Straps, another piece of equipment commonly debated and used in the sport of weightlifting. When are they appropriate to use? Even more importantly when are they not appropriate to use? Lifts like position power snatches can be hard to perform barehanded especially for those with a particularly wide grip and when performing multiple reps and the weight needs to be brought back to the hang. This is the perfect time for straps. Also snatch pulls and clean pulls as the focus of pulls should be holding correct positions not focusing on how hard it is to hold on to the bar. Sometimes they can be useful with full snatches, but your technique must be completely solid. Also you must be aware of how to correctly miss a lift. One problem with straps is that lifters many times over use them. They rely on them too much on the snatch and clean, that they never develop the proper grip strength. When it comes time for competition, they miss weights because of this lack of grip strength. My suggestion would be to use straps on the snatch or clean about 20% of the time and 100% of the time on pulls. One case where straps are not appropriate is full cleans. They can be very dangerous to miss in and can cause serious wrist injury. As shown in this video straps on cleans can go pretty wrong.
Here is a list of lifts Olympic weightlifters use straps for and what percentage use you should use straps
Full Snatch (20%)
Power Snatch (30%)
Full Clean (Never)
Power Clean (30%)
Position Power Snatch or Power Clean (60%)
Clean and Snatch Pulls (100%)
RDL’s (100%)
