What is the best style of lifting? Should you do CrossFit, lift like an athlete, like a bodybuilder, a powerlifter, or do group classes? This is always a hard decision to make. This is where understanding your goals is most important and that each has pros and cons.
The first model I am going to talk about is the CrossFit programming. What’s good about this model is that it makes you do the most complex lifts and high skilled lifts. This is great because you have to practice these movements from not just a range of motion perspective but a strength perspective. Where it goes wrong is applying to the intensity level and the reps used. The movements are complex. When just going through the motion or just doing as many reps as possible with complex moves, it can be very dangerous. When you're slightly off with an angle on a squat or deadlift, it can be the cause of an injury. When lifting to fatigue, this amplifies the ability of having an injury. This is because lifting to fatigue will cause you to lose form and technique. By being off a percentage angle, this can make a HUGE difference whether you get injured or not. It’s not that lifting to fatigue is bad but when it comes to complex lifts, the risk of injury goes up with fatigue.
The second one I want to talk about is lifting like an athlete. What athletes do really well is teach themselves how to twist, and with explosive technique. This is lost in a lot of programming today. Most of the time, people work on the frontal and posterior of the body. Athletes have to work in the transverse plane(twisting). This is why you can hear about someone who seems in perfectly good shape or strong, getting hurt by a simple twist. Another great thing is that athletes tend to work on explosiveness. You tend to lose explosiveness as you age and this is why you should have the ability to land or explode. People have been known to get hurt just getting off of a truck or needing to catch themselves when they miss a step off of a ladder. Being able to land and control explosiveness will help prevent injuries. This will help from a longevity standpoint. Most people lose health after falling or breaking a hip at an older age. If you are able to catch yourself, you have a better chance to live longer.
The next one I like to point out is body building. The great thing about body building is learning to be in the present moment. Another great thing is the ability to use concentration and learning to control your muscles. This is a big part of learning how to build muscle for yourself and move better. Through body building you learn to handle muscle in isolation. By learning how to move a single muscle through single movements, it will pay off with bigger movements like the squat.
The last one I’d like to look at is powerlifting. The big pro is getting as strong as possible. Strength is the foundation to all movement. Not only strength but you should be able to squat and deadlift your whole life because we use these movements every day. The bad part is for the long term is that lifting heavy recklessly can lead to an injury.
At the end of the day, the biggest question I get is how I manipulate this for the average individual. I believe you should be focused on all of these movements throughout the year. It’s simple: you should always work on mobility, practice the squat, the deadlift and complex moves. The main word I want to point out is practice because these are advanced moves that will challenge mobility. You should always have a phase like an athlete throughout the year to move in the transverse plane. Then you should always get stronger as the year goes on, but the last part is when your body feels like it is breaking down on the main movements, figure out what’s going on and isolate the body parts and build balance.
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