Every Gear Is Beautiful...In Its Own Way
You should probably add gear as you get stronger.
I was going to post on this anyway, but the response of some piss ant weakling to my the thread on belts really sent me over the edge.
Everything is "gear": proper shoes, neoprene knee sleeves, belt, suits, shirts...it's all "gear"...but that's okay.
When you get under a heavy barbell, you are performing an act that would never have occurred in "nature." You are engaging in congress with an artifact of industrial civilization. If you're bothering to put a barbell on your shoulders, don't think you're somehow purer because you eschew man-made polymers on your knees, hips or shoulders.
Here is the ugly truth...
A belt will help you get stronger faster when you hit 1.5-2x bodyweight (or 1-1.5xbodyweight for women).
Some knee protection in the form of sleeves or light wraps start to make sense around that time too.
A light squat suit or light bench shirt will actually help you as well as you get stronger.
A lot of internet "all raw bra!!!" jockeys will balk at that, but they probably aren't that strong and you probably shouldn't listen to them.
Barbell training is the best, most efficacious way to get stronger, but it ain't "natural".
Even proper benching, squatting and pulling subjects your body to forces it really wasn't designed to encounter, particularly when you start getting past piss ant weight.
There is nothing wrong with utilizing other industrial artifacts like sleeves, wraps, suits and shirts to protect your joints and make lifting more productive AND to get you stronger faster.
Please ignore morons who act like there's something mystical about using a barbell to the exclusion of supportive gear. Light gear allows you to use heavier weight which will cause faster adaptation.
"But my joints will get strong if I just expose them to the stress without support."
Absolutely true when you are weak. As you get stronger than average, some protection and support makes more and more sense.
Yes, people get strong without ever touching belts, wraps, sleeves, suits and shirts. But those people are probably much more suited to lifting than you are.
There is no shame in not being among the genetic elite with their superhuman joints. A little protective gear will allow you to train harder and longer and get stronger faster than just training totally raw because of some deluded sense of lifting purity.
This thread will probably fill up with the protest of barbell-only folk. I hope you don't listen to them. Odds are you don't need a light squat suit or bench shit yet, but you could probably use proper squat shoes with a slight heel or a good powerlifting belt. If you stick with it, a light bench shirt or squat suit would help too.
(The extreme multi-ply and canvas stuff is for specialists and they change the performance of the lift. That stuff is for very strong people and concern what is essentially a different sport and I'm not talking about them in this post.)
If you're struggling with a 315 SQ at under 200 lbs, then you could use a belt, but not a squat suit. Things change as you get stronger and it disgusts me to see people squatting under 315 and mocking belt usage and people squatting under 600 who mock the use of even light squat suits.
I used to be a weak piss ant who mocked powerlifters in general and gear in particular. Now I understand how incredibly strong powerlifting strength specialists really are and why they use gear. If you have your doubts, you're probably not nearly as strong as they are. Again, I used to be like you, but now I know better.
If you can't squat at least 600, then you don't need any gear beyond a belt and you're not really entitled to an opinion about it. If you squat under 400, then you probably need to invest in a belt and a decent pair of squat shoes; get stronger before you masturbate over relatively weak Oly types squatting 400-500 lbs in their undies, THEN form an opinion.