Losing Your Balance
By Dr. David T. Ryan
Medical Chairman, Arnold Fitness Weekend
Editorial Advisor, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Ironman Magazines

Before I became the Medical Chairman for the Arnold Fitness Weekend, I used to work for NASA. I was mostly interested in hypo and hyper gravitational forces on the body. Long story short, I have significant training in balance and/or propreoceptive response.

I don't want to get too into it, so here it goes. Training with bands is a great way to develop, significant improvements in plyometric strength. No question. Another interesting factor in lifting is the preload phase. Using the Monolift, the weight is loaded onto your body immediately. Many times a lifter is using weight in a meet that he hasn't actually trained with before. This confuses the body's balance system for the following reasons:

During a load on a mechanical mechanism such as the knee, the joint has several angles and as the knee is extended and the load or weight is mostly on the bones the joint propreoceptors are the primary input to the brain for balance. The muscles primarily are interested in stabilization only and serve very little purpose for balance control. Once the knee starts to bend, there is flexion or bending of the knee, the muscles are more in control of the action. Think about it, if you train exclusively with bands for you heaviest lifts, then you are not training the bones and the propreoceptive controls within that joint. 

To fix the problem:
You should simply do walkouts with overload. It only takes a couple of seconds for the load to be recognized and for the propreoceptive response to condition. It also helps the Golgi organs, other muscle spindles or stretch propreoceptors to remain calm during the lift. If they fire, you better have good spotters.

The other thing you should do is start to use lifting chains with your heavy lifts. This will still offer some degree of plyometric training yet still offer gravity as the major force fighting you in the lift. Bands can offer an unstable vector as we proved when using them to condition astronauts in zero G situations.

Let me go on record here as stating that I believe that several people have the call on stopping the lift. First is line is the judge. Next is the actual lifter and last but not least is the spotter themselves. However, it should be the judge who makes the call "take it" to disqualify the lift and prevent any unwarranted arguments between lifters and spotters.

I hope this helps and we'll see you at the Arnold.