How Much Weight Do Knee Sleeves Add to Your Squat? An Experiment

I used to bench with a closer grip and I was getting elbow tendinitis from doing lots of heavy tricep work. I bought a pair of Rehband elbow sleeves (the thin grey ones) and it seemed like they added maybe 10lbs. to my bench. The knee sleeves did nothing though. I stopped using the elbow sleeves when I realized they were helping me move more weight because that would basically be cheating myself since I can’t wear them in a meet

I heard about the EliteFTS knee sleeves, I forgot about them though. I’m not sure if there is any fed that allows them. The only use I could see for them is if you squat in wraps you could use them for warmups or volume work.

Most feds have a rule that says the sleeves have to be made of neoprene. The EliteFTS ones are some other woven material.

I lift USAPL/IPF but there are a few 100% Raw and USPA meets around me. If I ever do a USPA Meet it will be drug tested. If my squat seems super easy tomorrow I’ll report back.

This is so funny

I don’t see the harm in doing an untested meet if you are clean. There is a USPA/IPL affiliate here but it looks like they don’t have any tested meets, I never took anything but I would still lift there. There are guys using in the IPF too, I’m not going to call out names but I know of a guy who has a junior record in the IPF and now competes untested and also did a couple bodybuilding shows, I suspected he was on something and now I know for sure. Just remember that you can only win by being strong, if the competition is weak that doesn’t make you any better.

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I have the Yellow Jackets with the yellow X. They add nothing but my knees do feel better.

I tried to get a picture of what has happened to my titan yellow jackets. It’s a bit hard to see, but I can easily feel large vertical tears in the internal neoprene layer all around the sleeve. I feel like my yellow jackets were about as supportive as the SBD initially, but now that they have torn they certainly are not. I didn’t even get to use these for 6 months before this happened. I did downsize the yellow jackets, which they specifically said not to do, so I guess it is my fault.

Same thing happened to mine, I have the yellow and black tho, older version. Weird they didnt last that long tho, I got about 3 years outta mine before they tore

So I was all ready for a boost from the singlet, even if it was just a placebo effect, but it didn’t really work out. My second squat attempt at this meet was 5kg heavier than the 3rd at my last meet. Right when I broke parallel my left knee made an audible and tactile pop like cracking a knuckle. It’s never done that before and even though it didn’t hurt it threw me off enough to miss the squat. Instead of going up on my third I reattempted the weight and it was no problem.

Shit, that sucks. At least you got a PR in the end and didn’t actually injure anything. Did it feel like the singlet gave you a little boost or not?

I don’t think so but I squat pretty narrow. The way the extra layer is oriented I could see the possibility of a little help if your position was wider and the singlet was a bit tighter. I bought a 2XL based on the recommendation from where I ordered. I’m almost 6’2” and right at 100kg/220#. That’s the very bottom end of the 2XL. If I had squeezed into an XL it might have made more of difference.

I really dont think knee sleeves give you as much help as they say they do, and I’m not sure why exactly the guy in the video was testing it like he was.

I just started using sleeves a few months ago. I have large calves so I bought my SBDs in the “normal” size for me. In training I go well below parallel and I did feel a little help coming out of the hole but for meets I cut depth to USAPL standard and I don’t think they did much. The warmth and secure feeling sure is nice though and I’m going to keep using them for all sets.

Oh yeah, I always wear sleeves when squatting because my knees hurt otherwise, and I don’t think I have bad knees.

Thinking and knowing are not the same thing.

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The thing with cutting depth is that you are going to lose the bounce you get from the stretch reflex at the bottom, and on top of that you are losing any additional help from the sleeves. If you get stuck below parallel it’s usually because the weight is too heavy or you made a technical error. You would most likely be better off squatting like normal in the meet or switching to a wider stance (maybe flat shoes if aren’t using them already) as that will limit thee ROM. However, it doesn’t guarantee a stronger squat.

Depends on the sleeve being worn. I train in neoprene sleeves for heat.

I’ve worn tighter, heavier sleeves in competition but usually wrap.

They definitely add weight, some mechanically, some due to feel. The most I can get out of even the heaviest sleeves is 20-30lbs. Wraps I can get double that easy.

These sound really cool. Original STrong sleeves with added grippy silicone, and denim for extra rebound??? Sounds too good to be true, anyways they’re USPA approved, so I assume they couldn’t add too too much, but if someone on the forum gets them, I’d be really interested to hear how much they add. I mean wtf?? These are pretty much multi-ply knee sleeves! I don’t know what kind of magic mark bell is using, but I’d be really interested to try these out.

https://instagram.com/p/Bj0WLDvBfUS/

If I ever get enough of a youtube following to get any money for it I definitely want to buy all the knee sleeves and do the same test with all of them. And somehow get a freakin crane scale and test the knee wraps lol.

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USPA approves everything so I’m not quite sure about when companies have to label “USPA Approved!”, because when I see that, I can assume “Not USAPL/IPF approved”