Lifting Weights Tips
Important factors to keep in mind when lifting weights include:
* Get a feel for, and practice, proper posture in standing position. Try “lifting your chest slightly” and “comfortably tightening your abs.”
* Begin the lowering phase by slowly bending your knees and simultaneously “sticking your butt out” (bending at the hips). This is key!
* As your butt moves backward your torso should begin to move from vertical to diagonal, relative to the world around you. If you must actually go to the floor with your hands, your torso may be near horizontal at the lowest point, but your spinal posture or alignment should still be maintained.
* Keep your chest “out”. As you lower at the hips and knees, the natural tendency will be to let your chest “cave in” as a result of your spine rounding. Again, this is often due to an attempt to reach down with our hands rather than lowering yourself down and allowing those hips to move backward as you go.
* Placing the feet wider than shoulder width will help you get lower without unwanted spinal motion. Also, moving your hips backward will keep your heels down on the ground where you want them.
* Finally, you might want to concentrate on keeping those shoulder blades from spreading apart and rolling forward. This protraction, as it is termed, is often the first sign that you are not keeping your postural muscles tight and the spinal muscles are likely to soon follow.
Many fitness trainers suggest that you keep your head and “eyes up” as you lower your body. I have found it more helpful to emphasize the “chest out/shoulders back” cue instead, as this directly relates to the thoracolumbar position. The head and neck do not directly alter the thoracolumbar position, and therefore create a very indirectly associated cue. In fact, extreme cervical hyperextension can be associated with misuse of this cue during some lifts due to “looking up” while your torso is required to move near horizontal during the lower forms of lifting.
In the gym…
There are two situations that are common to lifting in the gym (occurring about every minute) that are not found quite as frequently, or as heavily loaded, elsewhere.
#1 “Stooping” (to the weight rack)
Lifting dumbbells from the top layer of a rack typically doesn’t concern many people because….well, it’s not that far to bend. Treat this like any other lift, using the same exact movement and stabilization concerns, just through a shorter range. Keep your chest out, stick your hips out, and bend your knees as required.
#2 Seated lifting
I’m not referring to seated lifts like curls or overhead presses, but these are what usually precipitate the need to lift from the ground while seated to get the weights into starting position. You’re getting ready to do a set of seated dumbbell curls or your on the bench preparing for a set of dumbbell flys. What do you do next? You leave your butt on the bench and fully flex your spine to retrieve the dumbbells from the floor. And when your set is over, you do the same thing to return them to the floor. That’s right…you’re asking for it, and as I shamefully mentioned, I know from personal experience!
Regardless of the amount of weight you use on these exercises, you’d do well to make it a habit of getting your bottom up off the bench, lifting the dumbbells as described above, and then sitting down with them. I’m not saying you have to stand up all the way, just to the “squatting” position associated with the lower part of the proper lifting technique described. Then keep your posture as you return to the seated, more vertical torso position, on the bench. Some would describe this as though you had steel rods through your spine preventing any bending.
Everybody knows that the way you perform an exercise will determine the benefit and risk of that exercise. Just keep in mind that the way you lift the weight before and after your set is equally, if not more, important!
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