Edit for my awful grammar: First of all, I am not a sports scientist. I am eager to learn and be corrected, but please excuse my ignorance.

I remember being told a long time ago of a potential link between chronic orthopedic support use (say, beyond a prescribed rehabilitation) and muscular atrophy. Potentially due to the job of the supporting muscles being replaced by the support itself.

Maybe I'm a bit of a cave man, but this scared me or concerned me enough that even now I won't use wrist straps or a lifting belt when I'm working out, my thought process being "you're only as strong as your weakest link." Now, I'm not high enough level athlete to be concerned about maximising strength in isolation exercises, but I will recognise that there is a time and a place for supporting equipment.

I do, however, wear knee sleeves almost all the time when I train. I tend to alternate between lifting/metcon style workouts, jiu jitsu and martial arts, and I'm running again in prep for a half marathon. I find the sleeves are a comfort against the risk of a silly "tweek," and they massively reduct burns and grazes when wrestling.

But I'm worried about being dependent on them, and if there's a more objective way I can think about when yo use them and when not to use them. I know there's a huge difference between an orthopedic that's designed to resteict or correct range of motion, and a thin sleeve that's much lighter in comparible compression and stiffness, but stull curious. Any thoughts?