Hey Athletes! This week we are talking about deadlifting. Should you deadlift barefoot, use straps, or knee sleeves? Tune in to find out what gear you should or shouldn’t use!
Episode 49 of Ask Me Anything is up!
Ask Me Anything: Should You Deadlift Barefoot? Or Use Straps?
This week’s question is from Steven! He asks about the benefits of deadlifting barefoot if wrist wraps should be used, and when to use knee sleeves. Jerred and Joe dive right and give their answers to each of these questions!
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To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Jerred Moon
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage, you mathlete podcast Jerred. Moon here with Joe Courtney. What’s up, Joe?
Joe Courtney
Are you Jared?
Jerred Moon
Dude, living the dream every single day
Joe Courtney
and ask what’s going on in your life today, but that’s for Mondays. So if you want to find out what it is, go listen to Monday episodes.
Jerred Moon
Listen to one of the Monday episodes and you’ll know what’s going on in my life. Today, the only thing going on in my life is answering a question. And this is from Stephen, he says, or asks, What’s the benefit of deadlifting? barefoot? Do you recommend wrist wraps for lifting powerlifting friends are looking at me weird for not owning some. When should we use nice leaves? So we got three questions in one we could have saved these could have sparked them out. Right? So let’s start with what just go deadlifting barefoot? First, we’ll break down question by question. What is the benefit of dead lifting? barefoot? Do you have anything to say on this show?
Joe Courtney
Well, it takes out the factor of the shoes, if you’re wearing the wrong shoes, whether they have too much cushioning, roll roller anchor to one side, they’re not firmly on enough, it’ll just make you more ground aware and be able to ground your foot feet into the ground. That’s basically it could just be a shoe thing for you or like, you just don’t have to worry about bringing the proper proper shoes for deadlifting. Or you can just you can be in Chuck’s somebody people, I would never work out in shots, but I’ve had lifters in checks before.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, there’s not necessarily like this big benefit, right? It’s just that that flat ground, right, your feet are in contact with the ground, there’s no The only role negative in lifting. And I think that’s all there is with footwear, there’s only there’s only the wrong thing to do, there’s not necessarily the right thing to do. And the wrong thing to do is to wear like really cushy running shoes, you know, that have an elevated heel or something like that. They’re just not very stable. And if you ever, if you ever lived in cushy shoes, you just know, you can just like you just feel it, you’re like that’s not right. You know, that’s not good, you don’t feel a stable, you press into your shoes really well. Which isn’t a good thing. And so it just helps you lose some stability when you’re lifting in the wrong shoes. So when you’re barefoot, that is as in contact and flat footed you can be on the ground when deadlifting. So that’s the only benefit there. Like Joe said, you could also lift in Chuck Taylors or something like that. I do I deadlift and squat barefoot all the time. And it’s primarily out of laziness. I don’t feel like changing shoes a bunch of times. And so like if there’s something else in the workout where I need to put on running shoes, I’ll never squat and running shoes, right. So I will just squat barefoot, and then I will put on my running shoes or whatever shoes I need for the rest of the workout. So that’s how I operate and you get used to it. The only downside with a barefoot is if you’re like moving a lot of plates around and stuff and you break your foot with a plate that would hurt, hurt or break a toe, something like that. So not a ton of benefit, but it does help you be a little bit more stable on the ground. Alright, so next question, do you recommend wrist straps for lifting?
Joe Courtney
Joe? Do
Jerred Moon
you recommend lift? lifting wrist wraps for lifting? Is he talking about the ones that like strapped to the barbell? Or is he talking about the ones that like you would wear when like you’re pressing?
Joe Courtney
I’m sure it would be the ones around the barbell. Those are those reps because they’re not because they definitely do kind of go. Yeah, I mean, I took his wrist straps. If you’re actually breaking your wrist that doesn’t do anything for you.
Jerred Moon
I mean, some people talk about wrist wraps and wrist straps.
