When Should You Wear a Lifting Belt?

If you’ve been around gyms for any length of time, you’ve no doubt seen guys walking around with a lifting belt around their waist (it looks like this). Or you might have seen my competition videos where I myself wear a lifting belt during the competitions (you can see that here and here).

In this article, we’ll cover when it makes sense to wear the belt, and when it doesn’t.

Original source: here.

            First of all, the most common reason for wearing the belt is to look cool, serious or hardcore. Guys also wear it to impress girls and other guys. The belt is a non-verbal way of saying “I’m cooler than you.” Some guys also feel that it’s the non-verbal way of saying “I must break you”, a la Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. If you haven’t seen the movie, go watch it. This is a pre-requisite for reading this newsletter. If you must get a sneak peak, check out this 7-second video of that line, and tell me that’s not one of the best lines ever in movie history.

But I digress.

Seriously though, most people wear it to simply look cool, and not really for its function.

When lifting belts got really popular (in the 1970s), they started to be worn all the time to “protect your back.”

And sure enough, they did do that. In fact, they did that so well that your back muscles, and abdominal muscles got weaker, because they didn’t need to work as hard to protect your back.

The belt is basically like an extra set of core muscles, except that obviously, it’s external. Meaning that you don’t really need to use your own core muscles as hard to get the job done.

Most of the time, for most clients, I never even talk about the lifting belt, as it’s unnecessary (keep in mind who most of my clients are: mostly people between 45 and 65, trying to lose weight and get toned… not high-end athletes). By doing exercises without a lifting belt, it forces your “core” muscles (even though I’m not a fan of that word) to do the stabilizing for you, giving you a better, stronger, more stable core.

So the vast majority of the time, a lifting belt is completely unnecessary.

There are, however certain cases when it makes sense to use the belt.

Those cases are when you’re lifting something really really heavy (and what’s heavy is relative to your own abilities), and only on exercises that need it.

So if you’re going to attempt setting a new personal record (whether for a single repetition, or for multiple repetitions) in a squat or a deadlift, or other lifts like that, it makes sense to wear the belt.

And even then, only wear the belt while you’re doing the exercise. Take it off after the exercise is over. No need to parade it around the gym. The belt should be tight enough to be uncomfortable if you wear it for more than about 1 or 2 minutes.

If you’re going to attempt setting a new personal record in biceps curls, triceps extensions, or even the bench press, it’s not necessary.

Personally, in my own training, I only use the belt in the last 3-4 weeks before a competition.