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To Strap Or Not To Strap

© Matt Danielson

Are wrist-straps good or bad for you? One side of the story is that they allow you to concentrate more on the muscle being worked and reinforcing your grip so that your forearms are not the limiting factor of your back-workouts. The other side is evident: If you take the stress off the forearms, they're not doing any work and will therefore not grow!

So what should you do? The experts all have different views - some swear by the straps and others treat them as something found under their shoes. Personally, I believe in straps. Genetically I don't have very strong forearms, and when I started training after having joined the army my first training partner happened to be a huge football-player at national level with a chest so huge he could put a pint of beer on top of it when flexed. He showed me everything, and told me to use straps. So I did, and kept doing so for the first three years of my training.

Result: My lats came out fine, but my already weak forearms became a sorry chapter.

Then I came to the point when I had problems doing even a few chin-ups without straps. As my bodyweight had climbed quite considerably while my forearms had gotten weaker, I realized I had to do something. But what should I do? Should I give up all productive back-training for the next six to 12 months just to build up my grip strength to get it up to par with the back, or should I keep going as I was? The solution was easy - I did neither!

On back days I relied, and still mainly rely, on straps. For almost every set I would strap myself really tight'n'good to the bar so I could put every ounce of effort onto the back, not having to think of my arms more as just hooks. But on bicep-day I added four sets of specific forearm-exercises, which would allow me to develop both mass and strength. For starters, I would go to the squat-rack, put the bar low so that I would only have to lift it a few inches to hold it standing straight, pretty much like the top position of a deadlift.

As I was already warmed up from the bicep-training (which automatically hits forearms too) I would load on a moderate weight, say 100-110 lbs and slowly curl it up and down. That means just holding the barbell in front of me and let it roll almost out of my grip and then back up again to fully clenched fists, and for extra burn I'd curl the entire fist backward/upward to make the forearm contract fully. I'd go for one set, all-out, not counting the reps but concentrating only on the burn.