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Matt's Corner |
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Training in gear for the Lifter and Athlete Matt Wenning Graduate Student Biomechanics/ Elite powerlifter Many times gear is overused and sometimes gear is underused. Gear is anything from a simple belt, to a full-blown canvas suit or a bench shirt. There are places in the powerlifting world as well as the athletic community for gear. People in and outside the powerlifting communities have given bench shirts more credit than they deserve. Shirts will increase your bench, squat suits will increase your squat, but using the right amount of this equipment will give you an edge. We all know that in the sport of powerlifting, gear is a necessity in order to compete and to move maximum tonnage. But what about football players? Should they use any gear to train? My answer would be this; “Do you send your athletes out on the practice field without any pads or helmets”? Hell no”. I don’t think that full-blown squat suits and bench shirts need to be worn. I think that good briefs, belts, and wrist and knee wraps are definitely a necessity. Briefs need to be worn to help the hips from getting as beat up while squatting. This type of brief offers minimal support, but does help the players to stay tight, and reduce soreness. This will therefore allow more poundage’s to be used through out the cycle, and create stronger players in the long run, due to the weight that will be used. It’s like practicing with pads, and then letting them go full bore without pads. You practice with pads; it saves your joints and lowers impact. Squat briefs do the same for your hips in the weight room. Bench shirts are not a necessity for athletics, but board presses, lots of triceps and training for pressing movements like a powerlifter may be beneficial. Most of the lifters I know that are good with a shirt, are also very strong without the gear as well. Me for example, I train to compete in a bench shirt, yet every time my shirt max goes up, so does my raw max. The whole point to this is that you’re strong with or without the shirt. Whether we are athletes or powerlifters, we would all like to have a strong, powerful bench. So let’s train to have a strong powerful bench, and take advice from the bench masters. Also, most gear trained powerlifters, have some of the best technique when it comes to the bench press (trust me when I say it’s not an easy movement to master) read my bench article. Wrist wraps and knee wraps are good to use on max effort attempts, they help stabilize the knee and wrist joints, while helping to move more weight. They are not meant to be used on a regular basis, but are good for helping on testing days, and giving some psychological help. As powerlifters here at BSU, we rarely use knee wraps and only use wrist wraps on heavy bench days or pressing movements. Belts are both good and not so good. They do help support the core, but will also not let the core develop to its full potential when used all the time. It is good for max effort squatting and pulling, but beyond that, use of a belt should be minimal. Belts should be used sparingly in athletics as well. For our athletes at BSU we only use belts for heavy sets or when we feel the need, but beyond that we don’t allow athletes to train with belts on a consistent basis. The powerlifters train with belts a little more consistently due to the heavy tonnage they lift week in and week out. The use of powerlifting style equipment should be limited to the stronger athletes (I.E. football, throwers, etc.) This is only because of the shear weight that these athletes should be moving. Basketball and other sports although important will hardly ever use enough weight to make equipment feasible. In my opinion a football linemen at the college level should have no problem squatting 600 in a proficient manner, or benching 425. Throwers should be able to get a little stronger than this due to their increased training time. Many coaches are afraid to train their players like lifters, but isn’t it ironic that we test some of the same lifts (squat, bench, and all accessory exercises), and push them to get stronger in these areas. Why not be the best, and learn from the lifters. To me, the lifters have got weights under control, all we have to do is take their methods and use them to our benefit as coaches.
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