All I want for Christmas is a Barbell!

You just got out-squat by a Lesbian

I just want to write something quick, no cliché comments, no half naked girls (well I see what’s on my drive) not flawlessly researched; just an opinionated rant. 

Most commercial gyms now days will happily hand over thousands of dollars for plasma screens. Pin loaded machines or the latest group fitness licence. However, what they refuse to even put 10% of their budget aside for is a proper; well engineered Barbell.

Poor or warn Barbells will create injuries, reduce your training ability and generally cause you a world of hate and pain. 

Now; from the outset, I am not an expert in Barbell construction, I am simply making a few points here; 

• Cheap bars are made from cheap metals, this means the bar WILL bend. I personally acquired a $50 bar that came pre-bent from the China man.  

This was before my Bicep exploded

•  Once a bar is bent; it is rendered USELESS, What do you think will happen to your arms and wrists if you have a bent bar rolling across your back, or worse trying to rotate as you receive a clean?

• Chrome bars are cost effective and aesthetically pleasing but not particularly durable. The coating will flake off over time and the bar is subject to corrosion.  Furthermore; chrome is the worst substance this side of sex lube for grip. These bars are only a prospect for entry level lifters.

•  Sleeving; one of a few problems here; if the bearings inside the sleeve cease to rotate the bar is now USELESS. Do you really want your wrists attached to a rotating max effort load?

• Also; sleeves can DISLODGE from the bar if warn, this WILL end in catastrophe!

•  Knurling; this is where speciality bars are required, for example and Olympic bar will have less abrasive knurling in the centre than a squat bar.  Poor or worn knurling will force you to ‘over grip’ the bar and create problems with forearms and shoulders. Furthermore; shit knurling’s will cause blisters (once again speaking from my own personal experience and from that of the guys I train with)

End result of a cheap, bent Barbell

Now; in Australia there are some very cost effective options available; Australian Barbell Co. Are now manufacturing (locally ftw) the ‘Power bar’ this bar has become an ‘industry standard’ in strength and conditioning. These retail around the $500 point. Iron Edge have a number of bars available for the same price point (please be awear Rick the CEO drives an M3 so this might not be a suitble option) and I am aware Underground EliteBrisbane are looking at importing speciality bars in 2012. 

Come on shitty commercial fitness industry; what is more important to your clients; a $1000 plasma TV playing the latest hit sit com to treadmillers or a $500 investment in your safety!   

CAPO Power Lifting, Dead Lift Nationals

How awesome are people that jump on Tumblr or Blogspot (ekkk) every Monday night and tell the whole world or whoever is dumb enough to read, how they achieved a new personal record on the pub breath tester, or how fantastic their weekend was right up until Jill the now former best friend looked at John, the now former boy friend from across the bar, a clear declaration of affair.

Yeah, ok that shit is pretty mundane to say the least; yet here we all are (about 20 of you?) ready to invest the next 20 minutes of your lives in the adventures of Ben’s weekend. However, I’ll try to keep it interesting by leaving mildly controversial or political statements throughout.

We left Adelaide in our rented Commodore Omega (more on this in a later Blog) Friday morning for Little Melbourne Town to be immediately greeted by bumper to bumper highway traffic. However, due to my previous experience as The Stig we managed to make mince meat of these slow moving suckers.

So here is my first slightly controversial statement; Australian speed limits are causing deaths. The current limit induces fatigue, boredom and a tendency not to focus on the road.

We arrived in our grey nomad wonderland of sea changers and unemployable Bogans for a fun night of sitting around eating frozen nukable food.

Fast forward boring shit; the Victorian Dead Lift Nationals at PTC Frankston;

I went out and opened with 250, felt easy; normally my openers feel a bit rusty.

Took 260 on my second; got to my knees, than started having an epileptic fit, somehow I managed to get my hips through. While I was waiting quietly for my down call, I knew that was it, 260 was the all I had. I took some time to consider my third, 262.5? 265? 270?

If I made 265 I would hate myself for not taking my meet goal of 270, if I missed 270 well at least I went down fighting. And after all; I had written across my arm “There is no escape, you’re just a red mark my laser paints” (Noisia – Shellshock, 2010)

270; came off the floor, got to my knees, the epilepsy kicked in again and the next thing I know I’m in pieces, crying on the floor.

Now I am not one for making excuses, Excuses are for fat people who refuse to put the fork down, or for drink drivers that “didn’t feel drunk”

Second controversial statement; SA police current anti-drunk-driving strategy is pathetic, costing lives and not addressing the root or core of the problem.

Now leading in to this meet I took on a 6 week training camp (after my 192.5/125/250 Pro-Raw meet) starting with full equipment pulling from the floor. Then moving in to block pulls from 5 inches one day a week and then monster band reverse pulls on a second day. By 14 days out from the meet I had block pulled 250, and reverse band pulled 275. Typically; I am weaker by about 5% from block pulls, but on comp day stronger by about 15% on all my training weights.

