Weightlifting belt

[Headholio]

at your age yes..

What!!!
Lol!

I probably do have an old school attitude about belts, because of the time and environment of my youth.
I hurt my back the first time when I was still in high school. We were 16 year old kids maxing out on deadlifts and doing upside down leg press forced reps (don't see those machines around any more!)

But, on the other side of the coin, I did a paper in graduate school on Intra-abdominal pressure and how it assists in reducing the stress on lumbar vertebrae.

I wish I still had that paper (no electronic copies in those days - mid eighties). but the short version is that studies on cadaver spines show that you can crush vertebral bone with about 15% of the force that an advanced powerlifter puts on his own spine. In a living powerlifter, much of that crushing force is countered by the intra abdominal pressure (IAP) pushing upward on the diaphragm and creating a counter foce. Plus the strength (rigidity) of the abdominal muscles and the fact that trained lifters have stronger bones that have adapted to the stress.

A belt allows you to generate greater IAP, and also reduces the cross section of the abdomen... (pressure = force divide by area so smaller area results in greater pressure).

but the OP is like in his early 20's. i don't think someone that young needs to be messing with belts, wraps, straps, or any of that shit right now.. if you need to use any of that stuff then you are overtraining and you are gonna wreck your ligaments and tendons before you get to 30.

we see this among 20's guys a lot.. and then you read guys in their 30's and 40's all over the board having tendon and ligament problems. there is a huge connection between how bad you abuse your body when you are young, and having problems when you get older.

just ask burnthiscorpse about that.

You are probably right. I have some disc problems these days (although minor), and I wonder if those max deads and squats with knee wraps when I was in my teens (and 20s and 30s and 40s) were really damaging to me.

But overall, I look at other dudes my age and they all look like shit. I'm 52 and I owe my health to weights. Weightlifting changed my life when I was a teen, and has continued to be a blessing to me to this very day. I will never quit.

But that's a bit of a side track. Kids and men will always want to lift heavy weights, (off the ground, over their heads etc.) Since that will always be true, I think the best philosophy is use a belt for heavy squats, cleans, and deads. Don't abuse it, but use it.