Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Why and How to Use a Weightlifting Belt (And How to Find the Right One For You)

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

What does a weightlifting belt do and how do you use one? Should you use one and on what exercises? How do you wear one correctly and what should you look for when picking a belt? All that and more in this podcast. Some people claim that a weightlifting belt is essential for avoiding injury—almost like wearing a seatbelt in the car. Other people though, they say that the safety benefits are completely overblown, and the only good reason to wear a belt is to lift more weight. Still others say that weightlifting belts are really just crutches and that they encourage you to try to do more than you should. A belt can help you lift more weight in the short-term, but it's going to increase your risk of injury and maybe even make you weaker in the long run. So in this podcast, you are going to learn what science has to say about these conflicting opinions and whether you can benefit from a weightlifting belt. Timestamps: 0:00 - Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! 3:31 - What is a weightlifting belt? 4:33 - What does a weightlifting belt do? 7:31 - Does wearing a weightlifting belt improve workout safety? 8:41 - How do you use a weightlifting belt properly? 15:32 - How do I find the best weightlifting belt? 22:28 - What are your favorite brands of weightlifting belts? Mentioned on the Show: Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points!

Hey and welcome to Muscle For Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to learn about weightlifting belts. What do the belts do? How do you use them correctly? And how do you find the best one for you? Now, some people, they claim that a weightlifting belt is essential for avoiding injury, almost like wearing a seat belt in the car. Other people, though, they say that the safety benefits are completely overblown and the only good reason to wear a belt is to lift more weight. And other people still, they say that weightlifting belts are really just crutches and that they encourage you to try to do more than you should, that a belt can help you lift more weight, maybe in the short term,

but it's going to increase your risk of injury and maybe even make you weaker in the long run, almost like deadlifting with straps from day one. So in this podcast, you are going to learn what science has to say about these conflicting opinions and whether you can benefit from a weightlifting belt, and if so, how to find one that is going to be best for you. Before we get started, your ability to gain muscle and gain strength is greatly impacted by how well your body can recover from your training and how strong you get in your training. And that's why it's not enough to just hammer away at the weights every week. You have to watch your calories and watch your macros. You have to maintain good sleep hygiene. You have to avoid overtraining. And you can also

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Try Recharge risk-free and see what you think. Okay, let's start this discussion with a quick description of what a weightlifting belt is, at least the type of belt I am referring to. And that is a thick belt that you wear when you are lifting, usually during exercises like the squat deadlift and overhead press. And I am not referring to flimsy, thin Velcro belts that some people wear. The weightlifting belts that I'm going to be talking about in this podcast are usually three to four inches wide. Some are wider at the back than they are at the front, but most of them are in the range of three to four inches. And they're made of thick, stiff material like leather or woven nylon. And they also have a large buckle of some kind.

Sometimes it is a clasp type mechanism. Sometimes it's just a traditional belt buckle clasp type mechanism. Sometimes it's just a traditional belt buckle setup and that secures the belt in place and helps it cinch tightly around your abdomen. Okay, moving on. So what does that type of weightlifting belt do? Well, when you are lifting weights or when you are lifting anything heavy for that matter, it's important to trap air in your lungs and to create pressure in your abdomen. And that is known as intra-abdominal pressure. Why is that important? Well, that stabilizes your torso and prevents your spine from bending. And that allows you to lift heavier loads safely. A weightlifting belt, what it does is it buttresses your belly. So when you take a deep breath in to your belly, into your stomach, into your diaphragm, really as we're talking about filling your diaphragm, your abs then they get pushed out against the belt. intra-abdominal pressure by 15 to 40 percent usually beyond what you can achieve without a belt and that in turn can boost your performance on exercises like the squat and the deadlift.

Now in terms of bottom line results it is hard to quantify exactly how much a belt can help your performance but most people find that they can lift at least five to 10% more weight with a belt than without a belt. And they often find that, especially on those key exercises, on the squats, on the deadlifts, on the overhead presses, they find that even though the weights are heavier than without a belt, the exercise feels better. It feels more stable. There are a couple of caveats, though. One, you need to know how to use the belt correctly to get those benefits.

