A champion tells you how to use hand straps to get the most out of exercises. His advice is aimed at all of the Big Three, bodybuilders, power lifters, and Olympic lifters.
Ever use straps in your training?
If you haven't, you've missed out on one piece of inexpensive training paraphernalia which will add pounds to your Olympic quick lifts and develop wider and thicker back and shoulder muscles.
Power lifters can also greatly benefit from regular use of this simple piece of equipment.
Straps of one sort or another have been used for a number of decades by lifters and strongmen yet very little is known about their benefits and use outside of a selected group of present-day strength athletes. I don't recall ever reading where their use was stressed for the benefit of the bodybuilder.
First of all, let me explain why the straps can be such a boon to lifters and bodybuilders. A weak grip or small hands or a combination of both can prevent barbell men from using heavy weights in training. Readers of Strength & Health for a number of years know that without the ability to handle heavy weights in your exercises you are restricting the growth of your strength and muscles. The straps enable you to concentrate more fully on the exercise movement of lift, as the case may be, rather than having to detract your attention from the movement because of a weak grip.
Secondly, the straps are so easy to use and so inexpensive that if you desire maximum strength and development of the back muscles and shoulders, you would be depriving yourself of those qualities without it.
STRAPS FOR WEIGHTLIFTERS
Straps are a "must" for weightlifters. For practicing various types of high pulls with extremely heavy poundages the hook-grip alone cannot be relied upon. You could also save many a "smashed thumb" feeling with its use.
One of the best reasons for using straps other than that of being able to hang onto the bar without any thought of the bar slipping out of the hands is the fact that you can concentrate on using your arms as "connecting links" for pulling the bar as Olympic coach Bob Hoffman always stresses in his lifting articles. The use of straps will aid you in starting your initial pull with the larger and stronger back and leg muscles rather than with the arms.
In 1957, just two weeks prior to the Sr. National championships in Daytona Beach, Florida, I injured my left hand in a freak accident. The load of five musclemen tilted the Cadillac in such a way that the car door slammed shut on my third finger, splitting the fingernail lengthwise. Until I was rushed to the hospital and X-rayed, I thought the bone of my fingertip was smashed.
The injury prevented me from gripping the bar tightly at any time, lest the pressure would make it bleed. Even pressing moderately heavy weights off the squat stands with my left hand in a cupped position proved to be painful. The only alternative I had to retain my pulling power was to practice a lot of high pulls employing the straps and just my thumb and index finger of my left hand to hold the strap in position. This practice paid off for at the Nationals not only did I win the light-heavyweight class but also established a Sr. National meet mark in the snatch. The use of straps prevented the loss of my pulling strength and also helped me pull correctly.
Some of the leading lifters in the world make very good use of straps in their training. Serge Lopatin, the Russian lightweight, cleaned 374 pounds in training back in 1961 when the world record in his class was 352 pounds. Featherweight Udodov of Russia pulled in 324 pounds in the clean prior to 1956 and the world record then was 314. Even heavyweight world record holder Yuri Vlasov of the Soviet Union with his large hands uses straps for practicing the pulls. Lightweight Olympic champion Baszanowski of Poland uses straps even in warming up for a contest so he can conserve his hook-grip and hand strength for the actual competition.
STRAPS FOR POWER LIFTERS
During the U.S. Olympic team's stopover in Honolulu in 1956, on the way to the Melbourne Olympics, several training sessions were held by the weightlifting squat at that Nuuanu YMCA. There, with the aid of special straps which had iron hooks attached to them, Paul Anderson was able to perform a partial deadlift of 1,000 pounds. Doug Hepburn of Canada had similar straps, also using metal clips to cup the bar for performing deadlifts and high pulls.
Metal hooks and clips are good for slow movements but for pure simplicity and ease of use for varied exercise movements you cannot beat the straps made of canvas or nylon webbing. For developing maximum deadlifting ability you must use straps in your training.
STRAPS FOR ISOMETRIC TRAINING
Straps are indispensable for performing any type of pulls on the isometric rack. You cannot concentrate on exerting your maximum pull if you do not use straps. Whether it be partial movements on the power rack or pure isometric pulls, the power you can generate against the bar is limited by your ability to hang on to the bar, no matter how great your back, shoulder and arm power. All those who work on the isometric principles or use the power rack for limited movement will not get the full benefit of the pulling muscles if they do not use straps. I might even go to the extent of saying that you would be losing a 20-30% benefit on your pulls if you do not employ straps.
STRAPS FOR BODYBUILDERS
Those who fail to isolate movements for the latissimus dorsi muscles when performing exercises such chins, rowing motions, or the lat machine pull-downs or who cannot handle heavy weights in these exercises because of a weak grip can really develop the "wings" by using straps.
