CAP Barbell Elastic Knee Wraps, Pair

These are excellent! I have talked crap about geared lifting for my entire life, but after a stupid mistake (long story) left me with a tear in my right lateral meniscus and a set of rolling squats really made things worse 8 months later... well, I felt like it was worth checking these out. They're a lot cheaper than quality knee sleeves, so I gave these a shot.I watched Andy Bolton's free Youtube video on how to use knee wraps, and from there watched a few other videos. He is one of the strongest men in the world, if you didn't know that, and has deadlifted over 1000 lbs. Not a tire deadlift, a real steel plate deadlift. There's a huge difference. He is a man worth listening to. I then watched a few other videos, and felt confident I knew enough to try these out. I mentioned length in the header of this review because these are NOT as long as the hardcore wraps that many competitive powerlifters and olympic lifters use.I don't wrap as tightly as Andy does, but man... these things really add a lot of stability to the knee. They don't do any work for you, at least the way I wrap, but the added stability allows me to hit depth (and then some) without any pain at all, either during the workout or in the hours and days afterwards. That's really important to me. When your meniscus is damaged your knee is destabilized, and it is stupid to squat with an unsupported damaged meniscus.I find that I can maintain good squat form for more reps with these, and end up doing a lot more work. As a result, I have gotten stronger when I lift without the wraps as well. I know this because I always do my whole warm up and my first working set without the wraps, and put them on for the last four working sets, and the improvements do carry over.Something to know about wraps: It doesn't matter what brand you get, you are going to get an insane "pump" in your lower leg. It will be very uncomfortable, especially in later sets, but you will not get hurt. It is literally just transient pain due to partial occlusion, and as long as you don't wear them longer than 10 minutes you won't have any issues. I only take 60s rests between sets, so this is not a concern for me. If you take 4-5 minute rests you will probably want to take these off between sets, at least every other set, but in the end that is up to you.Knee sleeves are nice because you can just pull them down after your set is finished, preventing the tightness of the "pump" from building up in your lower legs, but the only sleeves worth using (from what I have heard from strongman competitors and strong lifters) are the blue scandinavian ones that are like 45 or 70 dollars for a pair. You'll know them when you see them.Personally, I'll stick with these. They work fantastically well, are easy to store, and are incredibly affordable.