In reality, some fans never leave their belts and train them to wear them everywhere.
No one else has ever used a belt in his life.
About 40 years ago, almost everyone in American gyms had to wear a belt, whether it was squatting, bench pressing or taking aerobic classes.
At that time, a belt that could tighten the belly was a necessary prop for fitness enthusiasts, just like a sports vest.
But recently 15, many experts, such as Paul Chek, stood up against the belt, saying that the belt hindered the development of core muscles such as transverse abdominis.
The number of fans using belts plummeted.
Although the belt still has irreplaceable value, most people should not wear it most of the time.
Dependence on the belt leads to weakness of the core muscles.
I agree with other coaches that when we evaluate customers, almost all customers have the problem of weak core muscles or lagging core strength.
Therefore, we must make up for the core problems through wise training methods.
It is meaningless for ordinary fitness enthusiasts (especially beginners) to use a belt, and it will often have a negative impact, because it will make your core easier to relax and derail, leading to physical imbalance.
They have been using belts to "hide" the weak core.
For professional strength athletes, the situation is different, because their overall strength is very strong, far beyond the normal range of human beings, but their core strength cannot be improved indefinitely.
Therefore, it is necessary to match the belt to make up for the lack of biomechanics.
However, even professional athletes don't always wear belts during training. Generally, they only use belts when training exceeds 85% of the limit weight.
For ordinary enthusiasts, only when the squat and hard pull reach more than 2 times the weight, you need to use the belt.
Excessive reliance on the belt will weaken the strength of the core muscles. It's like walking on crutches forever-if you use it too much, your muscles won't respond because there is always support.
When do you really need to wear a belt?
Weightlifting belt can increase "intra-abdominal pressure" and strengthen the stability of spine and core.
But if an action has no obvious pressure on the core (leg lifting, arm flexion and extension, etc.). ), then the belt is completely unnecessary.
When you do a "sitting" or "lying" action, you'd better not get into the habit of wearing a belt.
Seeing this, you may retort: "Wait a minute! Many weightlifters will bring a weightlifting belt when doing bench presses. "
What you need to know is that the goal of bench press is to push the maximum weight.
They arch their waist very high when bench pressing, which can effectively reduce the movement range of barbells and lift more weight. This posture is dangerous to the spine and requires a belt.
However, in most of our gyms-training enthusiasts are more like bodybuilding bench presses-our goal is to build beautiful chest muscles, not to participate in weightlifting competitions. So we usually have no reason to imitate the strength lift bench press.
When we do bench press, we need to put our lower back flat, or at most arch slightly. Use the maximum action radian to focus on practicing chest muscles. There is almost no pressure on our spine, so we don't need a belt.
The actions that can really be applied to the belt are squatting back, squatting forward, pulling hard, paddling and pushing. Moreover, you should not use the belt in the warm-up group of these movements until the formal group is re-established.
Proper use of belts
So, what should you do when you really need to use a belt?
Using a belt is also a skill, which needs to be learned, rather than thinking that it is used correctly when it is worn.
Traditionally, a large amount of abdominal cavity is inhaled to make the abdomen bulge against the belt. In fact, this is harmful, because it may make your ribs too "everted" and increase the pressure on your lower back.
The correct way is to wear a belt and inhale into the abdominal cavity moderately, so as to keep the ribs closed downwards, instead of tilting upwards. When you control the position of your ribs, take another deep breath. At this time, you should feel the balanced pressure on the front, side and back of the belt.
Your body will not only become more stable, but also help you move more weight.
If the belt makes you feel too tight to expand the abdominal cavity at all, it means you need to relax the mouth of the cave.
If you are a person who has never used a belt, I suggest starting with this:
First, tie the belt, stick it in the "slightly tight" box, bend the lower back slightly, hold it, inhale into the abdominal cavity for 5 seconds, do several sets of such core contractions, and repeatedly feel the pressure of the abdominal cavity.
For example:
When practicing squats, you fasten your belt, carry your weight back and squat to the lowest level, and do core contraction for 5 seconds to maintain intra-abdominal pressure. Then stand up and put the weight back. Take a break and do it again.
When practicing hard pull, let the barbell rest on the ground, hold the barbell in hand to simulate the starting posture of hard pull, do core contraction for 5 seconds, and maintain intra-abdominal pressure. Then let go and rest for a while before doing it.
When practicing rowing, hold the barbell, bend over, let the weight hang, do core contraction for 5 seconds, maintain intra-abdominal pressure, and then put down the weight.
When practicing standing press, take the barbell out and hang it near the chin, do core contraction for 5 seconds, maintain intra-abdominal pressure, and then put the weight back. .....
When you learn to keep intra-abdominal pressure in these movements, you can apply it to actual movements. The general rule is that the transition point between "centrifugal" and "centripetal" movements is often the most difficult moment, so you need to use this technique to maintain intra-abdominal pressure.
For example, when you squat to the lowest level, you need to maintain the highest intra-abdominal pressure and the core tension when you are about to stand up.
When the hard pull starts from the ground, you need to maintain the highest intra-abdominal pressure and core tension in advance.
When rowing, you need to maintain the highest intra-abdominal pressure and core tension when the barbell drops to the farthest end.
When pushing, the barbell is minimized, and you need to maintain the highest intra-abdominal pressure and core tension when you are about to push it up. ......
Can you get used to wearing a belt to avoid thickening your waist and abdomen?
Some paunchy coaches say they always wear belts. Their reason is, "If I always rely on support and don't let the waist and abdomen muscles exert their strength, it won't get thicker." This statement has no scientific basis.
Charles Poliquin, a master of strength, once pointed out that the pressure on the core area caused by ordinary fitness training will not lead to the thickening of the waist and abdomen.
Lumbar muscles and abdominal muscles have low response to hypertrophy in general training.
Those discus throwers who have experienced "one million times" waist and abdomen torsion will have thicker waist muscles than ordinary people, but this is the result of long-term high training, so ordinary fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders need not worry about this problem.
The real cause of waist and abdomen thickening is fat accumulation. Because some trainers don't control their diet at all, they are out of control.
At this time, they pinned their hopes of reducing their waistlines on their belts instead of reducing fat, which was futile.
Moreover, many people have caused weakness of rectus abdominis in the process of wearing the belt all the year round, but when they take off the belt, they find that their waist and abdomen "appear" bigger. Because their soft forebellies can't keep the correct posture.
So the way to reduce the waistline is to reduce fat, and the other is to strengthen your rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis, so that your stomach will not sag when you relax.