And until you do, it will have less of an impact on your performance or maybe no impact on your performance. And ironically, in that scenario, wearing a belt can actually increase the risk of injury because it might encourage you to lift more weight than you can handle because you think that wearing a belt is going to allow you to handle that heavier load when you cannot. performance on some exercises. Specifically, belts are most effective at improving performance on exercises that put shearing stress on your spine, and that is stress that is applied perpendicular to the spine, like with the squat and deadlift. Now, a belt can also improve performance on exercises where shearing stress is smaller, like the overhead press or barbell row or lunge, but it is less effective with those exercises. And it doesn't do much of anything except to make you feel tighter during exercises like the bench press, lat pulldown, and one-arm dumbbell row. So I myself only use a belt when I squat, deadlift, and overhead press because I don't notice any real benefits on any other exercises.

And so just don't bother with the belt. So what about exercise safety? Does wearing a weightlifting belt make an exercise safer? Does it reduce the risk of injury? Well, research shows that no, it probably does not. And as I mentioned earlier, with some people wearing a belt can slightly increase the risk of injury because they think that the weightlifting belt bulletproofs them against injury. And that then makes them more inclined to do stupid stuff, to take risks in their training that they wouldn't usually take, like using heavier weights than they can safely handle, or using sloppier technique, doing cheat sets, for example, or maybe doing more volume than they normally would. Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that

wearing a weightlifting belt is going to increase your risk of injury, but it's just something to keep in mind. You do have to keep your ego in check. You do have to continue to pay attention to your form when you are wearing a belt. It can only help you perform better, but not necessarily more safely. That is going to be on you. Okay, now let's talk about how to use a weightlifting belt properly. And let's start with how to wear it properly, because for it to help you, you have to make sure you're wearing it correctly. And many people do not wear their belts correctly. So here's how. The first point is you want to position the belt around your waist so that the bottom of it is just above the height of your iliac crests, which are the bony protrusions at the front of your hip bones. And that is going to feel uncomfortable at first.

It might even leave small bruises until the belt is properly broken in and you find the right tightness for you. But if you are new to a belt and it doesn't feel very comfortable, that's a good sign, not a bad sign. And it will get more comfortable in time, kind of like front squatting. If you can remember when you first started to front squat, getting that bar into the right position was probably kind of uncomfortable on your shoulders. It was right up against your throat. And if you front squat regularly or at least semi-regularly, you probably don't even notice it now. The second point of wearing a belt properly is getting the

tightness right. And so what you want to do is you want to use the tightest notch, the tightest setting that still allows you to take a full breath without having to raise your shoulders. breath without having to raise your shoulders. And sometimes the ideal tightness is between two notches. And my general recommendation for that is to just use the tighter option for the squat bench press and overhead press and the looser option for the deadlift because of the position that you get in for the start of the deadlift. And if it's too tight, it can be very uncomfortable. It also can push the belt down. So now it's not in the right height, but you should play with tightnesses and just find what feels best for you, what allows you to use it as a wall to push your abs out against. You should feel that increase in the intra-abdominal pressure,

and then you should notice the performance benefit. Okay, now let's talk about using the belt. You have the belt in the right position. It is at the right tightness. What do you do now? Well, before you start a set and between reps in a set as necessary, you want to take a deep belly breath of about 80% of your maximum lung capacity. And as you breathe in, you want to take a deep belly breath of about 80% of your maximum lung capacity. And as you breathe in, you want to imagine your stomach inflating to the front, to the sides, to the back. Your entire torso should feel full of air, but not so much that you have to struggle to keep your mouth closed. Then you press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. And without letting any air escape, you try to breathe out. And then at the same time, you press your abs against the belt as hard as you

can. And again, if you have done this correctly, you should feel that intra-abdominal pressure and you are ready to start your set or to do your next rep. And so then let's say you are starting a set and you are squatting. So you squat down, this is your first rep, and then you start to stand up and you get past to the sticking point, the most difficult part of the rep when you're getting out of the hole, as they say in the squat. And as you get past that, breathe out as you finish the rep. And also make sure to keep your core muscles tight as you are exhaling. Now, the same approach is applicable to an overhead press as you get past the sticking point, which is going to be the first few inches of the press of the bar. So once the bar is maybe around your nose or so, then you can start exhaling, keeping your core muscles tight. And on the deadlift, I don't like to exhale until I have