I know of a bodybuilder who could perform 50 wide-grip chins at a time without showing any appreciable development of the back muscles simply because he used his arms to pull himself up all the time. No matter how many sets of rowing motions, lat pull-downs and chins he performed he couldn't get a decent pump of his latissimus muscles.
Training the Lats for Maximum Isolation, Stimulation, Innervation and Pump
by Greg Zulak (155 pages) . . .
Even to perform shoulder shrugs for trapezius development his shoulder girdle would hardly move. Instead, his arms were flexing to get the weights higher from the hanging position. He was the only person I knew who could perform the deadlift or the shoulder shrug and have his arms pump up.
This very same person who had no back development to speak of, within four months of training with the straps, improved his back development to the extent of winning the best back award in the Hawaiian Islands. Incidentally, he also won the best arms award.
The use of straps can make the upright rowing motion an all-deltoid movement. Slick, chrome-plated bars can tax the grip when using a close grip in this exercise but by the use of straps you can concentrate all the stress on the deltoids.
Straps are easy to make [and word has it some sneaky buggers sell 'em.].
Obtain two strips of strong, pliable webbing approximately 1.5 inches wide and 18 inches long. Loop one end of strap and stitch securely the overlapping portions. Make sure the loop is large enough for your hand to pass through yet small enough so that the strap will not slide off.
When in use the strap should lie flat against the back of your wrist without any wrinkles (these "wrinkles" or skinny straps can dig into your hands and cause discomfort), with the loose end of the strap left dangling.
This free end is looped around the bar just once, letting your cupped hand clamp over the strap on the bar. Study the photographs accompanying this article and you'll see the method used in encircling the strap on the bar. The other photos show the straps being used in the various pulling exercises.
After you have both hands on the bar, with the straps around the bar, and you wish to tighten them, just rotate the bar in the direction the thumbs are encircling it.
This will take up any slack on the straps.
A word of caution. Do not wrap the straps around the bar so many times that you have difficulty in releasing your grip. There have been cases where ambitious lifters strapped their hands to the bar to perform repetition snatches and pulled so violently that they did a back somersault, knocking themselves unconscious. And on the happy image-based note -
Enjoy Your Lifting!
Great find! Its always interesting to see something so novel and widespread, like using straps, was a relatively new idea as late as the mid-60's. The meet report from 1962 world's noted the Iranians were using cotton straps and pretty remarkable. https://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2024/02/how-they-train-report-from-world.html
ReplyDeleteWow, Tommy Kono describes everything I've experienced in the last 10 years with regard to raw lifting vs. straps! Prior to 2018 I never used straps and only got sore in my arms during pull ups, rowing and deadlifts. I had no back muscles to show for all the hours I slaved away at various pulling exercises. Once I started using straps I learned how to properly engage my lats and really take my shoulder and back strength to greater heights previously unrealized.
ReplyDeleteMy back and shoulder muscles blew up and now my back looks like a powerlifter's back. So much untapped potential that I never utilized because I stubbornly refused to use straps for the longest time. Now I'm addicted to them and refuse to train without them! I train my grip separately with things like leverage bar twists and timed holds on a 3.75 inch pinch block. I even use straps for my dead hangs to get more out of stretching my entire shoulders and back while decompressing my lower spine.
About 10 years ago, for still-unknown cause, I developed a debilitating six-week-long neuritis in my right shoulder-blade area. Next to a kidney stone about 25 years ago, was the most relentless, intense pain I've experienced in my 69 years.
ReplyDeleteThe unexpected long-term effect (permanently damaged nerves, somehow affecting grip contraction?) has been a chronically-weaker right grip in certain pulling movements. No matter what I've done to recover the former grip strength, it hasn't returned. The strength imbalance between my hands translates to as much as 30 or 40 pounds less plate in my heaviest one-arm dumbbell rows.
To compensate, for the past nine years, I've successfully used a home-made wrist strap on my right hand for max-poundage sets on barbell and dumbbell rows as well as barbell shrugs.
Hi Joe. Have you ever done finger lifting with eagle loops? I recently recovered from a severe pinky strain in my right hand that has finally healed after 7 long months. I put my finger through the loop, lift the weight attached to a loading pin and do a timed hold for 10 seconds.
DeleteAt first I could only do 25 lbs. but I gradually worked up to 75 lbs. The tendons and ligaments took a long time to heal but it was worth it. Just a suggestion you may want to try for yourself. I did this everyday 6 days a week and now the injury is gone. Doing so gives me great grip strength in my fingers so it may work for you as well.
