3 Secrets to Maximising Your Weight Lifting
How to lift more with less effort, strain and injury
Many years ago I trained as a BAWLA (British Amateur Weight Lifters Association) coach. Since then many years of kung fu training and teaching has led me to further insights on biomechanics and efficient body use. These insights can make a huge difference to the way you lift weights or move anything that requires some strength.
I don’t go to gyms much these days but when I do I see people struggling with weights while putting their bodies in all sort so dangerous positions. Not only are they making it so much harder for themselves as they can’t target the muscles correctly but they are putting themselves at real risk of injury.
In this article I’ll talk about 3 areas — stability, balance and focus. I pretty much guarantee you will learn something new here.
Stability
One of the most important elements of weight training is stability. Your body must be very stable so that you can control the forces going through it. If you’re unstable in any way the force of lifting the weight will take unpredictable paths through your body. It will move parts of you unnecessarily and you have no control over that. In doing so it can easily cause injury.
A couple of years ago I saw a so-called Personal Trainer with a client in a gym. She was around 60 years old yet he had her pumping dumbbells while standing on a wobble board. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t a question of whether or not this would injure her. It almost certainly would. The only question was where and how badly.
The Chinese have mastered the art of physical stability more than any other culture. It is an essential element of kung fu training. When force builds up between 2 objects the least stable of them will be moved. If 2 men push each other usually the heaviest will be the more stable but through correct training of alignment and body mechanics you can make yourself very stable indeed. This means you can push around people much bigger than you are. It also means you can lift heavier weights more easily. Read on to find out how.
Balance
Balance ties in with stability but it’s not quite the same. You can be unbalanced and yet still fairly stable. Equally you could be unstable yet balanced eg standing on one leg.
Any time you are out of balance, even slightly it affects your strength.
Any movement you do when out of balance will be a compromise. If you try to lift a weight and you are out of balance only part of your force can go into lifting the weight. The rest will be involved in preventing you from falling over. Remember the lady on the wobble board.
Again balance is a crucial element of kung fu training. Without it you have no stability, no ability to react quickly to change and it creates anxiety in your mind. Remain in balance at all times. A lot of kung fu training is about staying balanced physically and mentally. Through this heightened sense of balance they gain control over every part of their body as well as their mind and emotions.
Focus
This is an interesting one. Very few people realise that you can change the way you do a movement completely by changing which part of your body you’re focusing on.
Try it now. Relax one arm down. Then focus on your fingers and raise and lower the arm a few times. Get used to what that feels like. Now focus on your upper arm just below your shoulder and raise your arm again. Now it will feel much heavier. You have changed the way you lifted it and involved different muscles.
The part of your body you’re focusing on when lifting weights can make a massive difference to your lift
Putting it together
I can’t give you precise instructions here as each lift will be different. A dead lift will of course be different than a bicep curl. But the tips below will help with not just lifting but many other areas in life.
1. Always start from a position of balanced stability.
Keep both feet flat on the floor facing forwards if possible. Slightly wider than hip distance with knees slightly bent but over your feet not tracking inwards. Keep your back straight. In fact make back exercises a regular part of your routine. No part of your body is more important. Remember any time there is a weight in front of your body your back muscles have to work hard to maintain your balance.
2. You want the force of the lift to go down through your body.
To do this you need to be connected through your legs and into the earth. If the force gets locked up in any unnecessary muscles it could strain them to the point of injury. To connect your upper body onto your legs you need to tuck your tailbone (base of spine) under slightly so it’s pointing down. This is such a key point yet little known. Again the Chinese have known about this for thousands of years.
Equally to connect your arms to your torso your shoulders must be down. This engages the lats which firmly connect your arms to your body.
3. Relax your body down
As you are lifting try to keep the rest of your body relaxed down into the earth. This way you are only using your energy in your lift. It also increases your stability and trains you to stay relaxed under pressure.
4. Where to focus.
Well this depends on the lift, on you, on the environment and other factors. The best thing is to experiment. See what works best for you. The difference between focusing on a good place and not focusing at all are staggering. You could literally double your lift by getting this right.
A good place to start is your tailbone. This is a crucial pivot point and directs the forces down into your legs. It also encourages a straight back as you lift.
Depending on the lift other good places to experiment with include your knees, shoulder blades, hips etc. Note that none of these are where you are actually holding the weight. That is probably the worst place to focus. But it depends on your goal. Focus on your hands will put more strain in biceps if that is your goal.
Experiment, experiment then experiment again and have fun doing so. It will put some life back into your lifting. Also do mention in the comments what has worked well for you. Maybe it will help others too.
