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Do any of you guys use lifting straps when you train?
Do they really make a difference?
Does it weaken your grip?

We use lifting straps By ATP and TLF and they could weakin your grip if not used right we ONLY use them when we have excess amounts of weight on the bar.

Thanks Man!
What type of exercises do you use them with?
And how often do you use them??

i don’t use straps that often. i’ve been deadlifting for years now without them and have worked my way up to 405lbs for 6-8 reps.  any heavier than that i’ll use straps.  using chalk however has been a lifesaver. my hands get real sweaty when i’m working out and that was why the bar would start to slip out and not my grip strength.

deadlift and shrugs some kettle bell work just dont use them until the weight is excessive example is when we shrug  most of us dont use them until we hit 500 to 600 lb shrugs same for the deadlift (and with that only ehn reps are involvrd you cannot use straps in contest. The advantage is it does allow you to overload severly

Yes thats the ticket the chalk helps more than anything

what about using hand grips.  They are not gloves, they are rubber pads that help you with your grip.. ???

nevertried but it would build my DL guys grip which they need thanks for the info

nope, do not use them but i will use chalk.  Yes if you do something with excessive weight then i could see using them.  i just dont like to see guys at the gym doing bi curls, lat pull downs, and all kinds of things with them.   If you cant do a lat pull down and hang onto the bar you need to be ding some grip work (train your week points).

Agreed we only use them when doing banded DL’S and shrugs mostly

i don’t use straps (i use chalk instead) and i actually wouldn’t ever recommend using them, even for really heavy weights. they don’t improve safety, all they really do is allow you to cheat and lift a weight that your body, based on your weakest link (likely your grip), can’t handle. you are never going to get stronger and be able to handle that heavier load unless you train your body to do that. if you are using straps you aren’t necessarily weakening your grip, you just aren’t improving it. i would much rather lift as much as i can naturally and improve my weakest link than use a tool to help overcome that barrier.
now if you just want to push other parts of your body that is one thing, but i would never count a PR or acknowledge the claims of a lift while using straps cause without the straps that person wouldn’t actually be able to lift that load.

straps are for little girly men, along with gloves and those little pink dumbells.

I never lift without my gloves.  I don’t want man hands with calluses.. ewwwwwww

Straps are good for focusing on the muscle rather than getting distracted with ones grip. Straps may seem soft but at the end of the day they get the job done. Gloves on the other hand dont fly with me. Straps, are definitly usefull.

 Thats an interesting point, I have seen many weightlifters go from wearing straps for almost ALL of their training and then go out and make the same or bigger lifts in a competition without them. If you use a hook grip the strength of you fingers (less the thumb) is what is most significant, and with straps you can still train your fingers to some degree.

meatsack madmax I agree concentrating on the lift rather than grip will make the muscle being trained more focused upon anytime you can over load its a good thing and we are talking reps anyway with excessive weight. If as with anything  you take the uncertainty of loosing the weight of course you will get stronger and bigger and I have yet to see it effect a 1 rep max.

I use straps in the snatch but not the clean and jerk.  The reason why I use straps is becuase I train so much that if I did not use them my hands would fall apart!  I train with straps all the way up to the day of the compition and I see no difference in my lifting without them, my grip is just as strong without straps. 

I use straps when I’m training my back muscles. I’m more concerned in
working the back muscles…not increasing my grip. The straps remove the grip
limitation on training the back and enable more concentration on the back
muscles.  I wear gloves to avoid calluses.   I prefer people know I weight train by my
physique… not the calluses on my hands.