Congrats Bro.

The Squats look great. What shoes are you wearing now?

Thanks Beast, they are an old pair of Royals I used to wear to nightclubs!!! They have a slightly elevated heel than the chucks.They feel pretty good.

Well then you're alot stronger then I thought! Holy crap, good work.

IronWorker

Just try not to use the belt for everything. I hate belts the way they are used....as a prop :). I don't really hate belts themselves when they are necessary. I would also hate casts for unbroken arms, haha. I posted more stuff under the "back strong and beltless" article.

I agree with you Eric on the belts. Too many times I see people using a belt for every single set of squats rather than the heavy sets that might need that extra support. I think relying too much on the belt can lead to deficiencies in the lower back and injuries in the long-term. :weights:

Right. It's really not going to allow the core as a whole to be able to stiffen and strengthen. When going for a max I'd say no big deal of course. The thing is though, you can logically ask how are you going to take the entire body to the next level if you leave any muscles out during the big lifts? Also, you can assume that if you always "test" using a belt but then don't use a belt for the relatively lighter intensities you've actually thrown off the relationship between your maximal ability at any one time and the weights you use around that. So in other words, without the belt you can end up lifting too heavy and risk overworking, injury, etc. even before the long term affects of the belt. Even if the belt doesn't allow you to lift that much heavier it certainly affects things.

So think about this. Do you want to have to lift lighter than normal in relation to your "heavy" lift you did with the belt?

If I'm doing my max work and I lift 375 with the belt for a relative max, I don't want to then have to rely on the belt to do some good work in the 320 to 340 range, for instance OR have to do less work than I normally would or do it lighter. I want to keep it all real.

But to me it can be different when I'm testing or going for a PR versus when I'm maxing on some particular day.

Well done Hopper! keep up the good work!

Interesting points Eric, I really started using the belt again when I was getting thrown forward alot,a weak core being the culprit,wearing the belt helped.I since then have started doing more core work to bring up those weak points.Abs especially.

Jonson, thanks bro!!!

hey hithopper just been reading through your journal sounds like youve been doing an awesome job of things!! keep up the good work man.

belts lol in the gym i go to i laughed my ass off the other day there was a guy in there with one on doing dumbell curls with 10kg dumbells (and he was swinging them up to top it all off) when he saw me squatting without a belt he came over told me that i obvioulsy didnt know what i was doing becuase if i wore a belt like he did for every excercise then i would be able to lift more and get bigger!!! i think i laughed the most though when he never even had the thing done up properly it was slack which kinda defeats any point to wearing one anyways!!

G'day Nicky thanks for stopping by mate :)

LOL i definately dont use a belt for curls!!, just squats and GMs it feels nice and strong.

Damn dude that throat op sounds painful sorry to read that mate.