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I would have agreed with you strictly from a purist perspective b/c the squats go something like:

text book paused ATG FS -> text book paused ATG BS -> ... -> belted barely parallel lowbar squat

but purity aside, what's best for athleticism? it need not be the exact same thing.

belts help with IAP yes but that's not all they're doing. They also help the leg muscles contract harder (hams, quads, glutes). That part might be cause or effect (im not sure) but the effects all put together are helping train the lower body to contract more forcefully. Now with the belt the torso also has greater time under tension AND finally for most ppl the belt helps exactly where the squat gets hardest (the sticking point) which is about halfway up. The belt allows you to continue producing force at that very point to help complete the lift (more time under tension). It's basically a way to make the squat more efficient. The IAP alone might be worth the price of admission but if that's all it was achieving it's not why it's a more athletic way to squat. I'm still a squat purist but from a holistic perspective, training with a belt a will get you more gains and that's a good thing. Training with a belt and without a belt offer good synergy because there is a carry over there. All of this will be proven if i can get my vertical back to 32" now that i've started using a belt.

i don't know how it'll prove it tho.. you had your vert up to like ~36" without belt squatting? i recall you getting way up not so long ago .. during/after your first few real bouts with high frequency heavy squatting.

if belt gets you to 38-40", i'll wear one for one set.



if anything, i feel like your nutritional/bodyweight fluctuations/cuts have more to do with your vert going down than your squatting/belt etc. those fluctuations are rough physically and mentally. if you are lifting hard and eating alot, yet still lean, you'll perform at a much higher level on avg.

pC!

Not to belabor the point but i think i understand the objection against belted squatting for optimal athletic gains - it's a syllogism of the form:

- powerlifters use lots of gear. powerlifters are not athletic - ergo gear does not build athleticism and it may detract from it

and i understand that perfectly well. But lets stop and think about hte typical powerlifter. They've probably never jumped (or sprinted or done anything remotely athletic) in their life. It's a sport which self-selects for those who don't have the skill or talent for actual athletic activity. Powerlifters are the rejects of the athletic world, those who can't athlete, powerlift. Huge generalisation i know but it's probably mostly true. Weightlifters are the gifted athletes among strength sports. Mediocre weightlifters are usually mediocre athletes.

Powerlifters train for minimal depth and do the slow lifts in an especially slow manner, agian, not what im talking about. If you use a belt and grind out every rep from start to finish with borderline depth, that's not going to build athleticism anymore (or less) than a straight up pause squat san belt. To get the athletic benefit out of the belt you want adequate depth AND a strong rebound which is faciliated by wearing the belt.

If you took the average person and trained them with a belt keeping in mind depth and bar speed you'd see more athletic gains than if they were using relatively lighter weights with no belt and/or paused (two extremes). the former would give the best carryover and the latter the least.

Quote from: maxent on December 09, 2018, 10:43:15 pm

no way of measuring on the road

watch plus map?

i tried it this morning. i lost my battery about 20s into the run(my 'gym' phone has no back lid!). then i had a nice run of about 6 minutes before i ran out of road (But i was ded also). i managed to get speed of around 15km/hr which i couldn't sustain but it was so much fun. just very very different from treadmill running. wanted to pace myself to run 5km without breaks and i failed at that, gps kept dropping out and that killed my buzz when the phone announced that. it was hot and im not sure i'd wanna do that very often in the summer :/

think mutumbo's suggestion of running on grass might be the way to go. just need to get my shit together and find a nice place to run in the evenings where ppl are't walking their dogs etc

Bodyweight(AM): 81.5kg (12th dec)
Diet compliance: 1/1 days
Daily Squat: 26/26 days
Daily Run: 25/25 days
Basketball skill work:

Training:
AM Warmup run 1km
AM Fast run 2x[11min, 2km, 10.9 km/hr] (PR)
PM Squat 6x100, 6x110, 3x120, 2x130 (paused 1st rep on all these)
PM Belted Squat 1x130, 1x137.5, 10x110
PM OHP 6x50, 2x57.5, 5x52.5, 5x52.5
PM Chinup 3x12, 3x8, 5xBW
PM Back Xtn 12x(Band, 20kg plate)

Notes:
Been neglecting upper body lately, went for a full body workout for a change.

Bodyweight(AM): 82.3kg (14th dec)
Diet compliance: 3/3 days
Daily Squat: 28/28 days
Daily Run: 27/27 days
Basketball skill work:

Training:
AM medium run 6.66km, 40 min @ 10 km/hr (PR)
PM BS 6x100, 6x115, 3x125, 1x130 (paused 1st rep on all these), 1x132.5
PM Belted BS 1x135, 1x142.5, 10x112.5
PM BP 8x40, 6x50
PM Dips 8xBW
PM Sprints 2x400m; 10x100m tempos

Notes:
Got really frustrated at my gym today. I walked out my max and i was about to squat it and this girl starts to head down to the weight tree just behind me. It's not her fault, the gym staff are clearly to blame for setting it up so badly but i aborted the rep and put the bar back angrily. A few minutes later i tried again and got the rep but it was a bad rep. So i can't max out at this gym, i need to find another one real soon. Losing patience at how long it's taking me to get to where i was earlier in the year when i was maintaining a 150kg EOD max raw. Now im struggling to put 142.5kg up with a belt? Sucks.

