3 Benefits Of Using Weight Lifting Hooks For Muscle Building
Imagine this, you’re pumped up on energy and are working out in a gym full of people. You move on to the weight lifting section, ready to lift heavy weights and get your biceps working. You try to pick up some heavyweights, and suddenly you drop a loaded barbell, and everyone starts staring at you. Does this sound familiar?
Well, not to worry, because having loose grips is not unusual and can occur for many reasons. A person may find it difficult to lift dumbbells / barbells or do pull-ups because of multiple reasons. For example they may have physically small hands, weak hand and forearm muscles, or just because of the fact that they don’t have any work that requires them to put effort into increasing their grip strength resulting in a poor grip.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to overcome grip issues. You have to put in weeks of hard work to improve your grip and start lifting heavyweights.
But luckily, using weight lifting hooks can help you lift weights easily and perform all the chin-ups and deadlifts you want to do while working on your grip. So, you can keep working out at your gym without fear.
What are weight lifting hooks?
As the name suggests, weight lifting hooks are curved heavy-duty metal, bent in the form of a hook that fits right in your palms. These hooks are attached to a nylon strap with neoprene covering. This allows you to wrap it around your wrist, enabling you to fix the hooks in between your finger and palms for a better and stronger grip.
How do they work?
Before we learn how they work, it is important to make sure that you are wearing it properly, reducing any chances of injuries.
The weight lifting hooks come with a nylon strap and neoprene covering, allowing you to strap them onto your wrists easily. Next, tightly wrap the strap around your wrist and place the hook right in the middle of your fingers and palms.
Once you’ve properly put on the lifting hooks, you start your lifting exercises by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Keep your knees bent with a straight back, going down with your chest towards the knees, and reaching out for the bar. Make sure the hooks are secured with the bar, and you are comfortable with the grip.
The weight lifting hooks will allow you to hold onto the bars for longer durations without straining your hand muscles while working up your biceps. Apart from this, the hooks also allow the lifter to lift heavier dumbbells or barbells. The hooks keep the weight off of the wrist and shift it towards the base of your hands.
Benefits of using weight lifting hooks
1. Lifting Hooks Targets The Right Muscles
When it comes to performing pull exercises such as deadlifts, shrugs, barbell rows, curls, etc., you need to make sure that the biceps are engaged properly. This means you should isolate the muscles better to get them working efficiently.
When we perform the pull exercises mentioned above, we grab the barbells with our hands, resulting in engagement of our forearm, hands, and elbows, causing poor focus on isolating the biceps, obliques, and hamstrings, etc.
Once you’ve properly put on the lifting hooks, you start your lifting exercises by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Keep your knees bent with a straight back, going down with your chest towards the knees, and reaching out for the bar. Make sure the hooks are secured with the bar, and you are comfortable with the grip.
The weight lifting hooks will allow you to hold onto the bars for longer durations without straining your hand muscles while working up your biceps. Apart from this, the hooks also allow the lifter to lift heavier dumbbells or barbells. The hooks keep the weight off of the wrist and shift it towards the base of your hands.
Benefits of using weight lifting hooks
1. Lifting Hooks Targets The Right Muscles
When it comes to performing pull exercises such as deadlifts, shrugs, barbell rows, curls, etc., you need to make sure that the biceps are engaged properly. This means you should isolate the muscles better to get them working efficiently.
When we perform the pull exercises mentioned above, we grab the barbells with our hands, resulting in engagement of our forearm, hands, and elbows, causing poor focus on isolating the biceps, obliques, and hamstrings, etc.
2. Better Wrist Support
The weight lifting hooks are attached with a neoprene padded wrist wrap, which provides a lifter with maximum wrist support and stabilization by shifting all the weight from your wrist to the base of your hand.
Wrist support is a very important factor because, if your wrist is not fully supported by the velcro straps, the lifter will not be able to hold onto the heavy weights. Not only killing the purpose of using weight lifting hooks but may cause serious hand injuries as well.
These straps are usually designed with adjustable hooks to imitate the natural grip, giving you the utmost comfort while performing the deadlifts and other pull exercises without fearing injuries.
