Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Leg Work

Squats no belt: 3 x 8 x 135
supersetted with
Leg Press: 3 x 12 x @275
SLDL: 8 x 175, 2 x 8 x 205

The squats even though they were "light" were still a little tough near the eighth rep. The rest of the workout was good, controlled. I stretched between sets to using all sorts of stretches which hopefully will target those tiny little muscles that hardly ever move. I then played Ping Pong with Kyle for about 45 minutes. I think I may have convinced him to get a serious paddle. He played with my Mark V paddle for a while and he noticed a difference right away. I'm hoping that several other Tomax people get serious about their table tennis game as it would be nice to play different styles rather than just Bala's style all the time.

Crap, this isn't a table tennis blog, but you know? Nobody's leaving comments much anymore, so perhaps my posts aren't getting read, so I can ramble anyway.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rambling is a good spice to add to any lifting blog. I popped in to catch up and was not happy to read about your back trouble. Starting to use a belt was a hard dent on my 100% raw ethos, but the added stability that it gives by providing a hard surface to expand the belly into is amazing. Unless you are able to tighten up fully without it, I would follow Michael Hope's advice on the matter:

"The belt is not favoured by some exercise specialist because they read the research that belts dont help prevent low back pain and may lessen the muscles ability to supprot the spine. This assumption can not be made with heavy lifting. This information came from back pain suffers. Not guys squatting 700 lbs. I would say with heavy squatting use a belt it will act as a counterforce to the abdominal pushing out."

Also, keep up that table tennis, it keeps the spine moving in mysterious ways and that's a good thing. Hope things turn out well!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. The chiropracter I went to visit also agrees with Michael Hope in that he said, I should focus mainly on lower weights without the belt until I can strengthen the back. This experience has also made me realize that squats for me ought to be a matter of helping me be more symmetrical rather than trying to compete.

You're right about TT, while its definitely not aerobic, I sure get a good sweat going and have to make very short but quick movements. That's got to be good for those tiny muscles in my back.

Overall this past week, I haven't had any amount of pain at all in my back and its been great!

Thanks Kris