Today I’m going to explain the Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing to Lift More Weight and it’s not what you think. You might be thinking it’s a sets/reps or percentage combination. Maybe you are thinking it’s a specific training system or a magic exercise.
Sure those are all reasonable thoughts and could be true, except magic exercises, they don’t exist. But it is not any of those.
Wanna know what it is?
Glad you asked.
It’s bracing properly.
Don’t stop reading yet because you are thinking “Oh boy, another bracing article.” Yes this is another bracing article but it is going to give you something I am pretty sure you are not doing, or not doing enough.
Before I get to that I’m going to tell a little story. It’s not my fault that I do this, it’s the Irish in me. We tell stories.
So here it goes:
Whenever I go to Physical Therapy, and I have gone a lot, I try and learn as much as I can from my therapists on current trends, techniques, emerging knowledge and anything that will help me be a better coach.
For the past year or so I have been seeing the magicians at Refined Wellness, Doctor Justin and Doctor Nikki Kocan. They are both extremely talented Doctors of Physical Therapy and they use techniques that are much different than your standard PT factory. And they get results. Fast.
The other day I was talking with Nikki, who I call Dr. Stabby, because she does my Dry Needling and “stabs” me with needles, professionally of course. Nikki is a Pelvic Floor therapist and we discussed quite a bit about what this entails and how it is treated. That is a topic for another article. But in this conversation I asked her what the biggest issue she sees in this area and how I can prevent with my clients.
Nikki told me that the biggest thing she sees is a lack of a specific proper bracing strategy.
So, now I am going to reveal The Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing to Lift More Weight:
You are not lifting/controlling the pelvic floor properly in your bracing sequence.
Don’t know what the Pelvic Floor is?
Here is a great definition from Continecne.org.au:
The pelvic floor muscles give you the ability to control the release of urine (wee), feces (poo) and flatus (wind) and to delay emptying until it is convenient.
When you contract the pelvic floor muscles, they lift the internal organs of the pelvis and tighten the openings of the vagina, anus and urethra. Relaxing the pelvic floor allows passage of urine and feces.
This function is especially important if your urethral or anal sphincters (muscles) do not work normally, as may be the case after giving birth or after prostate surgery.
Pelvic floor muscles are also important for sexual function in both men and women. In men, it is important for erectile function and ejaculation. In women, voluntary contractions (squeezing) of the pelvic floor contribute to sexual sensation and arousal.
The pelvic floor muscles in women also provide support for the baby during pregnancy and need to be relaxed during the birthing process.
With that definition out of the way, how does this apply to bracing and lifting more weight?
Easy.
In order to brace optimally we need to inflate the belly 360 degrees, lift the Pelvic floor and drive the ribs down at the same time and then push out. Bracing is a learned skill and beginners have difficulty. Intermediate and Advanced lifters can do it well, but most lack one critical aspect.
Lifting the Pelvic Floor and maintaining it throughout the lift is very hard to do effectively for many and it can lead to less weight lots of issues including:
- Less weight lifted due to something in the chain breaking down due to a poor brace
- Injury because of the above
- PFD: Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
- Urinary Incontinence
- And others
So, if the The Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing to Lift More Weight is not bracing properly by lifting the Pelvic Floor, how do we correct it?
This one is easy to explain and difficult to do. It also might make you put your ego in check for a while.
Without getting into specific Pelvic Floor exercises, I’m going to give you a specific thing to focus on while training.
I suggest you begin doing this on warm up sets and do your best on work sets, and also to continually reinforce it on all Assistance and Accessory work. It may cause you to use less weight or get less reps because your entire torso is screaming but it will pay off quickly as you learn to brace optimally.
Mastering the bracing sequence will allow you to lift more weight, get more reps and lower your risk of injury. That makes it a winner to me.
I want all of you to focus on lifting the Pelvic Floor throughout every rep for every set.
Focus on it.
Once you lose it, simply reset it and continue through the rest of your set.
But Murph, you didn’t tell us how to do that!
You are correct. But I am going to now.
Lifting the Pelvic Floor can be described in very long, multi syllabic scientific words, but I prefer simple concepts.
The easiest way to lift the Pelvic Floor is to imagine you had to pee REALLY bad. Squeeze the muscles that stop the flow of urine hard. Squeeze and lift your taint.
As you begin your bracing sequence, do it like this:
- Inflate your belly 360 degrees
- Pretend you had to piss like a racehorse and squeeze and lift the muscles that stop you from peeing (and pooping)-keep them lifted
- Drive your bottom rib down and squeeze your ribs and hips towards each other maintaining the Pelvic Floor lift
- Force your abdominal wall out 360 degrees
- Do your lift while holding all of this as hard as you can
- Focus on the Pelvic Floor lift
- If any of this breaks down, stop and reset.
It’s going to be difficult at first. Keep at it.
It will pay off short term with bigger lifts and long term with lower injury rates.
The funny thing about this from a Coaches perspective is that we watch and diagnose movement patterns all the time, but this one is almost impossible to see. As Coaches, we can see it sometimes, but most of the time it is not perceptible, which makes it tough to identify.
This is one that is really up to the lifter to pay attention to for reasons stated above!
I’ve given you the Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing to Lift More Weight, now it is up to you to fix it.
Let me know if it helped.
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Vincere vel mori
C.J. Murphy
June 30, 2022
