How To Use Lifting Straps To Re-Enforce Your Grip.

Straps or No Straps…

A question that I’m often asked by my followers is about lifting straps to re-enforce your grip when lifting weights. How do you use them? When should you use them? etc…

Now I’m going to be upfront and say that I personally believe in building up your grip strength naturally without the aid of lifting straps “most” of the time. A big mistake that I see folks doing is getting hooked on lifting straps and using them too often. I actually fell into this trap myself back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I was using straps for all my rowing exercises and I did not do any direct grip training. The end result… My Grip Sucked!

It got to the point where I couldn’t even do a back workout without using straps. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal until one day when I was watching a local powerlifting meet and I seen a lot of the lifters who were a lot smaller than me, lifting a heck of a lot more than me, and doing it WITHOUT using wrist straps!

This really got me thinking about what I could do to build up my grip strength in a hurry. That’s when I started researching about grip training and that eventually lead me to Heavy Duty Hand Grippers.

I am a huge fan of the Heavy Grips Hand Grippers and I think that all muscle building enthusiasts should incorporate them into their training.

Simply taking 5-10 minutes and doing some direct grip work 3 days per week after your normal workouts will make a HUGE difference in your grip strength and forearm development. In fact within 90 days of using the Heavy Grips I added a solid inch of mass to my forearms and increased my grip strength from barely being able to close the 200 pound gripper to mashing the 350 pound gripper shut.

That grip strength carried over into my weight training workouts as well and now I’m happy to say that I can do a solid back workout without having to rely on lifting straps to get it done.

Now with all that being said, do I still use lifting straps?

YES I do! But now I’m using them the way they were meant to be used. As a tool to help you occasionally push yourself beyond what your grip can normally hold. But not over using them to the point where you rely on them for all your rowing exercises.

For me I’ll put on the straps when I push myself to perform both heavy weights and high reps. Such as heavy “higher” rep deadlifts, heavy high rep dumbbell rows, high rep shrugs, etc. When doing higher reps your grip is more likely to give out before the stronger muscles of your back, traps, etc. reach failure. It’s times like these that straps can help. But I’ll still perform all my warm up sets and even heavy lower rep sets without lifting straps. For example, if I’m pulling a heavy single rep deadlift I’ll do so without the use of straps.

This occasional use of lifting straps along with focusing on direct hand gripper training allows you to get the best of both worlds. A stronger grip and big muscular forearms – PLUS – a tool to help you blast your back past the point of where your grip would normally quit.

In the video clip below I’m showing my friend Brent how to use lifting straps for the first time. If you have never used straps before or are unsure about how to properly set them up. I highly recommend you check it out…

P.S.
If you would like to get your very own set of Heavy Grips Hand Grippers just click on the link below. These are high quality heavy duty steel hand grippers that come in 6 different strengths; 100 pounds, 150 pounds, 200 pounds, 250 pounds, 300 pounds, and 350 pounds. This way you can train your grip just like any other muscle group with progressive overload.

Click Here To Order