JEFF,
DeleteThanks for the suggestion. I'm familiar with eagle loops and similar, although I've never used 'em.
In the intervening almost-10 years since that neuritis, especially in the first year following, I've tried many grip-strength building and restorative methods (my favorite has always been static barbell holds, doing count-to-twenty sets with pronated then supinated grips). But despite my left hand grip returning to its former strength, in the normal way strength returns following an injury or layoff, after I resumed workouts when the neuritis finally ended, the right hand never has.
My right hand grip is relatively strong compared to a non-lifter's, but the imbalance surfaces when I'm handling my max poundages in certain pulling movements. For example, my right-hand grip can handle using 110 lbs on the dumbbell for single-arm row sets of 20-25 without a strap as well as my left hand , but when I jump to sets with 140 lbs and more for 15-20 reps, I can't hold onto the dumbbell with my right hand for more than 5 or 6 reps unless I use a strap on it. Prior to that neuritis, I could use 140 lbs and more with either hand without a strap.
From what I've studied, apparently nerves deteriorate like any other bodytissue. The nerves can become no longer as able to signal a muscle to contract as strongly. The nerve wiring can become less efficient at relaying the impulse to the muscle, even if it's exercised with progressive resistance. It's one of the reasons, along with things like sarcopenia, accumulated joint weardown, and reduced anabolic/recovery capacity, that we gradually but inevitably lose strength as we age, despite continuing to consistently train as hard as we can, using TRT and HGHRT, continuing to eat and sleep adequately.
If we're keeping ourselves physically fit, that unavoidable decline isn't usually observable in us until we age into our late 60s and 70s. However, certain acute injuries and medical problems can cause nerve damage earlier.
I suspect that's what mine is. That neuritis, whatever the hell precipitated it (along with lifelong lifting, I was also a builder/roofer, and I incurred the inevitable job-injuries including one fall through a roof, so who knows what the neuritis was a result of) outcomed with some sort of permanent nerve damage that means I can no longer make a fist with my right hand as tightly as I can with my left.
At least, I can't make a fist as stronly in certain positions. Because, bafflingly, the grip imbalance doesn't surface when I do maximally weighted pull-ups (I like those for upper back) or chin-ups (for biceps). Seems to present only in gripping for pronated pulling motions in which the arms extend outward from my torso (any rowing, whether barbell, dumbbell, T-bar, seated cable, landmine) or extend downward (shrugs), but not overhead?
Wow, seems you've been through many hellacious injuries! The reason I think timed holds with the eagle loops might work for you is that they strengthen the finger tendons directly than any other thing known for gripping. Like you, I am a grip fanatic as well. I have done specialized periods of training on thick grip farmer's walks with 2.5 and 3 inch grips as well as one arm barbell deadlifts with a special 2.5 inch barbell.
DeletePrior to my injury I could easily do 75 lbs. on my right pinky but when I injured it my strength dropped significantly to where even doing 25 lbs. for 10 seconds caused me excruciating pain. Despite this I fought through the pain and eventually regained my strength and mobility. I couldn't clench my right pinky for a long time until undergoing this arduous training.
Since you haven't tried it, this may surprise your hand and shock it into healing. There's no way to know if something will heal you unless you experiment with long term rehab using a new exercise. If you do decide to give it a try I would recommend that you use gloves while lifting with the eagle loops as the nylon loops tend to viciously tear into the skin. For years I didn't use gloves when doing these and the pain kept me stuck at 50 lbs. for a max on each finger but when I tried it with the gloves on the pain was more tolerable and so I quickly broke my plateau and got to 75 lbs.
My mom was suffering from arthritis due to her job. I put her on a daily regimen of eagle loops, leverage bar twists and timed holds on a pinch block. It has cured her ailment and strengthened her hands which has allowed her to continue to do her job pain free. My mom by the way is 66 and has never lifted weights in her life before training with me recently.
Have not been an asshole for a while here and that simply won't do. Serious lifters take note: beware the pinky strains of too-frequent high teas. Many a career has been ruined . . .
DeleteHa! Good one! Funny thing is how I got the injury. I was using straps on the trap bar and I didn't have the strap properly wrapped on my right wrist and so when I deadlifted it my hand slipped slightly which put too much strain on my pinky finger. Tendon strains in the fingers are every bit as annoying as they are painful because the hands are used in everything we do throughout the day.
DeleteI trained through the pain, healed it and can now move on. It really negatively impacted my ability on dead hangs during those months but I still did them.
For what it's worth, Ken Leistner once wrote in a PL USA column how wrist straps promote shoulder injuries, and how he became stronger when he ceased using them.
ReplyDelete