives in the weight room, with one caveat.

If your hands are fatiguing during your warm-up sets or during light loads or that you’re using straps as a crutch to enable you to lift loads that are beyond your current ability level, then it is a clear sign and indication that more hand and forearm strengthening is required. 

This is the very reason why we strongly advise preparation or Foundational Training prior to goal specific training, as there is a heavy emphasis on training the weak links such as the hands and the gripping muscles. 

It's not that lifting straps are “wrong”, but they can be over-used and excessively relied on as a band aid for weak hand and gripping muscles, which can be easily rectified with some accessory forearm and hand work, which we tend to prioritize in the foundational programs. 

There is also an argument, to which I am sympathetic, which states that if your hands can't hold the bar or dumbbells, such that you need to rely excessively on straps, then that load might be too heavy for the stabilizing structures at the elbow, shoulder, shoulder blades and spine. This might cause repetitive strain or overuse injuries overtime, as the stabilizing muscles are being forced to handle loads to which they have not yet developed the resilience to tolerate. This to me, is the strongest argument for developing hand and grip strength and only using straps when absolutely necessary.

On that, is the use of the mixed grip when performing deadlifts. As a general rule of thumb, a double overhand grip should be used until you can no longer hold on to the bar safely, at which point you should apply the use of straps as opposed to using a mixed grip. 

The reason for this is that the mixed grip shows a high degree of muscular imbalances developed overtime and an increased risk of biceps tears. Unless you're a competitive powerlifter, who has trained this grip from day one, use a double overhand until you can no longer, and then use lifting straps.

The final accessory commonly found in your gym bag is a lifting belt. I would apply the same logic here that we have for the use of straps. 

Lifting belts are not inherently “wrong” but can be used as a crutch to aid lifting loads that the lower back is not prepared to tolerate yet. This means I would use a belt in the same way and with the same thought process as I have applied to lifting straps. I would ensure that we include a number of exercises to strengthen the lower back, that employ a number of different ranges of motion (e.g., good mornings, reverse hypers, back extensions etc.). Commence all sets without the belt until such time you feel that the form is starting to suffer, or the low back is excessively loaded or fatigued, at which point you would then use a lifting belt for the final maximal sets. Learning how to brace into a belt is a topic that deserves its own blog, which we will cover in time.

All of these devices that we have discussed are aids and not crutches so that you can lift heavier loads. They are to reduce the impact of smaller muscles from reducing the volume load when training larger muscle groups.

So, the two takeaway messages are simple. 1. Do not neglect this small muscle groups in the body, such as the hands and the lower back. And 2. Commence your sets using your hands and lower back until such time that these smaller muscles will reduce your volume load or change the form negatively that predispose you to injury. At which time you can finish your maximal sets by using straps for your hands and a belt for the lower back.