Lifting Belt?
 

I was discussing lifting with someone and the idea of a lifting belt came up. I never thought of buying one until I did deadlifts for the first time today. I dropped the weight down until I can get the feel for the exercise and to make sure I'm ONLY lifting with my legs. I heard a long time ago that things of that nature are not good because it creates weak links. I know if you are powerlifting with extreame weight you might want to look into one. Does anyone have any thoughts on if its a good or bad idea to purchase a belt?

you can't only deadlift with your legs.....what's going to hang onto to the bar? :)

HELL YEAH!! BUY A BELT...u can get really hurt w/out one, you should be wearing a belt on Deads-Squats, and i even wear it on my standing shoulder press cause off the stress on my lower back....but BUY A BELT...u dont have to get anything to fancy i got a decent leather belt of BB.com (bodybuilding) for 30 dollars..

It's crasazy to use a belt for everything. No reason to do that. You want to be strong at the extremeties and weak in the middle? That just means you are weaker overall. Use a belt if you absolutely have to for the heaviest lifts only.

i only use a belt on my heaviest set or two of squats and deadlifts, learning how to lift w/o them teaches you how to stabilize yourself for the big lifts and it strengthens your core

Ok thanks for the help. I think I might go and buy one see how it feels. I probably wount use it all of the time though. I'm just worried because there was a lot of strain on my lower back while completeing deadlifts today.

Thanks again

You may not be deadlifting properly and you may need to do more core training. If there is a problem...fix it..don't prop it up.

And when you say strain, do you mean you hurt your back or that your back muscles were stressed. Stressing the muscle is ok (withing the realm of common sense), straining it is not.

The back is going to be stressed to some degree during a deadlift due to it's stabilizing role. You need a lot of strength edurance in the entire core. I'm beginning to see, basically, that some incorrect ideas about what deadlifts are lead people to use belts.

Their may be other problems that lead to the back taking over the lift. Maybe you need some glute activation...all sorts of things could be at work. The main thing right now is to nail down correct technique and proper position for YOUR body.

I'm assuming that you don't have a previous back injury in all of this.

I wasn't in any pain at all, I could just feel it pulling on my lower back once I was at the top. You are suppose to straighten you back once you get to the top right?

It's ok to feel it pulling on your back. Your back is having to work to help maintain torso position as you go up. But you should also be feeling the glutes and hamstrings working, etc...

You don't really 'straighten' your back to finish the lift you use hip extension to finish it...basically it is thrusting the hips forward (think shoving the butt forward) not hyperextending the back which is an improper finish.

This is one of those things where it would be hard for me to tell you if anything feels "wrong" just based on what you are saying. You kinda have to start with as close to good form as you can. Could be your perfect and it's just your back needs to get stronger. Could be you need a very simple fix in technique. Or you may need to strengthen some things....but if you really think it just doesn't feel right I would certainly act of that. But if you went into it thinking you weren't ever supposed to feel it in your back that could play into what you are experiencing.

Check out EC's articles..links posted here by Wolf, aka Sentinel aka Anuj:

http://www.bodybuilding.net/55649-2-post.html

I really don't feel it in my legs, but thats probably because my legs are in decent shape and I can lift quite a bit on them alone. I'm only useing 200lbs right now until I can get the form down. Thanks for the link it will help me out. I also think I was finishing with my back alone, I will try to use my hips and see how it feels. I think that was part of my problem. I will hold off on the belt, I tend to agree with you in the fact that it will create weak spots.