July 23, 2004

2 responses to His hobby is heavy

1. Peter Says:
   July 24th, 2004 at 4:40 am

   dude get rid of the balance board stufff.It serves no purpose in PLing.
   Stop snapping the weights up. you will start to strain your elbows. believe me my elbows hurt.

2. Kris Says:
   July 24th, 2004 at 5:05 pm

   The core training I’m doing won’t make me stronger, as it overloads none of the large surface muscles responsible for lifting the heavy weights. But that’s not the point at stake here, rehab and spinal stabilization is. Recent research (let me know if you want references) has determined that when the transversus and multifidus fail to stabilize the joints of the spinal column injury results, which my back therapist thinks might just be why I hurt my back doing good mornings (muscle imbalance between the spinal erectors and the deep stabilizers). I’m doing these to build up my spinal stability and rebuild the atrophied right side of my spinal column so that I can squat again and to create a more injury resistant spine in the process.

   The fact that this kind of direct core training is uncommon among powerlifters does not necessarily make it useless, although this element is not totally foreign to Westside training (cf. stability ball dumbell work and chain suspended push ups - see the Bench Press Secrets video for more on this). I also know that many feel that heavy basic lifting hits the core enough as they make the body work as a single unit, but I think a case can be made for at least some degree of direct work. This approach is also fairly new and, with its roots in Australia, is only now beginning to reach widespread acceptance in back rehabilitation. If you’ve read the accounts of why I do these (see especially http://tsampa.org/training/blog/archives/2004/05/#post_191) and still think I should ditch them then I think we will just have to agree that we disagree on this point (or at least let me know on what grounds you consider them useless). Besides, I’m kind of enjoying my newfound balance and muscle control, none of which should be detrimental to powerlifting.

   You have a point with the snapping though; I do have a tendency to pop out a little forcefully on extension exercises, such as Tate presses and JM presses on which the load is very light at the top. On speed benches this is hardly avoidable though, but, as discussed, chains do help to slow down the bar speed a little thus making for less elbow strain. Thanks for the warning.

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