As I have talked about in previous entries knowing where you
want to go with your training is pivotal. If you want to lose weight Powerlifting would not be helpful,
lots of jogging would but then you have to ask WHY you want to lose weight. Is
it to help your health or to look better, or both. The answers to these questions may also
change your choices. If you have high
blood pressure or other health issues the long slow steady of a walk or walk
jog might be better, if you don’t have those issues and are really more
concerned about how you look, shorter threshold training will help muscle tone,
utilize more fat stores in the long run and leave more training time for other
Bodyshaping pursuits.
That awareness of why, which is also your prime motivation,
factors in to what type of accoutrements you will have.
If you are going to be focusing on heavy full body lifting
then soft soled shoes like wresting shoes are best. They give you maximum
awareness of the ground. If you are
running then investing in the appropriate running shoe will save you down time
from injury.
The inspiration for writing this blog entry came from a
section of one of my old textbooks that talked about the fluid ball, inter-abdominal
pressure, and lifting belts.
The fluid ball is the abdominal area, soft tissues organ
etc. Not a heck of a lot of bony
structural support, yet when doing full body lifts like the squat, deadlift,
clean and jerk, snatch, or even simply overhead moves like the overhead lunge,
a great deal of force is transferred though this area from ground to over head.
With this force comes the chance of injury to the lower
back, the only hard structure in the area.
By bracing the deep abdominal muscles and the diaphragm the fluid, which
cannot be compressed, becomes part of the bracing mechanism to support the
back. It’s an essential technique and
one many people use to varying degrees without any formal training.
You
will often see people at gym making use of weight belts; their purpose is to
constrict even further the abdominal / subinguinal area so that there is even
greater bracing and thus greater protection for the spine.
This is an important piece of equipment for those exercisers
who are dedicated to training for maximum amounts of strength (and usually very
short duration). They are appropriate
for their goals.
Useful as they are in context are they something YOU need
for YOUR training goals?
For most general fitness they are not relevant. Further,
over dependence on them can lead to weakening of the supporting muscle
structure. If you have seen someone
doing bench press, bicep curls, upright rows etc wearing a lifting belt they
are not only helping their lifting power, they are potentially damaging their
bodies.
To tie this up, the explanation of the lifting belt is just
an example of how we need to think through what our goals are carefully and
construct our training and our equipment, accordingly.
You also now have a brief glimpse of the working of the core in
training.
If you have questions or need clarification I can be reached
via email at:
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