I made that mistake in the beginning, like I suppose a lot of guys, haha. Although I do like different degrees of tightness and even different belts.
For example squats + overhead: Tight, stiff Inzer.
Deadlifts: looser, the “softer” Cerberus belt.
Moving Events + log: Soft under belt (neoprene) + Cerberus belt. That does include yoke, so it’s not necessarily dependend on how much weight I am moving in a given exercise.
@MarkKO: Those are some good guidelines. Wether to wear a belt or not and when or where is probably one of the most discussed topics of the lifting community. I know plenty of people, some of whom very strong, who would likely disagree with your take but I like your reasoning.
I have in the past only used my belt when “it got serious”, even creating a psychological boost/ advantage by putting it on. I have already changed that but as you can see, not all the way thorugh.
Good point on my lower back. I think it would be huge for me if I can bring up that weakness. Not even speaking from a point of injury prevention.
Also pretty interesting to just observe different strength athletes on this. I saw a few clips of Peter Bremner’s (430 kg deadlift) training the other day and he wore a belt for 80 kg good mornings. Matt Wenning (retired pro powerlifter) seems to wear a belt for most stuff. Age may be a factor for him, but I have never seen Savickas (living god) even touch a barbell without his belt on.
Then again you have Eddie Hall (DL WR holder) who would train everything beltless. Martins Licis (current wsm) is another advocate of beltless training.
I have no point here, just observations. I don’t think one side of the argument is definitely right or wrong.
In relation to Hall and Licis, because it is strongman I would look at what other gear they wear. I don’t know much about strongman, all I know is in powerlifting a fair number of the guys who have lasted a long time their belts a lot.
Generally strongmen love their protective gear… Sleeves, cuffs, all the belts and on an international level even suits and wraps.
Hall said he usually trained in a pair of old trainers, a thin band on the patella and otherwise nothing.
There are a lot of factors here if we look at pro strength athletes that are worth mentioning:
Most of them are willing to endure A LOT more pain and wear and tear than even ambicious amateur athletes. On the topic of Eddie Hall for example, he wrote in his autobiography that at his peak weight and strength (training for the WR deadlift), he wasn’t able to stand up for more than 10 minutes at a time. When he had to travel, he literally was begging airport employees to let him use faster check in because his back was so locked up and in so extreme pain that he just wasn’t able to keep standing.
Strongman in general is kinda weird in the aspect that is extremely demanding on the body. I would personally think it is far more demanding than powerlifting. In powerlifting most injuries - outside of freak accidents and bad luck - come down to repetitive movement damage. Doing the same over and over will cause wear and tear to manifest faster since it’s always concentrated on the same structures and patterns.
Even though strongman is very demanding and a lot of people suffer injuries, it is also surprising how long carreers in the sport can last! At the very high level you see Big Z still looking pretty good for having done powerlifting and strongman and an elite level for over 20 years (and suffering some freaky injuries). Magnus Ver Magnusson (4x wsm) benches 200 kg in his mid 50s and is still deadlifting decent weight as well. Jouko Ahola (2x wsm), Mark Felix (still active in wsm at 54(?) years old), Odd Haugen… The list goes and on. I know some people personally on the amteur level that have been around since forever. The list of people who get out of the sport due to injuries however is probably just as long and likely a lot longer.
It’s probably helpful to observe what the pros are doing but always keeping in mind the many things that seperate you from being able to do things they do.
I just never learnt. Started lifting pulling exclusively conventional beltless. Kept pulling beltless when I switched into powerlifting and started pulling sumo. Have tried using a bit like a dozen times total. Has never felt better than beltless for me.
Who knows maybe if I wear a minimally obstructive maybe soft belt like a thin/narrow one or softer material it’d be aight but dunno if that’s legal in powerlifting (@MarkKO rules?) or even if it’d be effective enough to spend cash on
Interesting. My ex was kinda the same. She never used a belt and when she eventually tried it out, she disliked it right away.
It’s important to note that she was also incredibly stubborn and didn’t give the learning effect any chance.
So you use a belt for squats?
I guess you could just start wearing a belt for your lighter sets and see if you can get accustomed to it. I will say that I personally don’t find the belt that helpful myself on deadlifts in terms of more weight being moved. For squats and a few other things: Huge!
Yeah is good for squats. Use a standard 10mm thicc 4mm wise pioneer belt. Feels like the belt gets in the way on deads or at least messes with my set up. I’ll try again and see but a minimalist belt might be useful if I can pull in a way that feels natural but still get some benefits from a belt
Or try wearing the belt up higher. I never tried it but if you watch Sebastian Oreb for example, he does it like that. I believe he is rather short too (or maybe I think that because he stands next to Hafthor all the time).
Yeah I’ve become FAR too lazy for my bodyweight. The terrible thing that most people don’t realize (or do realize but manage to ignore) is that you’re actually not supposed to work less on your conditioning and cardio, when you’re big, but harder!
Also I am super unimaginative with my conditioning. As you point out . moving my own weight sucks. In that case exactly that is probably what I should do. Yet, real running is out of the picture because it fucks up my joints (actually less related to my weight and more to my terrible running technique. The weight amplifies that further).
So I need to find something that a) actually improves my conditioning, b) leaves my joints intact and c) doesn’t cut into my recovery, so that conditioning isn’t taking away from my strength training.
Assault bikes are pretty cool. Once the gyms open up, I’ll have acces to all the things! My new work place even has those farmer’s walk treadmills and shit, haha.