Ill be squatting 4-5x a week till years end.
Ill be using no belt, no wraps.
Clearly you didn't read my post correctly. I never said anything about weighted planks.Do you have any sort of citation for this?
Belted squats work the midsection better than weighted planks? Come on now lets not say silly things
Clearly you didn't read my post correctly. I never said anything about weighted planks.
WTH do I need citation for? (Brb googling something that agrees with what I'm saying to make me look right)
I never do ab work. I competed in states without a belt and only started wearing one because my competitors were. Did it make me stronger, no. But why let others have an advantage on the platform?
The belt doesn't lift the weight for you. Hey, I can squat more with a barbell on my back than with two dumbbells in my hands, so the barbell must be doing some of the work for me. Sound accurate? I didn't think so.Seems simple to me if you can lift more with the belt, the belt must be doing some of the work.
Why pick up 5kg with the belt when you could get it by strengthening your own diaphram, I'll yell ya why cause people are fucking lazy and they want that 5kg real bad.
The belt doesn't lift the weight for you. Hey, I can squat more with a barbell on my back than with two dumbbells in my hands, so the barbell must be doing some of the work for me. Sound accurate? I didn't think so.
Knee wraps, squat suits and bench shirts assist their respective lifts because they resist the eccentric at the joints they target, and will spring back towards the lockout position. They really do some of the work. The belt, however, does not resist the eccentric in any way, nor does it spring back for the concentric. What it does do is give your abs something to push against, in the same way that the bar gives a load to push against. Used correctly, this increases the activation of the core musculature, rather than taking over the core work. In doing so, your hips and legs are then able to move more weight while you squat. They have no direct assistance from the belt. A squat suit functions almost like additional muscle mass at the hips, and knee wraps function almost like additional muscle mass at the knees -- they take loads that your muscles cannot -- but a belt allows those same muscles to do more work, rather than doing work for them.
Anyway, back to the original question, my opinion (and whatever status we'd all like to apply to our thoughts, all of our conclusions in this thread are opinions) is that the right time to use a belt is when it's beneficial for you to do so. That's probably not the first time you get under the bar, but I see no reason to arbitrarily say that you need to be able to lift x amount of weight or have y amount of experience before you should belt up. It's probably a good idea to wait until you have decent, reliable technique on the squat before you add a belt into the mix, but even just the feeling of the belt against your lower back may be useful for cueing good form, so it may have that benefit for rank novices.
Ryan, I think I will take the opinion of the 200kg + squatters over your and Oni's regurgitated internet articles. At the end of the day those guys know how to build a strong core and squat big numbers. Just remind me again where is your squat at? Has wearing a belt aided you attaining that squat? Oh wait thats right it doesn't matter because you like me squat sweet fuck all so we should probably take the sage advice of those in our presence that can squat, after all it stands to reason that their methodology works, they have the runs on the board.
So if someone wears a belt from the start and ends up squatting 200+, does this mean they couldn't do fuck all without one due to a 'weak core'? I don't think so...
Food for thought- if I can squat 10kg more with a belt, wouldn't this be good for the strength of my quads, hams etc...since I'm overloading them by 10+kg than I normally could?
I bet my jimmies that if two identical people started lifting with the exact diet, training protocol etc one of which used a belt on their top sets and the other did not, the one that did not use the belt would be better at beltless squats and the one that used a belt would be better at belted squats
So if someone wears a belt from the start and ends up squatting 200+, does this mean they couldn't do fuck all without one due to a 'weak core'? I don't think so...
Food for thought- if I can squat 10kg more with a belt, wouldn't this be good for the strength of my quads, hams etc...since I'm overloading them by 10+kg than I normally could?