Let’s be completely honest here for a moment. We’re a lazy society. We employ as many shortcuts and easy fixes as are humanly possible. Our lives are filled with gargets, inventions, and small shortcuts which allow us to do more, in less time, with less work involved. This is good – to a point. Of course it’s more beneficial when you can send out a single email to your entire staff in 30 seconds instead of holding a large meeting or making fifteen individual phone calls. However, this propensity to find the easy way to do things can short-circuit our efforts in the gym. When you’re lifting weights, there are plenty of ways to “make things easier”. The problem is, the biggest guy in the gym is usually the guy who outworks everyone else. You can keep finding shortcuts and quick fixes, but your workouts will only become shorter and easier – which means you muscle-building goals will never be met. We only grow when we are challenged, and if you’re using a series of shortcuts to avoid hard work, you’re cheating yourself. Here are a few commonly used tools for making your trip to the gym easier, along with some discussions on their usefulness.

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When I first started training back in 1985, the first thing I got was a pair of gloves. I soon found out how important they were the day I forgot them. The next thing was a belt. It was just a plain hand-me-down belt and it was stained with the sweat of another person. But I loved that thing because it meant I was serious about training.

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In the real world, tools are designed to make tasks easier and safer. We use a screwdriver to insert screws into slots because, well, it’d hurt too much to use our fingernails. We use a tire jack to lift our car to change a flat tire because that much lifting might interfere with shoulder/trap day (Okay, not really). Man created tools to make things easier and safer, and sports researchers created tools for the gym with the exact same purpose in mind. One such tool, the weight belt, has served to protect the backs of many beginners to advanced athletes for many years now. Despite its obvious usefulness in supporting the back during many exercises, some people feel it’s a tool that delivers more harm than good. Let’s look at both sides of this discussion.

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