Joe Courtney
So well. I do see people wearing wrist wraps doing things that don’t need any wrist support at all. So feel cool. Yeah, the more gear the better, I guess. Yes. So wrist wraps. No, maybe when pressing but not that left wrist straps or barbell straps when it goes around the barbell. That’s a different that’s a different story. For these Also, your powerlifting friends are power lifters. We’re not power lifters. So if you’re not if you’re doing a programming and you’re not powerlifting that’s, that’s the easy answer. Because I’m not a powerlifter we can just say that. But with wrist straps, I think or yeah straps. It’s just when after you get up to a certain amount of weight it says it becomes a limiting factor but because we’re more functional I want to be able to hold what I’m lifting versus putting strain lifting up with my like your arms just leavers on the on the they’re just there for the deadlifts. So it’s just helping to it’s helping to hang on to it. But yeah, it’s just it just takes away one of the limiting factors but I think I still would like to grab a barbell to hold it and do that for as long as I can. Same with the alternating and not alt and for whatever deadlift I would rather do double overhand versus alternate grip because I can feel more stable. And there was one of the gyms I used to go through a long time ago when they did not allow alternating grips. Or if you did alternating grips, you had to switch grips every time at the bottom. So it completely kill your momentum. Which traps it is something that I’ve, yeah, well, that’s whatever it is, straps I thought about just only just recently kept putting them on because I am only doing double overhand. And that does seem to be somewhat of a limiting factor. And I do would like to go heavier. But I don’t really care that much. I’d rather build up my grip strength for that and power through it. And you know, you hook grip versus getting straps, but I’m not going for super, super high numbers. If I can’t grip it, then I’m not dead lifting it is kind of my answer. It’s not a detriment. It’s only if you really wanted to go heavier for those maxes. But I think on day to day normal deadlifting, like, between 60 and 80 85%, you should be able to grip it on your own, because you’re not powerlifting.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, a lot of the same for me. So, yeah, technically wraps, the ones that just tighten around your wrist or for pressing. And I know that’s not what he meant if we’re only talking about a deadlift, but just to be clear, wrist wraps are really helpful. And I actually would recommend those for people who have any sort of wrist issue, I’ve had a my wrists are fine now. But in the past, I’ve injured my wrist before. And those are lifesaver for being able to continue to do pressing work without any detriment, you know, without any problems. So those are great for pressing now, wrist straps, which which wrap around your wrist, and then the the strap kind of hangs off and then you you wrap that around the barbell, so you can lift more weight. I never use those, I don’t touch them. I had some, I don’t know, when I first started lifting at the very beginning of like 15 plus years ago, I think I use some, but I haven’t used them since I just don’t really like them. And so what I recommend, I like what Joe said, like I want to I want to deadlift with a double overhand grip until I can’t, that way I’m really pushing myself to grip the weight and to, you know, increase my grip strength. But at the same time, this can become a it’s like a limiting factor for you. Which can be good and bad, right? I think if there’s a deadlift in a workout, like an IWC, T, maybe stick to weights that you can only double overhand that we’re not doing going too heavy. Then once you get heavier, like when I go up to one rep max or anywhere close, I am not doing double overhand I can’t, I won’t be able to, to grab it, I do a mixed grip at that point. Now there’s a lot mixed grip can be controversial. And a big reason being is because if you start to flex your bicep, on the hand, that’s not overhand. You can tear your bicep, you can rupture your bicep. And that is why it’s controversial. And that’s a big deal. I take that risk. As someone who’s done a lot of mixed grip lifting, I’m pretty good at just letting my arms be dead weight, I don’t flex my bicep at all when I’m doing it. So I’ve learned how to do it very carefully. So that’s not to say that everyone should do mixed grip instead of straps. Like if you are maxing out, maybe you could use some straps, or you can do mixed grip. But don’t ever let it be at the detriment of rounding your back or any other phone form errors that can happen when your grip is no longer the issue. It’s going to be turned into something else. So just be very mindful of everything that we said from letting grip be the limiting factor for certain things. And what you should do on your one rep max. There’s just a lot of a lot of things to take into account there. But yeah, I don’t I don’t I don’t use them. I also don’t really recommend them. Because we’re not we’re not maxing out that often. And that’s really the only time I think that you should be either doing mixed grip or straps. Yeah. All right. Now