Can Martial Arts Training Help Prevent Child Abductions?
A pedophile will hesitate to go near a child who brims with martial arts training confidence.
With so many children being abducted every year by strangers, it’s certainly reasonable for parents to wonder how effective martial arts training can be at stifling abductions or even preventing attempts at kidnapping.
Master Dan Vigil of Dan Vigil’s Academy of Taekwondo in Northville, MI, knows something about childhood bullying.
Vigil was the victim of bullies himself — not one bully here and there, but many classmates on an ongoing basis — and only when he discovered martial arts was he able to reverse the bullying (without physical aggression) and develop healthy self-esteem.
First of all, this article isn’t about how to teach an 8-year-old how to kick a 170-pound man flat on his back.
Of course, a predator can be scared off by the size of the fight in a child, as was the case with David Moore, 39, who tried to abduct a 4-year-old in the presence of the child’s 7-year-old cousin.
The 7-year-old, A’Nari Taylor, wasted no time pulling, kicking and hand chopping at the man, who eventually gave up and ran off (and was later apprehended).
The girl had never before taken martial arts lessons, but had been expressing a desire to prior to the abduction attempt.
“Child abductors, in most cases, are looking for easy victims,” says Vigil. “All children, regardless of age and gender, can be taught how to recognize a dangerous adult. We teach kids there are certain things no adult would ever ask a child to do.”
And some examples of that are:
-Helping find a lost puppy or kitten
-Helping load something in or out of a car
-Give directions
-Enter a van to pose for photos for a “modeling scout”
Vigil explains, “If children learn to avoid these lures, it can go a long way toward anti-abduction.”
Martial arts teaches so much more than kicking and hand-strike techniques. Kids (and adults) are taught to be more aware of their surroundings.
The development of the physical skills carries over to gait pattern when walking on a sidewalk. Predators aren’t looking for kids who walk with confidence or who possess what appears to be a high degree of awareness.
“Finally, we teach them how to fight back and make a lot of noise doing it,” says Vigil.
Though it’s not likely that a young child can knock an adult to the ground, they can be taught to deliver techniques that temporarily halt the predator, giving the intended victim a chance to bolt.
Older kids, indeed, can develop sufficient prowess to drop their attacker.
Children need not be in the martial arts for years and years to develop enough skills to deflect an abduction attempt.
Martial arts, like Vigil says, teaches students to make noise and carry themselves with confidence, making predators assume that they are anything but easy targets.
“Everything is aimed at the child not being an easy target and thereby avoiding an attempt altogether,” says Vigil.
A high quality martial arts program will engage children in role-playing with make-believe abductors, buffing up the student’s skill at verbally deflecting a kidnapping attempt.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Source: miamiherald.com/2013/02/25/3253700/miami-girl-who-saves-cousin-from.html
Top image: Freepik/master1305
Do All School Bullies Learn Mean Behavior from Parents?
Should you assume that a bully has parents who bully him or her?
Just what kind of parents do youth bullies typically have in the first place?
Do parents of bullies bully their kid?
“This is actually a common misnomer,” says Rona Novick, PhD, who developed the BRAVE bully prevention program.
A clinical psychologist, Novick has worked with schools nationally on the issue of bullying, and is director of the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Doctoral Program at Yeshiva University, NY.
“Children who are abused by their parents rarely bully others – abused children are usually timid and fearful,” continues Dr. Novick.
“While many abusing adults were, in fact, abused as children,” adds Dr. Novick, “during their vulnerable childhood years, abused children usually appear timid and fearful.”
However, Dr. Novick notes that there actually is some research that finds that parents of bullies may use more authoritarian styles of discipline.
“What is more likely, is that children who bully have witnessed their parents use bullying tactics on others.
“They may see Mom or Dad abuse their power to get their way with waiters, dry cleaners, teachers, neighbors, or other family members.”
Is your child a bully? Can’t figure out why?
Ask yourself how you respond to solicitors at your doorstep or telemarketers on the phone, and if your kids have witnessed your behavior.
Dr. Novick also points out that the child, who’s a bully at school, may witness their father bully around their mother, or vice versa.
Yes, sometimes the family bully is the woman of the house. And bullying doesn’t have to be physical. Words can strike as hard as a fist.
When parents bully each other, this sends the message that this behavior is acceptable and even a recommended way to solve problems and obtain goals.
