Re: Controversies in Olympic Weightlifting
Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 8:40 am
cmoney wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 4:25 amthese sorts of demos are basically applied kinesiology at play. Sorry, can't find the good quality vid of this Amazing Randi classic:MattNeilsen wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:33 pm You know, the more I learn about training the more hesitant I become to comment on weird stuff like this...but damn, it sure sounds like bullshit. I guess I can see a mechanism whereby someone simply learns to use a better motor program through "activation" training, but I'm color me skeptical.
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But that's basically what's going on. The same goes for a lot of "mobility" demonstrations.
I too have seen some of those videos. When I read the following passage in The Book <angelic sounds>, I thought, hmmm... doesn't sound like a carefully-conducted experiment to me.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Mr Rippetoe wrote: Do an experiment or two to demonstrate for yourself the effect of gaze direction. Assume the bottom position with knees out, toes out, and heels down. Put your chin down slightly and look at a point on the floor 4 or 5 feet in front of you. Now drive your hips up out of the bottom, and take note of how this feels. Now do the same thing while looking at the ceiling. If you have a training partner or coach, get in the bottom position and have him block your hips, with a hand placed firmly on your lower back and pushing straight down, so that you have something to push up on, but not so that he pushes you forward. Push up against the resistance while looking down at your floor focus point, and note the effectiveness of your hip drive and the power it produces. Then try this movement again while looking up. You will discover an amazing thing – that the chin-down (looking down keeps the chin down), eyes-down position enables your hip drive to function almost automatically. In contrast, the upward eye gaze pulls the chest forward, the knees forward, and the hips forward – just a little, but enough to produce a profound effect. It slacks the hamstrings and all the posterior muscles we are trying to keep tight so that we can use them to drive the hips up. The first time you do this experiment will convince you that looking down is more efficient.