the last one is when should we use knee sleeves? I don’t know if knee sleeves are that helpful for deadlifting but I think he might just be asking in general now I think knee sleeves are great. The compression helps with the reduction in inflammation. The SPD knee sleeves have been studied quite a bit we covered a study on them. I also just read another study that came out a few weeks ago where it tried to put like a number on how many pounds could a knee sleeves help or add to your squat and came out to being around five kilograms so just over 10 pounds, 12 pounds, something like that right? So that’s that’s a good amount. It’s not like an absurd amount but it could help add some weight To your squat I where I’m pretty much all the time now, just because I’m squatting frequently, it adds a lot of stability, it makes your knees feel very stable when lifting, and does keep them in really good positions. And so I really enjoy knee sleeves. Now, I never used to wear them. And now I do almost every time I squat. And I really, really do like them. So I would say, Yeah, I would still go. I also don’t put them on. It’s kind of like a belt, like I put my knee sleeves on, which is harder with pants, it was easier with shorts, I went to gym, now I have to get completely naked in the garage, to put them on. But anyway, when I when I put on the nice leaves, it’s not until I start to get heavy. So I still like to do some lighter loads. I don’t like any sort of, you know, gear that I just have to have, right? I just hate that idea. And so I don’t I don’t put them on until it starts to get a little bit heavier. And I really want my knees to be stable and then check so then I’ll put them on but lighter loads. I’m still going. No knee sleeves.
Joe Courtney
I have never one knee sleeves. Not once never owned a pair.
Jerred Moon
Try.
Joe Courtney
Yeah. I don’t feel like I’m at that volume to where I need to. But maybe maybe one day. Yeah, I think for our training, they’re not you don’t really need them, unless you’re adding a little bit of pore volume to it or if you need some extra needs stability. Yeah. Obesity. You need a little extra stability then. Yeah, it’s almost like a belt, but for your knees. And only do that when you get up to heavy. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. tagline.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I was gonna say one other thing on this. The Oh, here’s just an anecdotal thing for me and nice leaves. So last year. I mean, last year 2020 now so Nevermind. It goes 2019 ish. To into 2020 I had a knee problem. And it was most likely from doing Murph all the damn time. Because I had done a lot of that. And I think the volume was getting to me, so I my knee was not in a good condition. And then so I couldn’t run. Like there were just a lot of problems with having that knee problem. And then I decided to do the PCT track. And you know, I’m a little worried about it because I’m like, I have this knee issue we’ll see what happens on the PCT track because I could end up with a knee injury if that happens again, I kind of just be out altogether because running and squatting. If you have a bum knee, you’re kind of screwed. So I that’s the big reason I implemented the knee sleeves and I have not had a single knee issue tweak problem and that’s with like significantly increasing run volume squat volume my knees have been in you know knock on wood basically perfect condition. Doesn’t have to say other parts of my body haven’t significantly broken down because of BCT but my knees are good. And so I you know that could very well be due to the knee sleeves
Joe Courtney
so BCT worth project or a year two excuses to wear knee sleeves. There you go.
Jerred Moon
I’ve never one No, I have I have that. I’ve won the smaller ones. If I wear the bigger SPD knee sleeves that I have now for Murph. It would probably make air squats feel like a joke. Because they do head they’re pretty rigid. Right? Like it would be that’d be a fun.
Joe Courtney
That’d be a fun. World Record. Yeah, there we go. Oh, man, these are birdies.
Jerred Moon
Were our two pair like jokes like hard to bend.
Joe Courtney
I gotta force it down instead of up. Then you have to like cut them off to go run. You wouldn’t be running this. No. Penguin run.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, straight leg. Alright, we’ve gone too far. This is a Ask me anything. If you guys have any other questions, go to garage gym athlete.com slash ama and ask your question. We’d really appreciate it. And thank you to all those who have asked a question now if you’re on the YouTube channel, go ahead and like this video, subscribe, leave us a comment. And if you are on your favorite podcast player, thank you so much for listening and being a subscriber. If you haven’t subscribed, you did find a some weird way through search or whatever. Go ahead and subscribe. We put out a lot of information I’m sure you’ll like some of it, if not most of it. And then the last thing for you to do there leave a five star review and positive comment on your favorite podcast player as it helps the show find more people. But I do appreciate each and every single person listening. So thank you for listening
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