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The deadlift is one of the greatest exercises you will ever do in the gym because your buttocks, back, and legs contain some of the strongest muscles in the human body. With their combined forces, you can move a lot of iron. But for many of us there is a weak point: our grip.

This is where the straps come in. You simply wrap a piece of hard fabric around the handlebars and your grip is no longer an obstacle. But that leads to controversy. If you can’t hold onto that heavy bar, is it really fair to say you can lift it? On the other hand, if your body is strong enough to lift the deadlift bar off the floor, is it really fair to let your measly hands hold you back?

Let’s look at the rules

In order to determine if something is cheating, we have to decide which rules apply. Let’s look at the rules for the two sports where the deadlift is most competitive: powerlifting and strongman.

Belts are not legal in powerlifting. (Here is the USAPL rulebook, for example: See page 18 for a list of permitted “personal equipment” (excluding straps). Look at that Video of the world record holders in each weight class at the time of video recording: none of them pull with straps.

But they often are in strongman. (The rules for strongman are not standardized, so there is no single set of rules, but promoters usually allow straps on most deadlifts.) Here is Lucy Underdown pulls 300 kilograms for a new record; You can see her put straps around the bar before she settles down and starts pulling.

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However, when you are alone in the gym, no one is following you with a rule book, so you have to make the decision yourself.

What are the pros and cons of using straps in the gym?

The disadvantage of straps is that they don’t challenge your grip. If you’ve always used straps for pulling exercises, you may never find your grip getting stronger. For this reason, many lifters do not use belts. If you can’t grip a weight, you won’t lift it.

The downside of the straps is exactly the same: they let your grasping muscles take a break. This way, straps allow you to lift heavier than no or more reps without worrying about grip fatigue.

Most participants, in both strongman and powerlifting, train part of their training with harnesses and others without. However, if you don’t compete and just want to get stronger in the gym, you can do what you want – always or never with straps, depending on your preference.

So you get the best of both worlds

To be a well-rounded strong person, you will likely want to use straps at times. I recommend the following:

• When doing deadlifts, do as many as possible without a seat belt.
• If your grip tires before you’re done, use straps as needed to finish the workout.
• If you’re doing high-rep sets that you know will tire your grip, consider using straps. (For example Romanian deadlift or rowing.)
• Do grip training sessions afterwards (or on different days), as targeted training will make your grip stronger. We have a guide to improving your deadlift grip here.

That’s pretty much what I do. I don’t use harnesses for lifts that I train to competition standards (like deadlifting or snatching), but I keep a pair in my gym bag Use for overload exercises (like heavy rack pulls) or high-rep exercises (like Romanian deadlifts in sets of 10). I also do grip workouts regularly, and as a result, my deadlift strength has increased over the years and my grip has gotten stronger. When used properly, harnesses are great exercise tools.

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Knowing how to defend yourself is a nice feeling. If, God forbid, someone with bad intentions crossed your path, you could theoretically handle the situation better than if you hadn’t taken these courses. But the concept of “self-defense” is a broad church encompassing many schools of thought – some of which require a more critical eye.

Before paying for self-defense classes, there are a few things to keep in mind so as not to be sold to anything that doesn’t help much in the long run.

General self-defense courses have their merits

General concepts of self-defense can be beneficial for the layperson. Much of their curriculum teaches students how to identify potentially dangerous signs and situations, and for many people who have never faced physical threats before, these signs may not be inherently obvious.

And learning how to neutralize threats without doing physical exercise is a remarkable skill – usually most people want to avoid potential danger altogether without compromising their physical safety. De-escalation tactics, whether verbal or physical, are always the first remedy.

So the general self-defense course will help you on several levels. But you should also be aware of your limitations. As the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCASA) writes Site of the city of Portland, Oregon:

A program should offer options, techniques, and a way to analyze situations. A program can point out what usually works best in most situations, but each situation is unique and the ultimate decision rests with the person who actually faces the situation.

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What are the limits of self-defense (and martial arts in general)?

It’s good to have a self-defense teacher teach you to kneel in the groin of an attacker. It is bad for them to claim that certain techniques can equip you with the skill necessary to take down multiple attackers, including those who are armed with weapons.

Unfortunately there is such a thing as a homework of martial arts counterfeiters who “teach” unrealistic and often blatantly ridiculous techniques. Take, for example, an instructor who shows students how to protect themselves from being held at gunpoint two separate attackers. Or this one Highlight role a self-proclaimed master who handles multiple attackers with ease. They are funny examples, but if you take them with a glimmer of credibility, they become instantly dangerous.

How to choose a self defense class or martial arts instructor

You should be aware of who your teacher is and what discipline they were trained in. Think of it like studying at college: you don’t want to invest time and money in philosophy if your lecturer isn’t the first to know Plato, right?

You want to take self-defense classes at martial arts schools that offer classes in a specific discipline. The search for general “self-defense” could lead you to the doorstep of those who may not have been brought into physically comprehensive situations themselves.

Understand your own training goals

The goals one might have in pursuing self-defense are obviously different from the goals one might have in training in a particular martial art. However, learning a specific style of self-defense – be it judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, karate, etc. – will equip you with more physical practice to better apply your skills when needed. Since you won’t actually be training with full resistance in a self defense class, you may have to go on a journey in a particular martial art, to really understand what it feels like when someone is pushing you, trying to knock you down, or punch you. Practical experience or, ideally, years of devotion to a martial art is the best way to be prepared for a dangerous situation.

Still, self-defense courses can provide valuable lessons that familiarize people with the overall context and situational warnings of physical confrontation. It’s just important to understand that no class or training will make you invincible.

