Get to grips with this comprehensive guide on all you need to know about weightlifting gloves, lifting straps and wrist wraps for lifting.
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Your lifting is feeling good: You’re upping the weights, and you’ve almost hit a new one-rep max on your deadlifts this week. But suddenly, you find it’s not your strength holding you back but that horrible feeling of the bar sliding out of your hands mid-rep. Even worse, you’ve got calluses (or worse, skin tears), making the whole experience pretty uncomfortable.
We’ve all been there. Luckily, there are solutions to help: weight-lifting gloves, lifting straps, and wrist wraps—designed to improve grip by reducing tension in your fingers, helping you lift heavier and providing a more comfortable workout experience.
But how do you know which lifting accessory is right for you, and is it even a good idea to start using lifting gloves, straps or wrist wraps at all?
Enter the great lifting gloves debate.
It’s been going on for years, with plenty of differing opinions as to which accessory is best and whether we should be using lifting gloves, wrist straps, or wrist wraps at all.
Ultimately, it comes down to personal choice, but we’re going to give you all the facts to help you make that decision. Let's discover the pros, cons, differences, and best exercises to use each of these weightlifting accessories for.
All You Need To Know On Lifting Gloves, Wrist Straps, And Wrist Wraps
Whilst lifting accessories can be a great helping hand in helping you lift those heavy weights, it’s important to still work on building your grip strength. Discover How To Improve Your Grip Strength today.
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Weightlifting Gloves (Lifting Gloves)
Weightlifting gloves (AKA gym gloves or workout gloves) are an accessory that many lifters will turn to at some point. Designed to support and protect the hands while lifting barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells, weight lifting gloves are suitable for all levels of lifter and come in a variety of styles.
Shop:
Legacy Lifting Gloves
Wrap Lifting Gloves
Types Of Weightlifting Gloves:
Full coverage gloves are weightlifting gloves that cover the whole hand providing full protection when gripping the barbell or weights
Fingerless lifting gloves cover half the fingers and allow for more flexibility during your lift.
Fingerless lifting gloves with wrist wraps cover only the palm and half the fingers and provide extra wrist support from the wrist wrap.
Pros And Cons Of Lifting Gloves
Workout Gloves Benefits:
Improve Grip: Lifting gloves are designed with padding on the palm to ensure a secure grip on the weights, helping you lift heavier, for longer.
Protection: Lifting gloves help prevent callouses and reduces pain in the hands.
Stabilize and Support: Wearing weightlifting gloves with wrist straps helps to stabilize and support the wrists due to the straps keeping the wrists in a neutral position.
Drawbacks Of Using Lifting Gloves:
What comes up must come down, and just as there are benefits to using lifting gloves, there are also potential drawbacks.
Dependency: Many see becoming reliant on weightlifting gloves for their workout as a problem, as it decreases their adaptability.
Negatively Impact Form: When you use weightlifting gloves to ensure your form is correct, you may become accustomed to performing the exercise with gloves, which may differ from the natural technique because the additional padding of the glove can change how your hands naturally grip the bar.
What Are The Best Exercises To Use Lifting Gloves For?
Weightlifting gloves are extremely versatile and can be used across a number of different exercises. The best exercises to use lifting gloves for are:
Heavy weightlifting with dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells, or a bar.
Pull ups (or any exercise on the rig or pull up bar)
FAQs
This is completely down to personal preference. Deadlifts require good grip strength, especially when you start to really load on the weight! Some lifters like using weightlifting gloves for deadlifts, as they improve grip and provide a layer of protection for their hands to prevent calluses. That being said, weight lifting gloves are not your only option for improving grip when deadlifting. Wrist straps would be our preferred grip-enhancing accessory for deadlifts, providing bar security and reducing grip fatigue.
Before jumping straight to using lifting gloves or wrist straps for deadlifts, you may want to play around with grip placement first. Using a mixed grip (one underhand, one overhand) or a hook grip is a great way to secure your grip on the bar more tightly, especially if you add some chalk into the mix too!
We wouldn’t say one is better than the other, but they do have different advantages and drawbacks. Lifting gloves are extremely easy to get the hang of using, making them ideal for beginners, and are extremely versatile, meaning they can be used for a wide range of exercises. However, some people don’t like the feeling of having thick material on their hands, and find it can get in the way when performing heavy compound lifts, such as deadlifts, effectively.
