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Wrist wraps are used to help keep the wrist straight while lifting, most commonly during the bench press and overhead press.<br><br>
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Wrist wraps are used to help keep the wrist straight while lifting, most commonly during the bench press and overhead press. There are several benefits to wearing wrist wraps, including increasing joint stability, allowing you to push beyond your normal fatigue limits, keeping your wrist injury-free, giving you the capacity to grip the bar stronger, and making the weight feel lighter in your hands.
However, to get the most out of your wrist wraps, you need to have some basic understandings of how they work and how to wear them properly. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time by wearing them. Therefore, in this article, I’ll discuss the tips you need to know to make sure your wrist wraps are contributing to stronger lifts.
1. Know That Wrist Wraps Are Not Made To Feel Comfortable Wrist wraps are meant to put your wrist in a cast. The goal is to limit the range of motion of the wrist while lifting. In other words, your wrist should be as immobile as possible in order to stay neutral. As such, the wrap should be tight around the wrist. This is not going to feel pleasant.
2. Start Wrapping With Your Wrist Bent Slightly Forward A common fault while lifting is when the wrist cocks backward. This is especially the case in movements like the bench press and overhead press. This is a detrimental position for the wrist to be in because it will increase stress at the level of the joint, which may lead to pain or injury. In addition, when the wrist cocks backward, the barbell will then be more prone to moving in the hand, which might throw off other parts of your technique.
3. Wrap The Bottom of Your Palm One of the newbie mistakes for wrapping your wrists is not placing the wrap high enough on the wrist. In other words, you want some of the wrap to actually be at the base of your palm. When you have the wrap at the bottom of your palm, you will increase the stability of your wrist joint even further, making it less likely that your wrist bends or flexes while lifting.
4. Avoid Wrapping Too Low Similar to my previous tip on wrapping slightly higher on the wrist, you want to avoid wrapping too low on the wrist as well. You’ll know you’re wrapping too low if you begin to wrap more of your forearm versus your wrist. If the wrap is lower on the arm then you won’t be providing any stability to the wrist and it will be much easier for the joint to flex forward or backward while lifting.
5. Gradually Increase The Tightness As You Are Wrapping When you wrap your wrist, you’ll probably have 3 revolutions around your wrist. Each revolution that you wrap should progressively get tighter. This is made possible through the elastic material of the wrap.
6. To Increase Grip Start With Your Hand Clenched In a Fist One of the main reasons why lifters wear wrist wraps is to increase their grip on pulling exercises, such as deadlifts and chin-ups. If your goal is to increase your grip strength, then your wrapping technique will change slightly. This is because it doesn’t matter so much that your wrists are immobile, but rather, that your fingers and hands maintain the strongest connection possible to the barbell.