basically put the weight down. So I am taking a deep breath at the bottom and I am bracing myself is a term that weightlifters use, as I mentioned earlier, and I am maintaining all of that core tightness all the way to the top of the deadlift. And then as I am lowering the bar to my knees, I am starting to exhale as the bar approaches my knees. And then once it is down to my knees, I drop it to the floor and then I have fully exhaled and I repeat the process. I should also mention that it's OK to hold your breath for a couple of reps before taking a fresh breath. If that works for you, I will do that on my squat sometimes, at least in the beginning of a set. Sometimes, though, as I get deeper into a set.

So if I'm doing like sixes or eights or tens and I'm down to my last couple of reps and it's getting pretty hard, I am usually going to reset in between reps. But for the first few reps, I might just hold my breath on the deadlift. I rarely hold my breath for more than one rep. I might, if I'm doing sets of eight or 10, I might hold my breath for say two max three reps. It would just be the first two or three, but certainly as I get deeper into a set and as it gets harder, I am fully resetting in between reps. I also do not bounce the weight into my next rep. It is a full reset in between reps, which I also recommend. And when the weights are heavy, when I'm getting, let's say into heavy fours or even twos, I am also fully resetting, including my breath

for each rep. Anyway, coming back to using a belt, just a few things to keep in mind. Don't over tighten the belt. That is a common mistake that people make. They make the belt so tight that it prevents them from taking in a full breath of air or breathing adequately in between sets, or they make it physically painful. They tighten it so much that it's not just uncomfortable, it is painful. That is too tight. That means you need to loosen it a notch or two. I also recommend loosening the belt or taking it off in between sets. It might feel more comfortable or convenient to leave it on, but it does constrict your breathing to some degree and that can make it harder to recover for your next set. So what I do is just loosen it. I don't take it fully off and

put it down and then put it back on when I am ready for my next set i just loosen it a couple of notches and let it kind of hang in place finally make sure to adjust the belt as your body fat levels rise and fall you are probably going to need to loosen it a little bit over the course of a lean bulk and then tighten it a little bit during the course of a cut. Just something to keep in mind. Okay, so if I have convinced you to give a weightlifting belt a try, keep listening because now we are going to talk about how to find the best one for you. So the first aspect to consider is size. The two most important measurements to look at when you are buying a belt are its width and its thickness. So with the width, most belts come in one of three different widths, four, three,

and two and a half inches. Four inch belts offer the most support. So they are the best option for most people. That said, a three inch belt might be better for you if you have a short torso, because then it's less likely to dig into your ribs. Many women, for example, prefer a three inch belt might be better for you if you have a short torso, because then it's less likely to dig into your ribs. Many women, for example, prefer a three inch belt because, well, they tend to be shorter than men and a four inch belt is very uncomfortable for them. I don't recommend two and a half inch belts or tapered belts. So belts that are wider across the back and then skinnier in the front for us recreational weightlifters and for people who follow strength training programs, because they just don't offer

enough support to accomplish the purposes of wearing a belt in the first place. I mean, remember, we're doing it because we want to reinforce our abdomen so we can generate more pressure in our abdomen. If we remove material from the front of the belt, it just makes it less effective at doing that. Now, of course, one situation where tapered belts make sense is with Olympic lifting because then you can move your upper body more freely, which you have to do during exercises like the clean and jerk and the snatch. Now, as far as thickness goes, most belts are somewhere between nine and 13 millimeters thick. Thinner belts are more supple and they break in faster, which makes them more comfortable, but thicker belts offer more support

and are more durable. Competitive power lifters, for example, they often use the thickest. They use 13 millimeter belts because they live and die by how much weight they can lift. And they want their equipment to help them lift as much as possible, even if it is quite uncomfortable. Many of those guys and gals are also huge people who generate massive amounts of intra-abdominal pressure. So then, of course, a thicker belt is more appropriate for them. But for most of us, I would say 9 or 10 millimeters, that's going to be the best option because it's a good compromise between comfort, durability, and support.