“A more subtle way parents ‘teach’ children that bullying is acceptable is their response to it when they see it,” continues Dr. Novick.
“When parents see an older sibling bully the younger one, and do nothing, they communicate that bullying is not a problem.
“When parents see/hear/learn that their child has used their power to hurt another and they do not communicate their disapproval, children assume they approve.”
Have you ever seen parents throw a temper tantrum in an store when they couldn’t return merchandise, and in the shopping cart is a preschooler following the situation with big eyes?
That may be your future high school bully.
Dr. Novick is recognized for her expertise in behavior management and child behavior therapy. She has published scholarly articles on school applications of behavior management, children and trauma, and bully prevention in schools.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Can Tons of Cardio EVER Cause Lots of Weight Loss?
Is there a way you can lose lots of weight with lots of cardio exercise?
Have you read that cardio won’t cut it for weight loss? How MUCH cardio must you do to lose all the weight you want?
Well, in good theory, if you walked five hours a day nonstop at 3 mph, you’d lose weight.
Or if you jogged nonstop two hours a day at 6 mph, you’d lose weight.
You’d lose all the weight you want with only cardio if you wanted to lose only 10 pounds, too. But what if you’re fat?
Maybe you’ve already been doing what seems like tons of cardio and have lost only a few pounds–not the amount that you should have lost after all this time and all that effort.
And what’s with marathon runners being so thin, with all that running they do?
Though most people who desperately want to lose large amounts of weight would like to trade their body in for that of a marathon runner’s, ask yourself if you truly, genuinely want the build of a competitive marathon runner: gaunt, frail looking?
Yes, lots of cardio, in the form of hard marathon training, over time will cause weight loss, but we also must assume that most competitive marathon runners were never fat!
Many began running in high school when they were already thin.
But there are marathon runners who used to be overweight. Losing weight with lots of running is a painful way to do it–you have to really love running to commit to this plan.
Are you willing to run dozens of miles a week at a hard pace?
When I was a personal trainer I never told my clients that the secret to losing lots of weight is to do tons of cardio. Never.
Instead, I preached high intensity interval training (HIIT).
High intensity interval training yields a spectacular hormonal response that culminates in a fat-burning response like you’ve never had before.
Why can’t you lose weight despite tons and tons of cardio exercise?
Because long duration, or steady state aerobics, absolutely fails to incite this hormonal response. Hormones control metabolism and fat-burning; we can manipulate those hormones through exercise!
You need not spend hours and hours killing your feet doing cardio, running, jogging, stepping and pedaling to burn stubborn body fat.
High intensity interval training will strip body fat with sessions as short as 20 minutes.
Forget about tons of cardio for weight loss unless you love to run for endless amounts of time.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Freepik.com master1305
How to Do HIIT if You’re Fat: Do Not Let Size Stop You
Here’s a guide for fat people who want to do HIIT: high intensity interval training.
Yes, fat people can do HIIT safely and lose tons of weight this way.
When I was a personal trainer I’d have my very plus-size clients doing HIIT.
There is no medical reason why a clinically healthy overweight person cannot or should not do high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Though HIIT is often applied to very fast running (sprinting), this doesn’t mean that running is the only way to perform this super fat-burning type of workout.
When it comes to high intensity interval training, it’s all about effort, not performance or speed.
Thus, a good HIIT workout for someone who’s very overweight could be simply walking as fast as possible up a slight street hill, then turning around and slowly walking back to the starting point to recover, then walking as fast as they can back up that hill.
This will be enough to really exhaust them, even though running or high speeds are not involved.
More Options
Overweight individuals who hate the idea of having to walk as fast as possible can do high intensity interval training on a stationary bike or elliptical trainer.
Shutterstock/Nomad_Soul
This means pedaling as fast as possible for 30 seconds, then pedaling nice and easy for 1-2 minutes before blasting out another 30 seconds.
The 30 seconds can be based purely on pedaling speed with a light pedal tension, or, you can increase pedal tension and work as much as possible against the tension – this would not be your fastest pedaling in the absolute sense, but it would be your fastest against that particular tension setting.
The bottom line is that the settings for that 30 second segment are such that 30 seconds leaves you nearly breathless.
Additional HIIT Modes
- Cardio rowing machine
- Stepping platform (very low height)
- Marching in place while holding small dumbbells
- Stair climbing
Safety of HIIT for Fat Men and Women
If you’re overweight and concerned about the safety of high intensity interval training on your heart, you should get a thorough evaluation by a cardiologist which includes a cardiac stress test.
