Often times Zoids catches a wayward comment such as,
"Hey man, my grips sucks, I was thinking of buying some lifting straps..."
"What are you pulling?" - Zoids
"Uh, I don't know...225?"
Dios Mio, how are you supposed to build a grip when you default to this asshole everytime your forearms begin to fail?
I can't tell you how many times I have seen people in the gym using straps with their pulldowns at 110 lbs, or sweet mother of god, on a pressing exercise. Other than making you look like a terrific douche, you shouldn't need assistance to pull 1/2 your body weight. How do you get out of bed in the morning? OH SHIT I BETTER PUT ON MY BELT AND STRAPS I GOTTA PULL MYSELF OFF THE GODDAMN TOILET!!!!1.Truth be told, straps blow. The totally take grip strength out of the equation, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you train your grip on a myriad of other exercises in which you are strapless (rows, DB anything, other pulls), but those bastards destroy your wrists nonetheless. I have blown a blood vessel numerous times from straps murdering me, and it takes forever to wrap up on a bar, and while you are doing so crouched down you are losing your psyche out and cramping your legs.
Chalk. Use it from now on. I tried it for the first time the other day and pulled 505. The bar never slipped, and my grip isn't exactly iron clad. Rather than the bar slipping, I lost about a square inch of skin from my right hand.
AWESOME!
Building better dog paws, is all I'll say.
It is so nice to just run right up to the bar, all pissed off about whatever it is that gets you pumped (rising cost of whey, hair loss, etc.) and pull. No set up, no wrap up...just you murdering your lumbar. Chalk is cheap, easy to use, and a fucking mess. But hey, its a lot more fun than straps, though I would suggest using the innernet to find it as every Sports Authority in the DC metro area is currently out of stock.
