A sensible question from a subscriber:
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“Phil, why don’t you wear a belt for heavy sets of squats and deadlifts?”
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When I first started training, I wore one basically all the time.
I’d go beltless for my first few warmup sets, but as soon as the weight got even remotely challenging, I’d truss myself up like a chicken for fear of hurting my back.
I actually got fairly strong training like this (squatting circa 160kg and pulling around 180kg – both for reps).
Yet without a belt, I could barely manage over 120kg for a single in either exercise.
I also suffered terribly with pain in my lower back and hips, and being young, dumb, and wedded to the idea of “getting strong” by any means necessary, I didn’t put two and two together.
Silly me.
This culminated in a string of serious injuries (one of which resulted in a multi-year battle with debilitating pain) that forced me to rethink my approach to training.
Part of my “new approach” involved ditching the belt.
I’m not gonna pretend my ego wasn’t bruised by having to lift significantly lighter weights. However, it wasn’t long before I reached – and then exceeded – my previous personal bests without a belt.
It didn’t feel like someone was constantly grinding broken glass covered in lemon juice into my spine, either, which was nice.
Another thing I changed drastically was my approach to training my back.
The belt masked how frightfully weak my back was, so I needed a way to speedily and safely bring it up to muster.
I’m going to share what I did in February’s issue of The Phil Tyreman Letter.
So if you too would like to be the owner of a powerful back that drastically improves the ease with which you lift heavy things both inside and outside the gym, you should subscribe.
The deadline to subscribe in time to receive February’s issue will be upon us very soon, so activate your subscription now lest you miss out.
Here’s the info:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/information/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman