[recovery] -- belts
Barbell training builds full body integrity. It has no favorite muscles. Yet every serious lifter wears a belt on every lift except maybe the bench press. This seems contradictory. Why are we using an artificial supportive device? How is this not cheating? If the weight is too heavy to move beltless, are we not courting injury with this tool?
Yes, the belt is an external aid that allows us to lift more than we could beltless. But it is a *passive* aid. Increasing the external pressure around the abdomen is a tactile cue that lets us produce a stronger core contraction than we could without something to push against. This provides more stability for the spine, ensuring that we are able to complete the rep safely. In contrast, active aids like a bench shirt or squat suit store elastic energy from the descent and act like a spring on the way up. The belt actually makes *us* do more work. It does not put any muscles to sleep.
The surest proof of this claim is the fact that increasing our lifts with a belt also increases our beltless sets. For example, say we are pressing 135 x 5 right now with a belt. We eventually get our press up to 275 x 5, also with a belt. Doing so makes 135 an easy beltless warmup rep. If the belt turned our core muscles to goo, this would not occur.