IS my belt too tight?

[Lawrie Abbott]

Serious question....wore my new Best Belt yesterday while squatting 5 x 5.

I now have a bruise along where it sat on my gut.

It didn't feel too tight.

[Cody]

It's fine, most likely. You'll bruise for a while. For most people, you should be able to get your fingers in the belt but not past your most proximal knuckles.

[elVarouza]

New belts tend to do that as they break in.

[Bryan Dobson]

you should be carefull not to corset yourself and resrict your ability to fully expand your middle. THis is probably not the case with a new belt as the others have posted.

[Michael Stransky]

This tightness issue leads me to another thought. My buddy started training recently and sometimes he forgets to do hard valsava and I´m guilty of it as well sometimes. I was thinking that belt, when worn loose, could be used as a tactile cue to do valsava maneuver. Buddy told me that it helped him remember to contract hard every rep- not only harder, but to actually do it.

So my thought is, if someone, for whatever reason, doesn´t want to wear their belt tight, wearing it loose can provide added bonus of helping to remember to contract hard after taking big breath.

[Adam Skillin]

This tightness issue leads me to another thought. My buddy started training recently and sometimes he forgets to do hard valsava and I´m guilty of it as well sometimes. I was thinking that belt, when worn loose, could be used as a tactile cue to do valsava maneuver. Buddy told me that it helped him remember to contract hard every rep- not only harder, but to actually do it.

So my thought is, if someone, for whatever reason, doesn´t want to wear their belt tight, wearing it loose can provide added bonus of helping to remember to contract hard after taking big breath.

So use the loose belt to do a worse job of what the properly tightened belt is there for?

[melody]

This tightness issue leads me to another thought. My buddy started training recently and sometimes he forgets to do hard valsava and I´m guilty of it as well sometimes. I was thinking that belt, when worn loose, could be used as a tactile cue to do valsava maneuver. Buddy told me that it helped him remember to contract hard every rep- not only harder, but to actually do it.

So my thought is, if someone, for whatever reason, doesn´t want to wear their belt tight, wearing it loose can provide added bonus of helping to remember to contract hard after taking big breath.

What do you think the belt is for?

[Bryan Dobson]

I use the measure thatTwo finger widths should be able to slide under the belt( not gapped and sloppy but just firm with a little,give)'I can easily take that slack out without a valsalva, with a good deep belly breath and squeeze that belt gets extremely tight in the hole where it provides the most assistance in torso stability)!If it is too tight I cannot get as much air in ( the bigger belly of air I can get the more confident I feel going into the hole.)
I have heard both sides of the arguments. Eyeball popping I can't get this off by myself tight. And the two finger slack rule. As a paradox I wear the belt tighter on deadlift than the squat( to prevent it from sliding down from the Slightly higher position.)

[Lawrie Abbott]

Did some deads today...now I have a red full belt mark, top and bottom around my waist to go with the bruising.

Might be that I am carrying a bit of fat, which compresses a bit.

I'll try a bit looser tomorrow and see how it feels.

[afatgoat]

My buddy started training recently and sometimes he forgets to do hard valsava and I´m guilty of it as well sometimes.

This is the messed up part of this thread. In any lift, this is the first priority to maximizing the amount of lifted and preventing injury.