If an overweight person is worried about their joints, then they can do high intensity interval training on a stationary bike, elliptical machine or revolving staircase, which provide low impact to the knees and lower back.
By definition, HIIT is very intense, so intense that you can’t exceed 30 or so seconds for each work interval.
What can be done in water such that, after 30 seconds, it’s impossible to continue? Hardcore lap swimming.
If an overweight person can swim with grueling intensity, then they should do this for HIIT.
However, simply walking in the pool holding Styrofoam “dumbbells” is not intense enough to qualify as HIIT.
Remember, this article is about high intensity interval training, not just any movement.
An overweight person can safely perform high intensity interval training by walking inclines, as this, too, produces minimal impact.
However, if you hold onto a treadmill while walking, this will cancel out the incline as well as the general effect of walking, and you’ll end up getting no results and likely bad “molding” of your spine. Swing your arms instead.
WRONG. Continuous holding onto a treadmill will not trigger fat loss, nor will it produce a difference in fitness and stamina in daily living where you don’t hang onto anything while walking.
HIIT is very doable for very plus-size men and women of all ages.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/ MarcusVDT
How to Do HIIT on the Stair Climber
If you normally use the stair climber for your cardio training, why not do high intensity interval training on this equipment?
I must admit, I’ve never seen anybody do high intensity interval training (HIIT) on the stair climber–other than some of my personal-training clients when I was a trainer some years ago.
Of course, I myself have done HIIT on the stair climber (revolving staircase).
To get in an effective HIIT routine on the stair climber, you must first get used to the idea of using the stair climber without hanging onto it.
I don’t know why people feel they must clutch the rails. If you were to work out on the staircase of a high rise, or an outdoor staircase like those at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado, you wouldn’t hang onto anything.
The purpose of high intensity interval training for many people is to burn as much fat as possible.
Holding onto the stair climber will suppress the burning of at least 20 percent of the calories that you’d burn without holding on.
The work segments of high intensity interval training must be brutal for maximal fat-burning following the exercise (the after-burn effect).
- Holding onto the stair climber rails will prevent this optimization of fat-burning.
- So start slowly without using the rails and get used to this.
For high intensity interval training on the stair climber, each work segment lasts 30 seconds, which you can easily track on the machine’s clock.
Simply bring up the stepping speed to a pace that’s difficult to maintain, and go for 30 seconds. At the end of 30 seconds, bring the speed back down to a slow climb.
If you need to hold onto the rail to bring the speed down (because by then you should be heavily fatigued), then do so, but only to adjust the speed.
How fast should HIIT on stair climber be?
Experiment by increasing the speed a bit more with each work segment. So if the stair climber goes up to level 20, try level 10 for 30 seconds.
If that wasn’t maximal output, then for the next segment, see how level 13 feels like, and so on, until you find the level that you can barely sustain for about 30 seconds, after which you are absolutely utterly breathless.
This will be level 16 for some people, 18 for others, and for the fittest, level 20.
Remember, you are not – I repeat – not to hang onto the rails! At some point in the increasing of the speed, you will find that it’s not possible to walk the steps, but rather, it’s necessary to trot or “run” them. You’ll worry that you’ll stumble and fall if you don’t hold on.
This is why it’s important to practice hands-free with slower speeds first, and get used to this, before attempting it at fast speeds.
Trotting hands-free is not Olympic-level athleticism, so don’t underestimate yourself.
I’m telling you, hands-free at level 20 on the stair climber is furious high intensity interval training and will smoke the fat right out of your body!
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Jovan Barajevac
Can Parents Make Their Child Immune to Bullying?
How do you define “bully-proofing” your child?
There are things you can do that will help prevent your child from becoming that tortured person who eventually attempts suicide.
There’s a lot out there on “bully-proofing” your children. But is it possible?
“There is no such thing as a bully-proof child,” says Rona Novick, PhD, who developed the BRAVE bully prevention program.
A clinical psychologist, Novick has worked with schools nationally on the issue of bullying, and is director of the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Doctoral Program at Yeshiva University, NY.
“Bullying is so common, virtually all children will experience it at some point in their school career (current research suggests rates over 90%).”
Be aware that there are different levels of bullying; bullying is on a continuum.
