One common question that circulates the gym community often is this: how important is it to use clips in the gym?
This is a great question, I mean are clips really necessary while working out?
Well for starters, for those of you that don’t know, gym clips are clips that clip on both sides of the barbell while working out.
You clip them on both sides of the bar, after adding weight, to hold the weights in place and keep them from sliding off.
Using Clips for Safe Lifting
Before I get into anything else, first I want to talk about the biggest reason why it is that you should be using clips in the gym.
Most of us who workout go into the gym to make ourselves stronger and healthier. Getting injured, however, is not something on our list of priorities.
The primary purpose of lifting clips is to help make your lifts safer. Not just for you, but for everyone around you.
Imagine if no one used lifting clips, ever. People would be lifting tons of weight and having to keep it all balanced on the bar.
If this happened, weights would be sliding off barbells, plates would be dropping left and right.
Things would be out of control!
Well, that’s why gym clips exist. Their primary purpose is to increase your safety while working out. As well as help keep everyone else in the gym safe.
When You Should Use Clips in The Gym
The best exercises to use clips in the gym are (almost) any exercises where you’re using a barbell.
Really, whenever you can, you should be using clips.
Trust me, it’s much better to use them when you don’t need them, than not to use them when you really do. Which in this case could make a huge difference.
When in doubt, use clips!
Instead of explaining every exercise when you should use clips, it’d be much more effective for me to explain the exercises when you don’t need clips instead.
Which will hopefully help you judge when you should use clips in the gym versus when you don’t need to.
When You Don’t Need to use Clips in The Gym
Although clips are still extremely important for gym safety, there are some exercises where you can get away with not using them.
That is, exercises that are still safe, even when you don’t use clips.
You can of course still use clips on these exercises if you want to.
Exercises You Don’t Need to Use Clips for:
1. Any Smith Machine Exercises
Smith machines are specifically designed to add extra stabilization and support when you’re working out.
They keep the bar in place, preventing it from tilting to either side.
Meaning any weights you add on to the bar, will be stabilized on the bar.
The bar stays parallel to the ground throughout the entire movement, so there’s no way for the weights to slide off the side.
Which is what makes the Smith Machine so appealing. It’s an excellent machine for anyone who wants or needs extra stability on any exercise.
While also allowing you to not use clips if you choose.
2. On The Hip Thrust Machine
Now I know not all gyms have a hip thrust machine.
But fortunately, a lot do. So for those of you who’s gym has a hip thrust machine, you don’t need to clip the weights on the sides.
Similarly to the smith machine, the hip thrust machine is designed so that it stays stabilized in place.
Staying parallel to the ground and not tipping side to side prevents the weights from sliding off.
3. The Leg Press Machine
Similarly to the hip thrust machine, most leg press machines have you load weight onto the sides of the machine.
And just like before, the machine is designed to move up and down, not side to side.
As a result, the leg press keeps your weights stabilized and in place, throughout the entire exercise.
Preventing weight from sliding off the sides and allowing you to not have to use clips.
4. When Deadlifting
Performing deadlifts typically doesn’t require as much balance as other exercises, like squats, would.
Additionally, the weight typically stays close enough to the ground throughout the entire exercise. If at any point you lose control of the weight, you should be able to lower it to the ground quickly and safely.
As a result, using clips during deadlifts is optional. The same goes for any variant of deadlifts, like RDLs, as well.
5. When You’re Bench Pressing
Bench pressing has potential to be a pretty dangerous exercise on it’s own. This risk increases even more if you don’t have a spotter and don’t have a plan to fail.
To make your bench press as safe as possible, try to have someone spot you whenever you can. That’s the easiest way to make bench pressing as safe as possible.
But I know that there are times when you might not have a spotter. In those circumstances, that’s when it’s really important to have a plan to fail.
Meaning a plan for failing a rep. One of the safest ways to fail on bench without a spotter is to tilt the bar to the side, slowly sliding the weights off the bar. One side at a time.
This is super helpful when you get stuck in a position where you failed your rep, but you can’t lift the weight up off your chest.
By not using clips, you allow yourself to actually be able to slide the weight off the bar when you need to.
Letting you bail out of the rep as safely as possible.
Top Reasons Why You Should Use Clips in The Gym
I already talked about the biggest reason you want to use clips in the gym. It’s to make your work outs safer.
And since no one wants to get an injury that takes them out of lifting, this reason in and of itself should be enough to convince someone to use clips.
Or worse, hurt you and someone else in the gym around you. Only because your weights weren’t under control.
On top of that, there are some additional bonuses that makes using clips beneficial for weightlifters.
Some of these benefits are:
1. Clips Help You Stabilize and Balance While Weightlifting
The aspect of needing to balance during your lifts isn’t always a bad thing. Most compound exercises get their name because they require your full body to work together. Balancing itself and pushing the weight at the same time.
However, increasing the need to balance more than necessary only leaves more room open for injuries.
Balancing your body during workouts can be beneficial, balancing weights during workouts is dangerous.
2. Less Balancing Means More Muscle Growth
The less your body is focused on balancing, the more it can focus on pushing the weight you’re lifting.
Similarly to the way that isolation exercises prioritize working only one muscle at a time.
As opposed to engaging your entire body and multiple muscle groups all at once.
The more stabilization you have during an exercise, the more you can isolate the movement.
With this, you can improve your muscle engagement, mind to muscle connection, and focus more on pushing the weight.
Takeaways
Using clips helps keep you and everyone else in the gym safer. Not only that, but they also help improve your performance and muscle growth.
So although you don’t need to use clips on every exercise in the gym, most of the time, it’s better to use them than not.
More of My Posts On Women’s Weightlifting and Fitness:
How Often Women Should Lift Weights to Build Muscle