Instantly Added 10 Pounds to my Press WOW!

[OZ-USF-UFGator]

I was a non-believer, but on Saturday, I did my 3 press work sets and then put my belt on (totally on a whim) and worked my way up in singles. I hit 200, which is a 10# PR and 5 pounds away from BW. May have hit 205 if I went straight for singles, rather than doing work sets first. I am presently surprised, and the belt recently added just under 10% to my deadlift too. The dam thing hurt my ribs when I first bought it, so I packed it up in my bag and ignored it for a long time.

I'm still a huge believer in lifting beltless (for "functional" reasons most on his board will disagree with), but after not using in over 2 years, I am now going to strategically use the belt on super-intensity days. I'm thinking 2018 is the year this 46 year old man deadlifts 600 (belted)

[skid]

Yep, belt, wrist wraps, solid shoes all eliminate leakage. Tense your core, glutes, legs, everything and be as stiff as can be for presses.

I believe you are doing a dis-service to yourself by not always doing heavy training with your belt as you will be lifting more weight with it.

[MarkMarkMark]

Functional

[Charlie Davies]

I'm quite kyphotic and am short of shoulder flexibility, I've got a bit of layback even at the top of the press. I have very little safe ROM remaining for the cool press 2.0 double layback hip motions.

That plus some bad lumbar disks means that press is somewhat risky for me. The belt is on whenever the bar has plates on it. Probably all us "elderly" lifters should belt their presses.

If I lose a bit more shoulder ROM I might have to switch to incline bench or landmine presses. That would suck.