I am one of those cursed few who—unless snow is actively falling from the sky and I have been outside for more than two hours—always wants the area around me to be five degrees cooler than it is at any given moment. Nowhere is this more apparent than the gym, where a tough workout in what most would define as "room temperature" is enough to transform me into that one gym friend who looks like a walking puddle. And because my hands are not exempt from this indiscreet form of slipperiness, the single most important workout accessory I own—more than my phone, or my podcasts, or maybe even my shoes, honestly—are my trusty pair of wrist straps.

The most common variety of a wrist strap is a set of two strips of cloth, each a little over a foot long, with a sturdy, stitched-in loop at one end. The opposite end goes through the loop, and the resulting circle then slides neatly around your wrist. Before each lift, you wrap the loose end around the handle of the weights as many times as possible and then tuck any excess beneath your fingers, essentially cinching your palm to the handle. Congratulations, you have just turned from a earnest, damp-palmed fitness enthusiast prone to slippage into a rock-fisted, steel-forearmed master of all that is grip.

Wrist straps work by essentially shoring up the weak point in your grip—where your fingers meet—with an equal and opposite force. (Note that when wrapping, you want the loose end to go around the bar in the direction opposite your fingers. In other words, the back of your palm, which is hopefully impermeable, should be on one side of the bar, and the strap should be roughly parallel to it and winding around the other.) Think about the pulling exercises where, toward the send of a particularly onerous set, the benefit you're deriving from eking out those last few reps is perhaps diminished by your slowly-yet-inexorably-failing grasp on the bar—deadlifts, rows, lat pulldowns, pull-ups, shrugs, and the like. Taking a few seconds to lash yourself to the weight will help fight this fatigue, keeping your movement steady and stable and making the tenth count as just as valuable as the first.

Here is a visual example from a nice gentleman wearing a HOUSE OF PAIN shirt:

As in most things that you'll encounter throughout your fitness journey, wrist straps are best used in moderation. The forearm muscles that comprise your grip get worked every time you pulling a weight against gravity, and relying too heavily on straps risks weakening your unassisted hold on the bar. One way to avoid this pitfall is to use them only when you really, actually need them—that is, when you're in the gym and your grip is slipping—instead of automatically breaking them out the moment it's time for shrugs. Performing a few wrist curls or using a hand grip strengthener, too, can help ensure that the bottom segment of your arm gets gets just as wicked jacked as the all-important top one.

Might you look a little goofy with frayed segments of canvas hanging from your wrists? Sure. But they just might make a meaningful impact on the efficacy of some of the weight room's most foundational exercises, and at only a couple bucks, it doesn't hurt to have a pair in your gym bag just in case.

Watch Now:Work Out With a DogJay Willis is a staff writer at GQ covering news, law, and politics. Previously, he was an associate at law firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, where his practice focused on consumer financial services and environmental cleanup litigation. He studied social welfare at Berkeley and graduated from Harvard Law School... Read moreRelated Stories for GQThe GQ Guide to Working Out SmarterWorking Out