Should I Use Wrist Wraps To Lift?

Are you debating on whether or not you should go buy wrist straps, and then if you're gonna buy them, which wrist straps you should get or if you shouldn't get them at all. So you're just sort of in the quandary of wrist strap, no wrist strap. Is there a special type of wrist strap that I should use so that I can safely hold onto a bar while I'm working out without fear that I will drop it? This video is perfect for you. My name is Dr. Molly, and I'm with Your Goals Physical Therapy. It is very common for people to feel like one hand is weaker than the other, and maybe even just sort of make up for it in everyday life, by modifying how they move and what they expect one hand to do versus the other.

It's very hard to do when you're lifting, right?

Because especially if you're gonna do something like a deadlift, you're gonna bench, you're gonna do a lat pulldown machine. All these things require both arms to be able to pull the same amount of weight. And so if one chronically feels like it's weak, or it just gets achy all the time. It limits our workouts. We can't work out as hard as we want. We can't lift as much weight as we want, and that can be very frustrating. And if your wrist doesn't bother you really at any other point in your life, you're probably not looking for a medical solution because it's not that big of a deal, but it's bad enough that you're on here looking for a solution to how to improve it while you're doing your favorite activities, lifting and trying to be healthy and overall just fixing our bodies and making everything better. So I've seen a few, there are a few types of wrist wraps. They have the ones that just go straight around your wrist. Then they have the ones that go around the bar, that makes sure that you can't let go of it. The ones that go here are typically more for, if something hurts, it just gives you a little bit of stability, because it's compressing the two bones in your forearm. So it can help alleviate, especially if you have some kind of tendonitis pain, or it gets achy from overwork. 

Whereas the wraps that go all the way around the machine are really for people who have just a very weak grip and they just don't feel like they're gonna be able to hold onto it. Or They're upping their weight and they're afraid they'll let go of it because the weight is heavy. They wanna make sure that they can really hold onto that. The way that I look at this and the way that I look at wrist wraps is that if you are in a meet and you are going to do your max and you wanna make sure that you have control of that bar, then, by all means, you need to be safe and you should use whatever helps you maintain control of the weight that you're using.

But to my mind, that should be a special event. If you're talking about your everyday workouts and you are having to feel that you need to have a wrist wrap, or you need to have something actually do the gripping for you, that needs to be addressed. And if it's never been addressed and you don't have any chronic reason why that should be happening, it can probably be fixed. And you won't need the wrap.

There are lots of reasons that your grip strength can be less on one side or the other. And most of those reasons are a hundred percent fixable. You can improve the strength and still ability and coordination in both of your arms so that they can both pull. And then you would just save the use of a wrist wrap for, I would say special occasions, but if you're doing a meet, if you're trying to pull a whole lot of weight for a specific event, but you shouldn't be training with them. That shouldn't be your training weight, because that is going to lead you to have another injury.

If your hand isn't strong enough to stabilize the weight and control the weight that you're moving, then something above it is going to be doing more work. Even if you have the wrist wrap. So if you can't grip, then that puts more strain on your forearms and puts more strain on your shoulder. It puts more strain on your back. And I know that seems a little bit silly, but we are all connected. And if one part is not able to help us out, then we are straining other parts in that system. And so I keep referencing deadlifts, squats, and lat pulldowns because that's when I see this the most, but that's not the only time people use them.

You don't want it to be that your hand is just not doing anything and everything below that has to do more work, because that's gonna overdevelop some muscles and underdeveloped others, but having somebody isolate exactly why it is that your grip strength is that much different on your, let's say your left versus your right.

Then that can open up a whole world, right? That could make it to where you're able to lift more weights, able to get stronger or bigger, whatever your goal is without injuring another body part. And I have examples of this. So somebody had a long-standing history of shoulder problems, things popped and clicked, and they just sort of ignored it because it's just who they are. And it's been popping and clicking since high school. And we don't pay any attention to that, but as they got a little older and things happen, they were still very active, and they were still lifting weight.

So then they started using a wrist wrap because that was the easiest way to make sure that they could still lift the way that they wanted. The problem is that when they got up to a certain level and got fatigued, then they ended up straining their shoulder.

They didn't tear the rotator cuff. It wasn't that dramatic, but it did seriously injure their shoulder. And so they sought out having somebody help them with their shoulder problem. When they came in, I did the evaluation and found a lot of muscle imbalances. They had been dealing with a chronic weak shoulder since before they can remember and it had affected their hand strength.

When they were lifting, they made all these new changes. Their forearms were always sore, their shoulder was not in the same place. Like if you looked at their posture, all these like little things that nobody, but somebody who stares at somebody for a living and picks apart motion would ever pay attention to.

But when you're trying to deadlift over 200 pounds, it makes a big difference. All that extra weight wears things down a little bit faster maybe if you aren't trying to lift that much weight, but what fun is that? So that brings me back. So if you're trying to go into a meet and you just wanna make sure that you have extra strength and that you're not gonna drop the weight at the worst possible moment, then that's one thing. But if you are training every day, trying to stay healthy, and just trying to challenge yourself, I would avoid using a wrap and seek help to figure out how to improve the overall grip strength

Cause you may find that it's not your hand, that's a problem. It's something else, your back, your shoulder, something. So I hope that this information helps you. And I hope that you get to that weight that you're looking for, bye.

If you are looking for more information checkout these blogs: 
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