An unusual way to improve your power lifts: Do them Blind.

Usually when someone pitches a method for increasing your power lifts, the answer will cost you some serious money.

Not so with the techniques Im about to discuss. They will be free. Some of you will say they are well worth the price.

Im going to discuss a few simple drills that can help you develop more control over the weights you are lifting by building your internal neuro muscular control system.

 

Developing full control of the weight

Whenever we do any of the powerlifts most of us rely on visual cues to keep our balance and control the weight.

Most of us take it for granted that we can use our sight to help us keep our balance and make physical adjustments if needed based on what we can both see and feel.

Im going to suggest that we can help develop our internal sensory system by practicing some of our training lifts blind.

What this does is force us to rely entirely on our internal sensory feedback. This practice can improve our power output through building our ability to better control of the weight in space and improving our balance.

 

Lifting with no visual references

Back in the 1980s I came across an article from Soviet sports science about the value of doing some blindfolded training. The theory was that developing even a small capacity to do different types of sports movement without visual cues would help an elite athlete perform a bit better.

Another reason I thought this training might be useful was that for many years when I was putting on powerlifting meets in the state of Washington we had participants from the State School for the Blind.

Some of these kids put up impressive very numbers in all the lifts. They got no special treatment from the judges and didnt get to use any special equipment to help them stay in the groove.

In short, blind lifters competed using the same rules as sighted lifters.

Near the start of my lifting career, I coached some blind lifters in Michigan. Back then they had to do Olympic lifts since powerlifting had not yet been invented.

None of the kids I coached could see anything, yet they were able to hoist some serious weight overhead!

Obviously none of the blind kids were able to rely on visual cues to keep their balance or make real time adjustments in their lifts.

An Easy Addition to Your Program

Im not going to suggest that you do your entire workout wearing a mask.

The simplest way to begin is simply to close your eyes and do a few sets (3-5 reps) without weight.

What you may find when you first try this is that you struggle with balance at some point in the lift. This is particularly true for the squat.

IMHO you can get a lot of benefit by regularly doing a few sets of each power lift without visual cues.

Here is a suggested approach.

For the squat, begin by closing your eyes and doing some reps of the squat with no weight and no bar. Let your arms hang down in front of you until you can do 5 reps without any wobble.

It may take a while for you to become skilled at this but be persistent.

When you do blind squats pay special attention to the places where you begin to lose your balance or struggle to keep proper alignment.

Practice these so that you learn the internal signals your body sends that keep you doing the movement correctly. When you lift with eyes open you will have these sensor signals at your command.

Over time increase the difficulty of your blind squats by progressing to using a broomstick or PVC pipe across your back to do a competition style squat.

Next move to an empty bar and then to a very light weight.

 

Bench Press and Deadlift

Doing the bench press will feel very strange at first, but you will soon learn to feel how to control the tension in your body at different points in the lift with no visual reference.

As with the squat, begin with an empty bar and gradually work up to pressing some light weights.

Doing the deadlift blind will be far less difficult than doing the squat blind. However, begin with very light weights and use blind reps to learn your internal cues and controls.

 

Coda

Making progress as an experienced lifter is challenging and much more difficult than most people realize. We need all the tactics we can mobilize to perfect our technique and maximize our power output.

A few blind reps during warmups each workout may give you an unexpected bit of help.

Lift Big!

Richard