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By Paul Chek
The trend to wear a weight belt has extended
beyond the gym. Trash collectors, truck drivers, and construction
workers often spend their entire workday wrapped in a weight
belt. Some companies have gone so far as to make it a mandatory
safety policy that all their employees wear a back harness.
Visit any Home Depot, Office Club, or
take a look at the waist of your local package delivery person.
What do these employees all have in common? They're all wearing
weight belts! Next thing you know, it will not only be against
the law to drive without a seatbelt, it will be against the
law to operate a vehicle without a weight belt!
What's going on here? Do weight belts
really protect our back? Will they make us stronger? Can the
estimated 35-40 percent of people reporting back pain each
year, or the 70 percent of the population who will suffer
from at least one episode of back pain in their lives find
relief, and possibly even avoid surgery, by making a weight
belt a habit?
Before I answer these questions, try
to dig up recent pictures of the world's best Olympic weightlifters
in competition, but not the American weightlifters who are
losing the struggle to achieve international respect.
Look at photos of European weight lifters
who are continuously breaking records and winning world and
Olympic titles. Isn't it interesting that Europeans never
use belts when they perform the snatch lift? They're rarely
seen using one for the clean and jerk!
When
Did Belt Use Get Started?
A look through David Webster's book,
The Iron Game, demonstrates that there is a long history of
belt use in connection with heavy weight training.
Thomas Inch, publisher of Scientific
Weight Training (1905), is shown pressing two adult females
overhead with one hand, "while wearing a weight lifting
belt." This guy was no slouch either. He could clean
and jerk over 200 pounds. Not impressed? Perhaps I should
mention that he performed all this lift using only one hand.
One has to wonder, what is it that leads
a lifter to use a belt? Is it direction from coaches, did
these particular lifters have back pain in their lifting history,
did they only wear the belts when performing competition or
"max" lifts, or was a belt simply looked upon as
an insurance policy?
With a long history of corset use in
the medical field, particularly for back injury, perhaps the
lifters have been influenced by the medical approach to treating
back pain. Corsets have been used since the early 1900's for
the treatment of Scoliosis and back pain and quite possibly
much longer.
Therefore it is logical that a lifter,
wanting to make the right decision, would choose to use a
belt based on the medical establishment's use of belts, especially
considering the history and treatment of back pain dates all
the way back to 1500 BC!
Did
Developmental Man Wear Weight Belts?
Regardless of your opinion about the
origin of man, if you believe in God, you have to wonder why
he didn't provide weight belts as standard-issue equipment.
On second thought, maybe he did, and we just don't know how
to use them correctly. Perhaps we abuse our bodies, which
creates a dysfunction in our "natural weight belt"
and causes us to be reliant on an artificial one.
Belts,
Are They as Good as People Say They Are?
Certainly, if you could come up with
a product that supposedly reduced pain at the same time that
it improved performance, or at least appeared to, you could
make A LOT OF MONEY!
Just take a look around you next time
you are at the lumberyard, warehouse, or office supply store.
Chances are you will see employees wearing belts. As I eluded
to in the introduction, many furniture moving companies, chain
store organizations and package delivery companies have made
it mandatory for employees to wear belts.
Have the decisions made by companies,
corporations, workers and gym members been based on sound
research? Perhaps. But maybe it has been the scare tactics
and strong marketing techniques of belt companies that have
helped people make their decision.
There is certainly no shortage of claims
being made by belt manufacturers. For example, here are two
claims I pulled directly from the "Valeo" belt company's
web site:
The support helps workers perform their
duties while helping to protect their back from stress and
strain damage.
Reduces the likelihood of pain or injury for a variety of
activities.
If you can market a product based on
fear and emotion (both of which are highly correlated with
the back pain experience), chances are you will sell that
product and lots of it! Famous speaker, Zig Ziglar, states
that F-E-A-R is really False Evidence Appearing Real. This,
in my opinion, is the case with weight belts in general.
Apparently, the evidence supporting the
use of back belts did not even appear real to Lahad (JAMA
1994;272:1286-91) who identified 190 articles from 1966 to
1993 that focused on various interventions for the prevention
of low back pain. He concluded that sufficient evidence was
unavailable to recommend the use of mechanical back supports
for the prevention of back pain.
In another study conducted by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, prophylactic
use of back belts for healthy workers was not recommended
because of a lack of scientific evidence promoting their benefit
(Spine Vol. 23, No. 19, pp 2104-2109, 1998).
There are also many other studies indicating
belt use provides no significant improvement in performance
or reduction in the user's chance of injury (see original
article).
Getting
to the Bottom of the Elusive Obvious
To make this review of belt use complete,
it must be stated that there are numerous studies indicating
the use of back belts, weight belts and lumbar corsets improves
performance, endurance, and reduce chances of injury.
I have sited these studies in the reference
list (see original
article). Even though there are studies demonstrating
a supposed increase in performance while using weight belts,
there are many, if not more, studies indicating weight belts
are damaging and even worse, create dysfunction in their users.
As most of you reading this article are
aware, many gyms have racks of weight belts, as a service
to their members. I have already mentioned their widespread
use in the industrial workplace.
So then, if as stated above, a government
agency devoted to occupational health and safety doesn't support
belt use due to lack of scientific evidence, then what are
the belts providing that lead people to believe they help
reduce pain, prevent injury or improve performance? (see original
article for expanded details as to why this is true)
Conclusion
In this article I discussed several legitimate
considerations regarding chronic use of corsets, back belts,
and weight lifting belts. Available research clearly demonstrates
that belts are unable to stabilize the spine at a segmental
level, therefore only stabilizing the torso.
Gross stabilization, as provided by belts,
may allow you to lift more weight than you could without the
belt, indicating a stabilizer dysfunction within your body.
The increased weight being lifted as afforded to the lifter
by the belt will likely serve to traumatize the spine due
to increased levels of compression, torsion and sheer, increasing
the potential for a serious injury.
Caution should be exercised by those
using belts to increase "proprioception," as a belt
is clearly a form of "exteroceptive stimuli".
When the belt is removed, it is likely
to have accomplished little in improving proprioception, leaving
the lifter with an increased risk of injury secondary to belt
usage.
My clinical treatment of workers and
athletes with spine injuries has shown that chronic use of
weight lifting belts and back belts is highly correlated with
sensory-motor amnesia of the deep abdominal. Finally, weaning
yourself off a belt must be done carefully and in concert
with evaluation and treatment of any stabilizer deficit found
in the torso.
Paul
Chek Institute
March 2001
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