Lifting straps are well suited to heavy-pulling exercises where your grip is the factor holding you back. However, they aren’t suitable for all exercises, and it can take a while to get the hang of using them!
Ultimately, whether you use lifting gloves or wrist straps will depend on what exercises you are doing and simply which you prefer.
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Wrist Straps (Lifting Straps)
The least controversial lifting accessory, and most commonly used across all abilities, the lifting strap (or wrist strap) is designed to provide bar security, enhance grip and support the wrist joint. Wrist straps are a great tool for hypertrophy, weightlifting, and powerlifting.
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Silicone Grip Lifting Straps
Figure 8 Lifting Straps (single loop lifting straps)
Types Of Lifting Straps:
Single Loop lifting straps are the best option for quick-release lifts such as the clean and jerk and snatch and are popularly used for Olympic lifting. These wrist straps are most suitable for the advanced lifter as they offer the least bar security. The single loop wraps over the wrist, and the remaining part of loop sits in the palm, which you place on the bar to grip.
Figure 8 Loop lifting straps are a comfortable and easy-to-use option best used for
performing deadlifts. The Figure 8 design has two loops, one which you put your wrist in and the other loops over the palm to provide support while lifting and reduce grip fatigue. The minimal design is great for heavy pulls since they're made from heavy, durable materials to stand the test of time.
Lasso lifting straps are a type of lifting strap with wrist support. First, you loop your wrist through the lasso for added wrist support and then wrap the long strap tightly around the bar, where you'll grip the straps in place, ready to lift. This is an easy-to-use lifting wrist straps style ideal for all abilities to perform heavy pulls, pull-ups, and rows.
Pros And Cons Of Lifting Straps
Benefits of Wrist Straps:
Increase Volume: Wrist straps help you lift more weight than usual as the material strap wrapped around your bar and wrist helps to redistribute the weight away from your palm.
Increase Grip: Lifting straps help you build strength in the gym by removing the weakest link: your grip. They can be prioritized for heavy pulling movements, helping you lift more weight.
Protection: Lifting wrist straps helps prevent callouses and reduces pain in the hands.
Develop Strength: Using wrist straps for lifting can help to improve your wrist and forearm strength.
Drawbacks of using Wrist Straps:
Dependency & Weaken Grip Strength: As with lifting gloves and wrist wraps, using lifting straps frequently poses the potential to become overly dependent and decrease one's natural grip strength over time.
How To Use Lifting Straps:
There are slight differences in how to use the different types of lifting straps, but to use figure 8 loop wrist straps, you should follow these steps:
Holding the lifting strap, place your hand through one loop, leaving the other loop to hang down below your wrist. Repeat on the other side.
Come down to your barbell, placing your hand on top of the bar in an overhand grip, letting the free loop hang behind and under the bar.
Move your hand over the front of the bar, reaching to loop your hand through the strap hanging below the bar. Both loop straps should now rest on top of the wrist.
Repeat on the other side.
Take hold of the bar, grabbing the inside of the loops to secure the bar tightly.
Perform your lift.
What Are The Best exercises To Use Wrist Straps For?
The best exercises to use wrist straps for are those heavy pulling movements – never pushing movements!
These include:
Deadlifts
Lat pull Downs
Rows
Chin ups
We emphasize ‘heavy’ because lifting straps should only be used for heavy-weight, low-rep lifts. You still want to maintain good grip strength, so it’s important not to become over reliant on wrist straps and only use them when you need them.
Lifting Straps FAQs
Yes – Using lifting straps for pull-ups can help you to secure yourself to the pull up bar, removing the reliance on grip strength to allow you to focus on building mind-muscle connection, increasing time under tension and improving ROM. This makes lifting straps a great accessory if you are training for aesthetics and back development, but bear in mind if performance and grip strength development are a priority in your training, then using lifting straps to help with your pull ups is not recommended.
If you are choosing to use lifting straps for pull ups, we recommend single-loop straps. They are easier to release and put you at less risk of getting stuck on the bar than figure 8 lifting straps.
