We see all sorts of people wearing wrist wraps while they work out. Some big guys lifting big weight with few reps and some small guys lifting a lot of small weights with a lot of reps, and everyone in between; all wearing wrist wraps. But, do they need to, and are they necessary?

There are two primary factors to help us understand the importance of wrist wraps (“WW”). 1) Form, and 2) weight. Proper form keeps from putting unnecessary stress on the fragile wrist, but, depending on the weight, sometimes the wrist can only take so much resistance despite proper form. Wrist sprains are more common than you think. And if you sprain your wrist, you could jeopardize your workout program or injury your wrist further putting a stop to your program all together. It’s kinda hard to do your best bicep curls, chest presses, and all those weird CrossFit workouts, when your wrist is all jacked up.

Wrist WRAPS are different from wrist STRAPS. One is designed to support your wrist, the other is designed to support your grip by wrapping a strap around the bar to better hold heavier weight longer. We are only talking about wrist WRAPS here.

What do WW claim to do?

It’s essentially a lighter form of a wrist brace. The idea is to provide support to the wrist. It helps to stabilize the wrist during quick movements or heavy lifting. If your wrist is sore from a previous strenuous workout, the WW may even provide just enough support to keep from injuring your wrist any further and may allow you to continue to work out.

When to use them:

So, you do not ALWAYS want to use them. You WANT your wrist to get stronger as you get stronger. Always using your wraps may weaken or keep your wrist strength the same as your body gets stronger, which can lead to problems later as your weight increases. In theory, you want to use them when you are going for a Personal Record (PR), 1MR, and doing a high repetition workout where your form gets compromised as you get tired. Another time to consider using them is when you are lifting over 60% of your 1MR.

How to use them:

You want to wrap where your wrist bends, to support the joint and prevent hyper-extension. So, you don’t want to wrap them too low. You also don’t want to wrap them too high and impede on your grip of the weight/bar/machine. Too high or too low will not provide very much support on the joint anyway. Don’t make them too tight either. Your hand needs blood flow for proper muscular grip functions, but too loose and they won’t provide any kind of support. You want them mildly tight and snug around your joint, centered over and where your wrist bends.

Is using wrist wraps cheating?

Some pricks say it’s cheating, but they need to mind their damn business. Cheating, against who? A lot of them are just jealous that you are getting more gains than they are, I guess. That’s the same as a runner, who only runs barefoot (all natural) arguing that using the best kind of running shoe to train for a race, is cheating. Are lifting belts cheating too? What about knee wraps? Gloves? STFU. It’s probably those same losers that bitch about people grunting while they workout. Measures to prevent injury and improve performance, isn’t inherently cheating. You want to improve yourself, do you whatever you need to do to achieve YOUR goals, f*ck everyone else and their opinions. And tell those nazi pricks to mind their business and do whatever it is they want to do to make themselves feel better about themselves.