Some kids are bullied only within their circle of friends, while others are the individuals whom “everyone picks on.”
And interestingly, some victims even become friends with their bullies eventually.
“In addition, since bullies tend to target victims who react emotionally, and since emotional reactivity is largely a factor of temperament and biological, parents can’t change a reactive child into a cool cucumber,” explains Dr. Novick.
The term “bully-proof,” then, can simply mean doing what you can, as a caring parent, to minimize the risk of bullying.
And this begins by supporting a child’s social development, says Dr. Novick. Being more alone, she says, puts a young person at higher risk of being bullied.
Parents must help their children make and keep friends. However, this can’t be forced any more than you, as an adult, can be forced to feel genuine kinship with a coworker whom you don’t care for.
Lead and encourage, but don’t force play dates or other unwanted interactions.
Another group of individuals who are highly vulnerable to being harassed at school are those with cross-gender behavior or same-gender attraction.
Tomboys, effeminate boys, and gay-lesbian, transgender and questioning-youth are very vulnerable to bullying and also benefit from parental support, explains Dr. Novick.
Thus, if parents have noted that a child doesn’t seem to be snuggly fitting into society’s expectations of their gender, parents need to show unconditional love and avoid criticizing their son or daughter.
This non-judgmental approach can go a long way in “bully proofing” a child.
Dr. Novick is recognized for her expertise in behavior management and child behavior therapy. She has published scholarly articles on school applications of behavior management, children and trauma, and bully prevention in schools.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
Bench Pressing Won’t Replace Breast Reduction Surgery
Stop using fear of shrunken breasts to avoid bench pressing, ladies!
Some women worry that bench presses will reduce the size of their breasts. This is absolutely not true! Benching recruits primarily chest muscles.
The muscles of the chest are not located in the breasts. In fact, a woman’s prized feature has no muscle.
If you think breasts have muscle, try making one move independently of contracting a chest muscle.
Chest muscles (pectoralis major and minor) are situated deeper into the body, and have absolutely nothing to do with breast size.
Breasts are composed of fatty tissue. If you think bench pressing makes breasts smaller, then men who have “man boobs” would certainly have an easy fix-it solution in the bench press, wouldn’t they? But they don’t.
That’s because the motion of bench pressing will not make breasts smaller.
However, a woman who seriously takes up chest pressing will also seriously take up strength training other parts of her body.
And when a woman commits to a serious strength training regimen, she usually duplicates this commitment in the areas of cardio and diet.
The result? Loss of body fat over her entire body. This includes some of the fat in her breasts, creating the illusion that perhaps one of her weight-lifting routines shrunk them.
No. What made her breasts smaller is loss of body fat that resulted from the increased metabolic rate triggered by her exercise regimen, in combination with fat loss from a better diet.
So then, how come it seems that women who do a lot of bench pressing have small breasts? I myself have not made this observation. But some women have.
Well again, a woman who does a lot of chest pressing probably also does a lot of other strength training routines, perhaps routines that you haven’t seen her doing because maybe you keep running into her on her chest pressing days.
And she probably puts in some serious cardio workouts — and hence, has a low body fat percentage.
I’ve never heard of a woman doing only serious bench press work and nothing else.
Even women who compete in pressing competitions train other parts of their body, especially since heavy chest pressing requires strong shoulders and triceps.
Women who compete in benching also often compete in other routines, and hence, work their entire body for best competitive performance.
I’ve seen plenty of well-endowed women bench pressing, and have not observed any correlation between this exercise and breast size. So ladies, go ahead and start bench pressing.
This won’t shrink your breasts any more than dumbbell presses will, or the “butterfly” machine will.
Ironically, some women believe that bench pressing will make their breasts bigger!
This, too, is completely untrue. Remember, fat is fat, and muscle is muscle. Weight-lifting does not build fat.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/4 PM production
How to Stop Arching Your Back when Bench Pressing
You can learn to stop arching your back while bench pressing.
The first thing you can do that will make it easier to stop arching your back while performing the bench press, is to watch someone else committing this mistake.
Yes, watch them, and you will see how erroneous this looks.
That’s how you look. This doesn’t fool your pecs one bit.
Sometimes, the back arch is done during the bench press because the person wants to be seen handling a heavy barbell, and the only way to move the barbell is to arch the back.
Even if the barbell is heavy for your body weight, you won’t impress anybody.
The next step is to abandon the idea of handling the weight load that you arch your back for.