3. Easy To Use And Durable
Using the weight lifting hooks is as easy as it can get; you won’t need to wrap it around the bars or anything because there are no excess straps.
The DMoose weight lifting hooks are made out of top-quality material and come with an 8mm thick padding and industrial grade fasting straps. Having such features in lifting hooks ensure the durability of the products, making them a long-term investment.
Apart from this, the wide, non-slip hooks allow for a firmer grip and can lift weights up to 600lbs,enabling you to lift as heavy weights as you can.
Does it Make Any Difference When Doing Deadlift?
Weight lifting hooks are a tool that assists and enhances your training to achieve your results quickly, and if your primary goal is to grow bigger and wider muscles, then you should try and use the hooks. These hooks, as mentioned before, will help you lift heavier weights easily, allowing you to target the upper arm muscles in a better manner.
Specifically, when you’re performing exercises like deadlifts or any of the upper body exercises for that matter, using hooks will allow you to focus on working up and exhausting the upper body muscles and not on how sturdy your grip is.
It may feel like the hooks don’t make any major difference, but there is. If you use weight lifting hooks when performing deadlifts, you are able to lift ten to fifteen percent heavier weights, taking you a lot closer to your goals a lot more faster.
What to Look Out For When Buying Weight Lifting Hooks?
When you start searching for the perfect weight lifting hooks, you need to keep your goals in front of you. This is the baseline that will help you move ahead and shortlist the hooks which are suitable for you.
An intermediate lifter, who has been training for the past few years will need the pull ratings of 215lbs, whereas an athlete or a professional lifter may need a product that can lift enormous amounts of weights, up to 600lbs or more.
Either you are a professional lifter or just a beginner, here is your buyer’s guide, to find the most suitable weight lifting hooks.
Adjustable Wrist Support
When buying weightlifting hooks, it is important to look out for adjustable straps. These straps are extremely important as they provide the wrists with the support needed to lift heavyweights.
If the straps are not adjustable, they will not fit properly, resulting in wrist injuries. Usually, the weight lifting hooks come with adjustable straps so you can adjust the hooks according to your hands for a more personalized and comfortable fit.
Durability
The second important thing is the durability of the hooks. Gym gears like weight lifting hooks need to be made up of the best quality material, so they are not just safe but also long-lasting. Otherwise, the chances of weight dropping increase which can result in severe injuries.
When buying weight lifting hooks, make sure that the hooks are made with heavy-duty metal and come with non-slip coatings. The heavy-duty metal will ensure that the hooks do not get weakened or eroded with time, and the non-slip coat will keep your hands steady when lifting.
Pull rating
Pull rating is also one of the things you want to look out for when buying weight lifting hooks. Pull rating is basically the amount of weight the hooks can lift.
A good-quality hook should be able to handle about 300lbs. On the other hand, some even more heavy-duty metal hooks should lift up to 500-600lbs, but it mainly just comes down to your skill level and the number of weights you can lift.
Conclusion
All in all, we can conclude the discussion by saying that the weight lifting hooks are one of the best available gym gears that can help you lift heavy weights without risking your wrists or any other kind of arm injury.
If you’re one of the people who like to lift heavier weights, then there is nothing better than these hooks, because they not only enable you to lift great amounts of weights but also helps you target the right muscles by placing the pressure of your hand base.
References
- ANGERMANN, P., and M. LOHMANN. ‘Injuries to the Hand and Wrist. A Study of 50,272 Injuries’. Journal of Hand Surgery, vol. 18, no. 5, Oct. 1993, pp. 642–44. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1016/0266-7681(93)90024-A.
- Alabbad, Majed A., and Qassim I. Muaidi. ‘Incidence and Prevalence of Weight Lifting Injuries: An Update’. Saudi Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 2016, p. 15. www.sjosm.org, https://doi.org/10.4103/1319-6308.173476.
- Stenholm, Sari, et al. ‘Association between Obesity History and Hand Grip Strength in Older Adults—Exploring the Roles of Inflammation and Insulin Resistance as Mediating Factors’. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, vol. 66A, no. 3, Mar. 2011, pp. 341–48. Silverchair, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glq226.