Dip Belt

A dip belt is not a support belt

That first, because the dip belt sits in the same corner of our shop as the lifting belts: it stabilises nothing. It gives you no counter-pressure on the squat, it supports nothing on the deadlift. If you are after a belt for heavy compound lifts, have a look at the lifting belts – that is your category.

The Dip Belt has exactly one job: it hangs added weight from your hips. Sooner or later pull-ups and dips with your own bodyweight get too easy. The reps go up, the stimulus goes down. The usual makeshift fix is a dumbbell squeezed between your knees – you spend the whole set clamping instead of pulling cleanly, and you will not fit much more than a few kilos in there anyway.

With the belt, the load hangs free between your legs. Your hands stay on the bar, your head stays on the movement. Instead of balancing, you simply do the next heavy set.

Nylon strap, steel chain, two rings

The strap is made from nylon webbing, 17.5 cm wide and 90 cm long, anatomically shaped and put together with heavy-duty stitching. The width is the point: the more surface that lies against your hips, the less the load digs in. At each end of the strap sits a large metal ring, with a steel chain running between them.

Loading works like this: thread the chain through the bore of the plate, hook it back into the ring, done. That works with every plate with a 50/51 mm bore – so with whatever is lying around the gym anyway. Kettlebells go straight on too, the chain simply runs through the handle.

Because that takes a few seconds and not a minute, drop sets work properly with it: set, plate off, carry on. And when several people in the gym share the same belt, it is swapped between two athletes in no time. One size, black, no more choice needed here.

Also for belt squats – and when it is not your turn yet

The belt does more than dips and pull-ups. Stand on two boxes or platforms, hang the weight in between, and you are doing belt squats – without a dedicated station taking up floor space. The weight pulls straight down and barely loads your back, because nothing sits on your shoulders.

Two honest points on top. If you are just getting your first clean pull-ups, you do not need it yet – build reps with your own bodyweight first, that does more for you. And: the load hangs from your hips, and at some point exactly that gets uncomfortable – usually long before the chain or the stitching would ever be the issue. Work up in steps rather than hanging half the plate tree on straight away.