This is a post I wrote for the sportscienceed.com blog– thought it was a good item to put here as well.
Everybody who uses cloth straps knows they will bust eventually. In fact, in one fateful Saturday, I busted through three straps in a training session. Upon seeing my difficulty with these cloth straps, the former OTS Coach Tim McInnis showed me the wrist straps he had made from dog leashes. Before I lost another strap, I made some just like his. Three years of regular use later, here they are:
That’s a whole lot better than some of the cloth straps that typically begin doing this after a few months (or weeks).
The straps here are made from some thick dog leashes, available and just about any pet store. I chose to buy a thick, heavy duty leash. Making these straps was very simple. I cut these about 19 inches long, then used a simple stitch across the ends to keep the ends together In retrospect, I cut these straps a bit short, so on my next pair, I will cut them to about 22 inches (or more) so that I can have extra length to wrap around the bar. If you can, cut these with extra length- if it ends up too long, you can always shorten them (but you can’t make them longer!).
You should use a lighter or other flame source across the freshly cut strap ends to melt the nylon a bit and minimize fraying. As for where you put the stitches across, you should try putting them as high as possible (to make a smaller loop), but still allow you to easily get your hand in and out of the strap. Notice also that the strap is not simply folded in half, one end is rotated 180 degrees before it is stitched (take a close look at the first picture). This slight flip of the strap makes it fit flat against your wrist, and wrap around the bar without twisting the strap a bunch.
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This style of strap does not hold the bar quite as tightly as the cloth straps do – but they will last forever! They are also not quite as thick, so it’ll feel like you are gripping more bar and less strap, which is a huge advantage, in my opinion. That should be enough to show you how to make your own, but if you are still wondering, leave a comment below!