When squatting – Dave Tate says to push em out, Paul Cheq says to suck em in. How does everyone here feel about the issue? Personally, I can’t push mine out, they don’t feel as if they’re giving support when I do that.
depends on what you are trying to do. you dont really push them out btw, you fill up “your stomach” with air and thus have your abs out, and then you try to grip the air.
Chek says suck in without a belt, Tate says push out against a belt. Are you wearing a belt?
If you are not wearing a belt,suck em in!Fill your belly up with air,then tighten your abs against the air before you descend.Try and make your midsection hard as steel before descending.If you squat beltless and push your gut out,then you will,as Pavel Tsatsouline says,be the proud owner of a new hernia.Personally I would tighten them as described above,even with a belt.Inguinal hernias suck,they don’t disappear with a bit of massage and glucosamine-the only cure is surgical repair.
note to mills, wsb guys do not suck them in even w/out a belt. As i recall they only wear belts on real heavy lifts, go read at elitefts…
Could it be the case that Dave Tate reccomends pushing out when attempting 1 rep maxes, or at least low reps? I find that pushing out works when I need to get like a final rep, but it makes me feel awkward and unnatural if I do it for like 12 reps.
Dr. Mel Siff has done an incredible job of discrediting Chek’s “abs in” assertions. Dr. Siff’s (somewhat lengthy) analysis of Chek’s faulty reasoning, miscitations to refernces, Chek’s failure to consider references which contradict his view and Check’s illogical reasoning can be read in the archives of weights dot net and on Dr. Siff’s Supertraining group. Before you accept Check’s pseudo-scientific reasoning, I suggest you read Dr. Siff’s posts. For me the evidence is pretty compeling – abs out, whether one uses high reps or low reps and whether or not one uses a belt.
Sincerely,
Matthew A. Levy
Matt, i read the article a couple of days ago and it is well worth the read. Maybe with Dr Siffs permission we could post it here. I only wish that Chek would make a response.
I also think some of Dr Siffs points regarding functional Vs Structural training could be well placed in this forum.
Okay I’ve read Paul Chek’s article on Abs In, Abs Out and Mel Siff’s article on how to stabilise the spine during heavy lifts. I’m no expert but I’ll try and explain how I view stabilisation.
When the TVA contract, the muscle fibres shorten in length. Since these fibres run horizontally, contraction automatically leads to drawing in of the navel and compression of the abdominal contents. Now everyone (hopefully everyone), can compress their organs by maximally contracting their TVAs while standing up. If you do it maximally, your belly button should be sucked in to the point where it is located behind your ribs. My
opinion of this is NOT TO DO THIS WHEN LIFTING HEAVY. Now if that’s what Paul Chek meant in his articles, I disagree with him.
On the other hand, Mel Siff, Dave Tate and Louie Simmons say that you should push your abs out (and against a belt if you are wearing one). If you do this then your belly button is located further away from your ribs. Mel goes on to say that you must and I quote “allow the abs to tense or distend slightly without any deliberate attempt to change anything during
any dynamic movement”. The 2 functions of the abs are to provide stabilisation and movement of the spine. When squatting or lifting heavy, we need to BRACE our spines.
The back muscles in conjunction with the almost statically contracted abdominal muscles provides the spine with a tough natural brace. The back muscles can provide maximum protection only when the front muscles are contracted maximally.
So who is right? I don’t know. Both have their own concepts, they use to get their message across to their clients. It depends on the student.
1)Drawing in the navel as far as it can go - I DISAGREE
2)Pushing the abs out as far as they can go - I DISAGREE
Where should the navel be? Do this test. Breath into the lungs (about 75% max NOT MAX), allow your abs to fully relax (switch them off). You should see a protruding belly. Now look at where the belly button is.
Relax, and now maximally draw your navel in as far as it can go. Look at where your belly button is.
In between these two distances is your OPTIMAL PRESSURE THRESHOLD. In other words, your TVAs must contract against your ORGANS PLUS THE INTERNAL PRESSURE contained in the lungs. Your diaphram wants to push your abs out while your TVAs wants to draw your abs in. The end result is one tough CLOSED PRESSURISED SYSTEM (much like a basketball, a football or a shock absorber).
As long as your breath in and your abs can hold that pressure statically, you are well supported. With respect to a weight belt, I suspect that when the pressure becomes too great, your abs TURN OFF. When I try to lift a maximum weight (greater than 1RM), sometimes my abs can't hold the pressure and swtitch off. By wearing a belt, you may give your abs that extra confidence it needs to stay contracted.
Now I’ve got strong abs and I didn’t do thousands of sit ups to get them strong. Rather I ditched sit ups and focused on diaphram and oblique work. Not only did this enable me to lift heavy and protect my back, it also enabled be to do heavy sit ups (which I was unable to perform before). So I suppose Mel Siff’s argument that doing sit ups won’t help with stabilisation that much is credible at least from my point of view.
Now I could be wrong, but this is how I imagine my abs when I lift heavy and I haven’t had any back problems. Anyone care to comment.
“As long as your breath in and your abs can hold that pressure statically, you are well supported” yea, you are supported, but more air = more intra-abdominal pressure= more support.
In theory more air would be great if you have big lungs and a large thoracic cavity. In practice that’s what I try to do, push more air into myself. But there’s a limit before if affects your breathing. I agree more air = a greater IAP only if your casing can support it.
Shoving more fuel and air down an engine can increase horsepower in a car but only if you have the volume. If you don’t you’ll end up either flooding the car or snapping a conrod at high revs.