Finally i did some track works again tonight ...    thought to try tempos.

one suggestion: for your harder efforts, run more by feel than by looking at the watch .. then look at the watch afterwards (at the end of the lap, or after the workout etc). use that feedback to tweak what you felt. if you look at your watch going fast, you're going to be alot less relaxed, run alot harder than you should, etc.. first put the distance in your head, that you are about to run, then take off but gradually, staying loose and just "going hard" but whatever "hard" is relative to that endpoint or lap distance you put in your head.

Thank you, that's solid advice! i will keep that in mind.

for slower runs, you can look at your watch right away. as long as it's relaxed, you can work on pacing etc by getting feedback from the watch.

today was the first time i looked at the watch while running 400m repeats and i saw for the first 200m i was doing a really fast pace (for me) of 3 min something. But as i progressed thru the run around 300m i could see my pace begin to fall off to around 4 mins.  it was pretty illuminating cos you know intuitively that you're slowing but to see the numbers really solidifies it for me. by the way, the way i feel on the last 100m - that's exactly how i play 99% of full court basketball games (yes only competition no pickup). so does this give any sort of notion on how to structure training to improve my game fitness?

so ya, don't get real-time feedback from your watch initially, unless it's just like a short stride or something (~50m) .. hard efforts w/ watch feedback, can be rough. have to get used to it.

on the 100m tempos i noticed the watch was nailing the 100m distance as i finished them, which was nice to see cos i had concerns about accuracy.

you'll probably make some solid improvement over the next few months if you keep it up .. you might be surprised.

im pretty much PR every single time i train (daily -- morning treadmill runs and evening track). but the frustrating part is my present fitness is prob a lot lower than what most basketball players would begin with (with no training). i dont even believe my training will actually really achieve anything about my bad fitness, think it might be genetic but if it does, i'll be super delighted to be surprised.

I jusg want to do a quick post on daily training as ive hit the 4 week mark today. Every morning i've done a treadmill run and a max squat session at lunch time. Last 2 days ive added an evening track session as well. Daily training is probably the best program for someone like me (=hard gainer). It's been freeing to just take every day as just another day, there are no special days in training which you dread or worry about 'recovery' since you train daily, every day is just another day. You  don't worry about recovery because your body just normalises being recovered. In a way what daily training has achieved that is most valuable is being very good at recovery. All those years babying my body in lieu of recovery just seems to be a huge waste of time in comparison because it turns out recovery is something trainable too.

In terms of gains, my warmup squat sets look super smooth, technically crisp and bar speed is incredible. I reach a point in every workout where things slow down and form begins to deteriorate, if someone else was more disciplined and patient then they could do more work under that threshold but i've got a timeline to adhere to so i've been pushing the envelop past that point every day.

The most impressive thing  so far is probably the development of lower leg strength and size which i attribute to daily running. Avoiding cardio seems to be the biggest mistake of all now, not only does it help recovery in a big way but it also helps develop the lower leg musculature which lifting never did.

In terms of actually getting fit, 4 weeks in, im still i'd say way below average for someone who plays sport. But im also holding a lot of water (due to chronic bad broken sleep) so when i figure out how to start sleeping better, i'll probably find my bodyweight drops and i'll be a bit closer to average fitness. Far away from PRs in the weight room still.

Lets see what the next 4 weeks bring!

Bodyweight(AM): 81.6kg (16th dec)
Diet compliance: 5/5 days
Daily Squat: 30/30 days
Daily Run: 29/29 days
Basketball skill work:

Training:
AM Hard run 3x5:40 repeats of 1.33km @ 12.5km/hr for a total of 4km (PR)
PM BS 6x100, 6x120, 3x130 (paused 1st reps), 1x137.5, Belted BS 1x145, 12x117.5(PR)
PM BP 5x70, 3x80, 1x90, 6x75
PM Dips 3x6x20
PM Back Xtn 1x15(+20kg, bands)
PM Tempo run 10x100m @ 20s with walking recovery

Notes:
So it's annoying having my squat run and run run off by one. lol. im just going to pretend i didn't do one day of squatting to start with and that way i'll have the same number of days at 30 starting tmr. Long term it will make it easier.

That hard run was brutal. I'm realising why the (lifting biased) internet hates cardio so much lol. it's easier doing a hard set that's over in a minute, minute-and-half max than the hellish torture of sustaining a hard pace. I wanted to die/quit all thru that run. 

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Nice work!

Thanks. I really appreciate the support, esp with the track suggestion. I'm really enjoying it