Jake Purdy
2025-01-20

Benefits of Cloth Safety Straps

Our Full Rack Safety Straps shown above in Half/Full Combo Racks at Homestead HS in Indiana, use a cloth SPUD INC Strap and a Stray Dog Strength custom bracket for quick yet secure adjustment. Cloth  safety straps have many benefits over traditional hard spotter arms which we will cover in this article.

Saving space is central to every design at Stray Dog Strength, as facilities must maximize space to enhance their sports performance programs. That’s why we developed Half Rack Safety Straps. These use a SPUD INC 26″ cloth strap suspended from a 4×4″ U-shaped steel piece, ensuring the barbell is caught by the strap instead of contacting metal. Below, we’ll explore why this design offers multiple benefits over hard safties.

Half Rack Spotter Arms

Shown above at Warsaw High School are our Half Rack Spotter Arms which are a traditional hard spotter arm. They have plastic on top to protect the finish of the arm, barbell and its knurling. While the plastic does a good job at this, it can only do so much against heavy barbells dropping onto the arms which can cause bending over time.

Half Rack Spotter Arms are an effective safety solution for barbell lifts, but they are not intended for repeated, planned drops with heavy weight, as this can cause wear on both the bar and the arms over time. For exercises like rack pulls or submaximal eccentric lowering lifts, where repeated drops are common, cloth spotter straps provide a better option, offering enhanced protection for both the athlete and the equipment.

Top 5 Benefits of Cloth Safties

  1. Protection for Barbell and Safety: Cloth straps absorb impact when a barbell is dropped, reducing the risk of damaging the knurling or bending the shaft—issues not covered by any warranty. Unlike traditional hard safeties, which can scratch, dent, or break under heavy drops, cloth straps maintain their functionality and appearance over time. They provide a strong, durable, and barbell-friendly solution while still ensuring athlete safety.

Adjustability: In a Full Rack, cloth straps can be adjusted at both ends, allowing precise positioning and even angled setups for exercises like Vogel Pulls. While the Half Rack Strap version adjusts only from the front uprights and is less customizable, yet its curved design still offers multiple barbell height options that a hard safety does not. Additionally, it takes up less space and includes ISO Cups for added functionality.

Stray Dog Strength’s Safety Strap Brackets are uniquely secured with a hitch pin, making them easy to remove or reposition to the front uprights for added versatility.

3. Safety and Confidence: The cloth strap provides dynamic energy absorption for dropped barbells, reducing the bounce or ricochet effect, which can happen with hard safety arms. If an athlete hits the barbell on the straps off centered, such as the left side before the right, the strap does not jerk them as hard as a hard spotter would. 

4. Increased Training Comfort: The cloth straps due to their better adjustability, reduced bounce, reduced sound and protection to the barbell give the athlete improved confidence over using a hard safety. They also will give coaches more confidence to program exercise such as high pulls with a return to the spotter as they will not damage the barbell or injure the athlete. 

5. Enhanced Longevity and Durability: as we mentioned above the cloth strap is more forgiving, and does not get snatched and or bent like a hard strap would due to repeated heavy dropped loads. Barbells are not designed to be dropped onto hard safeties repeatedly, so if you are doing high pulls, pin press or other movements of this sort, a cloth safety strap makes more sense. Shown above our Half rack Safety Straps are being used for rack pulls, the athlete does not have to lightly put the bar back without fear of bending the bar as the strap is a lot easier on the barbell.

Negatives to Cloth Straps

The main negative to traditional  cloth safety straps is they take up more room as they need to be connected to 4 uprights. That is why you only see them on Power racks, Full racks and Half/Full Combo Racks. Our full racks are 49″ wide x 72″ of depth while our half racks are 49″ wide x only 36″ deep. 

Another negative to a cloth safety strap is that they cannot have attachments added to them such as band pegs, lat seats or step up plates. Our Half Rack Spotter Arms are often used as an adjustable attachment arm and not just a spotter bar, the traditional cloth straps cannot be used this way but the new half rack safety straps cannot as they use a 4×4″ tubing to provide more support for fallen barbells.

Half Rack Safety Straps

At Stray Dog Strength, we constantly strive to save space and enhance functionality, providing coaches and athletes with the safest, most versatile equipment in the industry. Our Half Rack Safety Straps feature a U-shaped safety bar with a SPUD INC cloth strap stretched over it, offering nearly all the benefits of traditional safety straps. While they attach to the rack on one end and cannot be adjusted to different heights on both sides, the natural droop of the strap allows athletes to start the barbell from various positions at different heights.

The Half Rack Safety Strap uses a 4×4″ piece of tubing so although it has 1″ holes normal attachments do not work, this was done to provide more support for fallen barbells. We suggest adding a GOAT attachment to use attachments off of. 

Pin Press

Shown above the Half Rack Safety Straps are being used for a Pin Press Bench Variation, the cloth strap is more user friendly as it does not jerk the barbell as much and will protect the knurling and finish of the safety better than a hard strap.

ISO Hooks

In order to make a The Half Rack Safety Straps strong enough to handle heavy rack pull drops and support other heavy movements we made the bracket larger than our traditional Half Rack Spotter Arm. In this extra frame we were able to add a pair of ISO Hooks to perform barbell isometrics in a channel designed to safely and efficiently perform overcoming barbell isometrics. While this has nothing to do with the strap itself, we added this detail to show how versatile these new Half Rack Safety Straps truly are. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, cloth safety straps are a superior alternative to traditional hard spotter arms, offering enhanced functionality, durability, and versatility. They protect barbells and safety components, reduce noise and bounce, and provide greater adjustability, improving the training experience for athletes and coaches. If you want traditional flip down hard safeties for a full rack we can also make those too.

Our New Half Rack Safety Straps, featuring SPUD INC materials and custom brackets, deliver a safe, space-saving solution for heavy rack pulls, high pulls, and isometric exercises. We also have the more traditional full rack safety straps and brackets for avaiaibe. By prioritizing safety and performance, our innovative Half Rack Safety Straps and Full rack Straps will ensure equipment longevity and maximize training efficiency.

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