A Wrist strap has the main purpose of helping to provide better a grip on pulling movements. Because less grip strength is required, this indirectly helps to support the wrist, placing less pressure on the wrist itself when lifting. That being said, if you struggle with weak wrists rather than grip strength, wrist wraps may be a better option. These are specially designed to support your wrist, providing greater stability through movements by decreasing the ability of the load to move/bend the wrist.
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Wrist Wraps For Lifting
Wrist wraps are pieces of fabric that wrap around the wrist, usually secured by velcro, that can also be found attached to lifting gloves. They wrap around the wrists to support the wrist whilst lifting, ensuring stabilization and correct wrist placement on the weight or bar.
Wrist Wraps vs Wrist Straps: what’s the difference?
Wrist straps or lifting straps are designed to help with grip strength and wrap around the palm of your hand and the bar. They offer respite for your palms from the tension caused by gripping the bar during heavy weightlifting. Wrist wraps, on the other hand, support your wrist, rather than assisting with grip. They are useful for pressing exercises to protect your wrists from heavy load, rather than assisting with grip on pulling exercises, as lifting straps do.
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Velcro Wrist Wraps
Types Of Wrist Wraps:
Velcro Wrist Wraps: The most common type of wrist strap, Velcro wrist straps are suitable for all types of lifts and provide comfort and support. Their high-stretch material means they can be adjusted to find the perfect balance between compression and comfort. They often feature an elasticated thumbhole for added stability.
String Fastening Wrist Wraps: A softer, more easily adjusted style of wrist wrap, string fastening wrist wraps are longer to allow them to be wrapped around your wrist multiple times before being secured using string. They can then be adjusted by twisting the material around the wrist to make the wrist wrap tighter or looser. They are more flexible than velcro wrist wraps, making them ideal for more dynamic movements, such as Olympic lifting or gymnastics.
Pros And Cons Of Wrist Wraps
Benefits of Wrist Wraps:
Wrist Stability: Gym wrist wraps keep the wrist ****in a neutral position when lifting, helping with proper form when holding the bar or weights and preventing overextension of the wrist.
Pain Prevention: If you have weak wrists, wearing wrist wraps can help prevent pain in the wrists as it takes some pressure off the joints and provides added support.
Recovery: Gym wrist wraps aid recovery, allowing you to return faster to lifting with an injury, as the wrist wrap offers support and can help rehabilitate the wrist whilst performing lifting movements, placing less stress through the joint and surrounding muscles.
Drawback of using Wrist Wraps:
Dependency & Weakened Grip Strength: Similar to wearing lifting gloves and wrist straps, you risk becoming reliant on wrist wraps to perform your lifts. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but may stop you from developing your natural wrist strength as you would without a wrist wrap.
What Are The Best Exercises To Use Wrist Wraps For:
Since the main function of a wrist wrap is to provide support for the wrists, the best exercises to benefit from using wrist wraps are heavy-pressing exercises that put a lot of pressure on your wrists. These include:
Bench press
Shoulder press
Clean and jerk
Overhead press
Wrist Wraps FAQs
No, wrist wraps provide support and stability to your wrists, working with the existing wrist strength you already have. That being said, if you are looking to strengthen your wrists, using wrist wraps will not help to achieve this. Wrist wraps simply help to align the wrists and support them throughout your lifts, but if strengthening your wrists is your goal, you’ll need to implement some wrist exercises outside of your time using the wrist wraps or only use the wrist wraps when you really need them, such as during those heavier lifts.
Yes! If you have wrist pain, weak wrists, or are recovering from injury, wrist wraps are an easy-to-use solution to protect your wrists. That being said, it’s best to save using wrist wraps for heavy movements or during high-volume training sessions where you are performing repetitive movements, such as overhead press, push press, or snatches. For lighter movements or accessory work, try not to become overly reliant on using wrist wraps, and instead focus on building up the strength of your wrist without the wrist wraps.
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Final thoughts: Lifting Accessories Can Be Beneficial, But Don’t Become Overly Reliant On Them
As we can see from this breakdown, the general consensus is that lifting gloves, straps, and wrist wraps can all be beneficial to a certain extent but can hinder natural grip and wrist strength if you become too dependent on them.
As you build muscle, progressive overload becomes easier, and you may find eventually that you no longer need help of lifting accessories. But in the meantime, whilst you're seeing how far you can push your strength, it might be worth getting your hands on some lifting accessories to help get a grip on those heavy lifts.