Old school vacuums are pretty rare these days. This makes sense: if you can get a brand new, lightweight canister vacuum on Amazon for less than $ 200, then why bother with a heavier, louder relic of a machine that needs replacement bags?

To be perfectly clear, bag vacuums are damn good. Last summer I bought a refurbished Kirby Sentria II from Craigslist for $ 80 and it instantly changed my life. Yes, it’s heavy and not particularly agile, but what it lacks in agility it more than makes up for in pure function. (This thing sucks up cat hair like a $ 800 Dyson vacuum cleaner – it absolutely rules.)

But as I’ve learned, bag vacuums offer more than just functionality. They have at least three different (and huge) advantages over all but the chicest bagless models. Unless you have hundreds of dollars on a Dyson, pretty much any bagged vacuum cleaner in your price range is the next best, and I’d love to tell you why.

Bag vacuum cleaners are a lifesaver for allergy sufferers

After using bagless vacuums for most of my adult life, I assumed that sneezing fits were part of the deal. There was always a certain amount of dust blown up when the vacuum cleaner was used, and the emptying of the canister made clouds of it rise into the air. If you’re allergic to anything that ends up in a vacuum – dust, dust mites, pet dander – the whole process can be more irritating than it’s worth.

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None of this happens to bag vacuum cleaners. As long as the tube that connects the head and the bag is properly sealed, dust, hair and other fine particles will go straight into a bag that is specially designed to catch fine particles. Changing the bag can release a tiny cloud of dust, but that’s nothing compared to the vortex you get when emptying a canister. If you or someone you live with has indoor allergies, you owe it to yourself to check vacuum cleaners in bags. You can even purchase HEPA certified bags if you need to.

Bag vacuum cleaners are more environmentally friendly than you think

I know what you’re thinking: vacuum cleaner bags are incredibly harmful to the environment. Every time you change the bag, you send a lot of dust and hair to the landfill in a bag that won’t disintegrate.

Two things here. First, while many vacuum bags – especially those that meet HEPA standards – are made of synthetic material that is not biodegradable, many others actually do. You can purchase bags made of paper and other compostable materials that will fit most bag vacuum cleaner models. Second, what do you think is more polluting: increasingly obscure vacuum bags, some of which are biodegradable – or a global industry that produces more plastic canister vacuums every year that inevitably end up in landfills when they break?

You can actually fix bag vacuums

That brings me to the last benefit, and it’s a big one: unlike most cheap cylinder vacuum cleaners, bag vacuum cleaners are designed for repair. Regularly wearing parts (belts in particular) are so cheap and easy to replace that you can do it yourself after watching a few YouTube videos. For the harder stuff, there are always vacuum repair shops out there that are less opaque than they sound. Pretty much every metropolitan area in the US has at least one because commercial cleaning companies need to keep their vacuums in order. If you live near a city with many hotels or office buildings, there is a good chance you can find a vacuum repair shop too.

Being able to maintain and repair your vacuum cleaner as needed sounds like such a small thing, but it’s surprisingly rare. Using the same vacuum cleaner for several years will keep your carpet clean, keep money in your pocket, and keep your vacuum cleaner out of the landfill – which are pretty big goals.

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Whether there are too many items of sentimental value or you just haven’t thrown anything away in a while, tidying up can be tricky. However, if a kitchen is cluttered, it can be worse than an overcrowded closet or garage as it affects the functionality of a space that you use several times a day.

We all have that junk drawer full of sauce packages and menus, but our kitchens can get a little closer to a carefully curated space that makes our everyday lives a little easier. The “one-shelf method” is a way of tidying up your kitchen and optimizing your cooking space.

How to clear out your kitchen with the one-shelf method

Open cabinets or open storage concepts are a way to keep your glassware and ceramics easily accessible, and open shelves also mean your dishes are on display. However, having too many cups will leave your shelves disorganized and quite messy. Lifestyle author Shifrah Combiths with Apartment therapy uses the “one shelf method” to organize her kitchen. The method combines a Marie Kondo Method with some minimalist ideals.

You start out by taking whatever you have in abundance with you, be it plates, glasses or, in Combith’s suitcase, cups, and only keep what you can keep on a shelf. She suggests starting with the things that mean the most to you. Once the shelf is full, stop.

The hardest part is keeping yourself from stacking items just to hold onto, but try to keep only what you use or absolutely love. If you’ve got those champagne flutes from your cousin’s wedding that you never use, they’re probably just taking up space.

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How to sort the overflow items in your kitchen

Sentimental value is a big part of how cluttered a kitchen gets, but it’s not the only part as it’s easy to pile up kitchen accessories that we think will help but then end up in the trash drawer. Organization website Clean & fragrant offers four good questions to ask yourself while tidying up a room:

1. Do i use this?
2. Is this item extra?
3. Would i buy this today?
4. Will this help make my life easier?

The project neat adds the question, “Have I used this more than once this month?” Basically, if you find excuses to keep something, it’s probably a sign that you can get rid of it.

How to avoid kitchen waste in the future

When you’ve got rid of everything you don’t need, clean up the space and reorganize your shelves and drawers. The Project Neat has a handy checklist to help you clear out:

• Collect detergents.
• Clean one area at a time: remove everything and wipe the inside.
• Separate all items into piles: keep. Rubbish. Donate. Recycle.
• Make sure you have at least one work item of every kitchen necessity.
• Organize cabinets, drawers, and counters.
• Bring items back in newer, organized areas.

Buy when reorganizing empty containers and baskets for storing items so that they can be seen and used Drawer organizers for easy access. That will help avoid future clutter and make your next kitchen cleaning so much easier.