Squats, Belt, Bounce

[DutchPancakes]

Mr. Rippetoe,

I recently started using a belt for squats. I can lift more weight, more easily.

When I am wearing the belt, at the bottom I feel as though I am bouncing of my stomach. I don't mean that my belly is bouncing off my thighs, (I don't have a belly yet, but I am doing my best), I mean that I feel as though I am "bouncing" of my stomach muscles as they push against the belt.

It's not a bad feeling, but I am a whiney cowardly hypochondriac and i want to know if it's normal.

Thanks.

I've been on SS for 4 months. Started at 125lbs BW at 5ft7 and 33 years old. I am now 160lbs. I have no idea what my body fat is but I'm not jiggling much yet, so I don't care either. Squats 180, deadlift 210, press 100, bench 130, PC I can't seem to pull off but I'm not giving up. I don't know if that can be considered good progress. If not, I'll ramp it up.

[Mark Rippetoe]

With these numbers, I would not have you in a belt yet, and I'd have you about 25% stronger as well as cleaning. The bounce is the tightness provided by the belt interacting with your hip extension.

[DutchPancakes]

Thanks for that advice. I had a strong suspicion that I was wimping out.

By coincidence I only yesterday actually realized what it feels like to be contracting the muscles in my lower back to keep it tight, so I am confident that I won't need the belt for a while.

(I suppose if I had actually read the Active Hip article a while back, and had tried the superman position as described in SS, I wouldn't have wasted all this time).