If you can’t maintain proper form with a particular weight load, then stop using that weight load.
Bad form with heavy weights won’t progress you as quickly as good form with lighter weights.
There’s a woman I see at the gym who dramatically arches her back when bench pressing — the barbell is 135 pounds. She wants to be seen bench pressing 135 pounds.
However, what everyone sees is an exaggerated vertebral arch, and not only that, but she brings the bar down only halfway for every rep.
Do you do this?
And if so, is it to be seen handling a heavy barbell, or do you really believe that a big back arch (especially coupled with incomplete reps) will make you stronger and bigger?
Though an extreme back arch in a bench press is the norm for powerlifting competition (and training for such), many gym-goers arch their back for any reasons BUT training for a powerlifting competition.
Use lighter weights so that you are not tempted to arch your back when bench pressing.
People don’t care how much weight you have on the barbell as much as you think they do.
The next tip is to place both feet on the bench, legs bent, while lifting. You won’t be able to arch your spinal column this way.
Keep your feet on the bench for the entire set. The flat back will force your chest muscles to do much more work than if you arch your spine while your feet are on the floor.
Arching your back while bench pressing is called a muscle substitution pattern, and that’s exactly what it sounds like it is:
Some chest muscle fiber gets substituted out by leg and lower back muscles when the bench press is performed with an arched back.
When you bench press, do you want to build your chest/arms, or lower back and legs?
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Depositphotos.com
Why Obese Children SHOULD Lift Weights
If your child is obese, it’s SO SAFE to get him/her into weightlifting for fantastic benefits!
Obese children in particular will greatly benefit from lifting weights, and this article explains the details.
Obese children as young as seven years can begin a supervised weightlifting program.
As a former personal trainer I strongly endorse strength training for overweight children.
So does Mayoclinic.com; the site says that kids can begin strength training “as early as age 7 or 8,” and that “strength training can become a valuable part of an overall fitness plan.”
Before I explain the tremendous benefits of weightlifting for obese children, I first want to briefly dispel a few myths.
“Lifting weights will stunt growth.”
Wrong. Smoking and poor nutrition may stunt growth. Strength training will not disrupt growth plate development.
This myth probably arose from the fact that often, a gym’s most muscled guys are on the short side.
This is better explained by short stature inspiring a man to build muscle since he can’t grow taller.
“Lifting weights is dangerous for children.”
With proper instruction and supervision, kids are far less likely to suffer injuries from strength training than from supposedly “safer” sports.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that playground injuries are the No. 1 reason children under 10 visited the ER between 2001 and 2009.
Think lifting weights is more dangerous than riding a bike?
For boys 10-19, bike riding was a leading cause of head injuries.
For girls 10-19 it was bike riding, soccer and basketball.
Head injuries are extremely rare in weightlifting.
But what about musculoskeletal injuries?
The Consumer Products Safety Commission reports that basketball, cycling, football and soccer — in that order, head the list (e.g., 500,000 injuries a year in soccer).
Of course, millions of young kids play these sports, while millions of young kids do NOT lift weights.
Absolute numbers aside, strength training is slow, involves no wheels or possible collisions with other athletes, does not involve airborne objects, has very little slip-and-fall risk, and does not involve running.
This structure alone makes it obvious that lifting weights is not a dangerous undertaking for young children, including the obese.
Lifting weights for overweight children can be very basic. Here are the benefits of weightlifting for heavy children:
Lowers risk of muscle and joint injury from “safer” sports!
Improves performance in other sports
Strengthens bones
Inspires healthier eating habits
Promotes better cholesterol profile
Burns fat, improves strength
Dramatically improves self-esteem
If you’re still reluctant to get your young overweight child started on a weightlifting program, remind yourself that your child probably already IS lifting weights — every time they take out the garbage, carry luggage, carry a younger sibling or give piggy back rides to playmates, shovel snow, help you carry some heavy boxes around, pick up the dog, etc.
Strength training for obese kids need not be complicated nor consist of the giant moves you’ve seen in the Olympics.
Check your local recreation center to see if it offers beginner’s classes, or speak to a personal trainer.