Or maybe we could say it's a good balance of those factors. So unless you are squatting and deadlifting a lot of weight, you know, 400, 500 plus pounds, you probably are not going to notice a difference in terms of performance between the nine or 10 millimeter and the 13 millimeter option, but you are certainly going to be more comfortable in a nine or 10 millimeter option. Now let's talk about material because belts are typically made of leather or nylon. Although you can find cheap stuff online made of other synthetic fabrics, but I do not recommend those. Leather or nylon are the two materials that I recommend. Now, leather belts are more rigid and they're more durable than nylon belts and therefore offer more support. And some of them also are finished with a layer of suede, which is naturally anti-slip. So the

belt doesn't move out of position as easily during a set. And leather belts also gradually mold to the shape of your body, making them more and more comfortable over time as they break in, just like shoes or boots, for example. And some weightlifters, though, and particularly CrossFitters, they prefer nylon belts because they're more comfortable and they allow you to move your torso and your hips more freely during exercises like cleans, jerks, snatches. And the nylon belts are also easy to put on and take off when you're moving quickly between exercises that require a belt and exercises that don't. That said, nylon belts are not as supportive or as durable as leather belts.

So if you are following a strength training program, if you are doing squats and deadlifts and presses rather than Olympic weightlifting exercises, I would recommend a leather belt. I think it's a much better option. Moving on, let's now discuss the buckles because there are three different buckles that you'll find. You'll find levers and lever belts have a buckle that makes them easy to take on and off. To put it on and lock it. You just insert the hooks on the lever into the opposite side of the belt and you pull the lever across your waist. Now, the downside of a lever belt is if you want to change the tightness, you have to use a screwdriver to reposition the buckle, which is not that big of a deal. It's just kind of inconvenient. You can't do it easily in the gym,

for example. And so if you do regularly change the tightness of your belt, if you like your belt to be tighter during squats than deadlifts, for example, or if you sometimes like to wear heavier clothing that then makes the belt fit more snugly, you're probably going to find a lever belt annoying because it's not going to allow you to do those things. You're just going to have to lever belt annoying because it's not going to allow you to do those things. You're just going to have to have one setting that you go with, or I guess you might bring a screwdriver into the gym. I can't say I've ever seen anybody do that though. However, for most people, this is a non-issue because you don't have to adjust

the buckle often, maybe once or twice per year, depending on your waistline. The second type of buckle mechanism is the prong mechanism. And there are two main types of prong belts. You have single and double prongs. Single prongs are easier to fasten and they are just as secure as double prongs. So that's what I prefer. Although some people say that they feel that double prong buckles more evenly distribute the pressure across their waist. I haven't noticed that myself. And again, single prong has always worked just fine for me. Now, the downside to a prong belt is just that it's more annoying to take on and off, although it does get easier as you break the belt in, especially if you don't change the tightness much. If you are consistently using the same notch,

then eventually you don't have to use the squat rack to brace the belt as you twist away to get it to the right tightness. You might have to do that at first, but once the belt breaks in, you should be able to put it on and take it off without having to do that. Finally, we have Velcro belts, and these are almost always made of nylon and are almost always not worth buying. Yes, they do feel more comfortable at first and maybe just generally, but they are not as supportive, secure, or durable as a leather belt with a lever or prong buckle. And finally, let's talk about brands. I have a few brands of belts that I really like and recommend. I'm not getting paid to say this. Of course, I have no

association with these companies, but they make great products. One is Inzer, I-N-Z-E-R. I used their Inzer Forever lever belt for some time. Great belt. And then there is Best Belts, which sounds kind of downmarket, but they make great belts. I am currently using a Best Belt single prong, for example. I've been using it for at least the last one and a half, two years. And I really like it. And last is Pioneer. They also make great products. Check out their cut power lifting belt in particular. It's a single prong buckle and it will get the job done. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something

about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.