Also, weightlifting implements designed just for children are on the market.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
Top image: Freepik.com/jcomp
Sources:
mayoclinic.com/health/strength-training/HQ01010
mayoclinic.com/health/strength-training/HQ01010/NSECTIONGROUP=2
healthland.time.com/2011/10/07/kids-er-visits-for-head-injury-on-the-rise-%E2%80%94-why-thats-a-good-thing/
safety.com/articles/most-dangerous-sports
Does Lifting More Weight than Someone Mean You’re Stronger?
WHY the big gorilla who can lift more weight than you isn’t necessarily STRONGER!
If you can lift more weight, say in the bench press, than someone else, this doesn’t necessarily mean your chest and arm muscles are stronger than your opponent! I’m a former certified personal trainer and have observed some interesting displays of strength.
If you can deadlift 400 pounds and your buddy can pull 280, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re stronger in the deadlift.
Of course, it means you can deadlift more weight, and this would count in a competition. And it also looks more impressive to other gym members. But it does not mean you’re stronger at pulling!
It has to do with LEVERS.
Yes, there’s that taboo word again in the strength training community. If you have the same levers as your buddy, then yes, you truly are stronger with the deadlift or bench press.
However, levers often play a significant role in how much a person can lift. This isn’t about how “strong” a person is.
It’s about how much they can lift. These are not the same thing. Here is a very simple illustration that will make this crystal clear to you:
Imagine a very heavy rock on the ground. It is so very heavy that you must strain and grunt to place it on top of a 12-inch stool.
Now suppose your buddy has to pick up the same rock off the ground. However, your buddy’s assignment is to place the rock on an 18-inch stool. He can’t do it. He gets it off the ground, but just can’t get it up high enough.
In fact, he gets it 12 inches off the ground, but just can’t budge it higher and must drop it.
Does this mean you’re stronger than he is? Or does it mean that you had a smaller range of motion to work with? Hmmm.
Suppose your buddy’s range of motion was reduced to the 12 inches. With grunting and straining, he, like you, gets the rock up on the lower stool.
Unfortunately, change in range of motion (ROM) can’t occur this easily in powerlifting moves like the bench press and deadlift.
A person with long arms relative to their height won’t have to bend over as much to pick a heavy barbell off the floor.
An individual of equal height, but with a shorter wingspan, but everything else being equal (e.g., hip height from the floor, femur length), will need to bend over more and/or squat deeper to reach the barbell!
This means he has more ROM to cover!
The lift is harder for him. At the final stage of the deadlift, the man with the “T-rex arms” is holding the barbell higher off the floor than is the man with the “gorilla arms”!
The T-rex guy had to do more work and move the weight through more space:
1) Bend over more to reach the bar, stressing his low back with a greater range of motion once he grabs the bar and begins straightening, and/or
2) Squat deeper to reach the bar, and though his back may still be fairly upright if he compensates only with a deeper squat, the deeper squat means more work for his legs and glutes on the way up with the bar due to more distance for his legs to “unsquat.”
His pal gets to bend over just a little bit to reach the bar, with only a partial squat. This means less ROM once he begins straightening with the bar in his hands.
This does not mean he’s stronger than the T-rex guy. It means he can lift more weight. Do you see how this doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s stronger in the absolute sense?
If the leverages were matched, it’s very possible that the T-rex guy would be stronger, or maybe not, or maybe equal in strength.
It’s not over. When these two men bench press, the T-rex guy has the advantage with his shorter arm span.
This means his elbows don’t have to go down as far when he lowers the barbell to his chest (assume both men use the same distance between their hands on the bar).
His arms are so short, relative to his height, that by the time the bar is to his chest, the angle formed by his elbow flexion is only 90 degrees.
The gorilla guy, on the other hand, must flex his elbows to much less than 90 degrees, meaning, his elbows are closer to the floor; his arms are much more bent at the bottom of the lift.
He must press upward for a greater distance than the T-rex person.
That’s more distance to move the weight! As a result, he can only press the weight twice, since the greater distance covered completely fatigues him in only two repetitions.
The man with the shorter arms has less distance to move the weight; he takes longer to fatigue and can press the barbell 12 times. Does this mean he’s stronger?
Short arms mean he can lift more weight, but short arms don’t always mean greater strength.
He can press 400 pounds because the 90 degree angle of his arms minimizes the distance he must lower and raise the weight.
The deadlift champ can only press 275 because he must lower, then raise, the weight a greater distance. Is he necessarily weaker? No.
Recall the stool example with the rock to make sure you understand that levers (anthropometrics) often determine how “strong” a person is and how much weight they can pull or push.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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