This is where shit just gets weird; by the above training log I had every expectation to have a stronger lockout than a NBA player strike. Yet all my attempts turned to shit from the knees up.

So; it’s back to the drawing board, Ill re-engineer my training and come back next year, bigger, faster and strong(er).

On that note; I would like to thank everyone at PTC Frankston, all the lifters (especially the virgins, you guys and girls are the future of the sport). Thanks to everyone in Adelaide for putting up with my shit and generally being an amazing support. Finally thanks to everyone who wastes 20 minutes of their lives each week to read my incoherent rants.

Next week we will return to normal shouty arrogant, obnoxious statements about the commercial fitness industry. 

Take that Victorians!

Super Foods and 12 hour training days. Another day in WTF land.

Oh come on Ben, Leave the poor supp business alone!

Supp readers, thanks for thinking I have something remotely constructive to add, today’s blog begins with an all out rant. However, stay with me its gets constructive about 150 words in I swear!

I normally keep my opinions about the supplement industry to myself, there are a few reasons for this; one, this blog is all about offending the commercial fitness industry, just leave the poor little supplement manufactures’ alone hey? Two; I won’t sugar coat this; if it was not for the supplement industry none of us would be here reading this right now, supplements have propped up the fitness industry and left it swinging from a knife edge. However, I want to know one thing, what the fuck is this ‘Maca’ shit? Every time I log on to Facestalk, I see comments (mostly from girls) challenging each other to eat it from a spoon, or boasting about how much of this so called ‘Super Food’ they have consumed. I tried looking at the website, but all I saw was traditionally dressed Indians collected beans from fields. For all we know these could be the poppy seeds used to make crack.
Can anyone produce some kind of scientific evidence to support the benefits of these products? Honestly someone summarize this shit to 25 words or less because even a two minute Google motivated me to go Tito Ortiz on someone. For real, what was wrong with good ol fashion steak and eggs? Super foods what the fuck!

Meanwhile back at the ranch we are looking at Olympic Lifters

Olympic lifters are somewhere between baddass and just downright concerning, the sport originated back in the soviet era. The Russians would train for hours, days on end. Often up to 12 hours a day, those who were still standing by the Olympics were rewarded with the rights to travel, property and freedom of speech (Simmons, 2007). To this day many Olympic lifters still train twice a day, almost every day. Most I have spoken to claim it’s for neuromuscular adaptation however, the physiology behind these statements does not check out (Simmons, 2007). Furthermore; their high rates of injury cannot be ignored. 

This Mofo is Badass!

Now at this point I want to make a few points, one Olympic lifting did not save Olympic lifting. Cross Fit saved Olympic lifting from the scrap heap of dead sports. It is incorporated in to ‘workouts of the day’ because movements such as the Snatch and Clean and Jerk are perhaps the corner stone of force rate development. Furthermore, the high rate of speed is an awesome way to destroy your equilibrium and induce vomiting (Vomiting in Cross fit is strongly correlated to quality training but, that’s a different rant). Oly lifting also requires a high rate of neuromuscular activation and coordination. Not to mention, one of the most primitive tests of strength is ‘How much can you lift over your head’ (REF)

The problem with Olympic lifting in contemporary training, it’s so bio-mechanically complicated and requires such a high degree of flexibility that it becomes impractical and too time consuming in the application of sport performance. Therefore; I came up with some variations and options;

Kettlebell Clean & Press
Since this movement is performed with one arm at a time, it allows for a greater range of motion around the shoulder joint, taking load off the wrists. The rack position can be on the shoulder or further out on the bicep if you’re really inflexible.
Start with the Kettlebell between your legs, grip, rip, and rotate to the rack. Drop your hips and drive over head.

High Pull

These have always been a favorite of the world’s second most badass white guy Andy Bolton (Damian Slater will always be more badass). The awesome thing with High Pulls is you basically have to create the same force rate production as a clean or snatch but do not put your wrists or elbows in a weak position.

The Overhead press is perhaps the most common fucked up movement I ever see in the gym, I am guessing the overhead press became the standing incline bench press when Muscle & Fiction Magazine said so.
If you watch a really high level Olympic lifter at lock out, the bar is way back over the scapular not out in front of the face. For this reason in my programs I prescribe the military press from the back, at very least the bar starts on the scapular, reducing the chances spinal hyperextension and destroying your lower back

Fucking Body Builders Again!

Now go forth haters; either disregard everything you just read and move back to bicep curls in my squat rack or take it on board and try something new, remember when training was all about fun?

Don't Believe Everything You Read

We have all read Facestalk updates and blogs (much like this one) that sometimes make some pretty bold claims. It’s pretty frequent for personal trainers to make statements of position standpoints without backing it up with any real evidence. You would have seen this yourself ‘Eat food X to make yourself thin like Paris’ ‘Only train Biceps on Tuesday because physiologically this is the greatest time to do it’ and so on.

Do you trust a Tarot reader?

To make a valid statement you must provide some degree of evidence to support your claims, this is done simply by referencing where the idea came from. For example; Muscle spindles are surrounded by a myelin sheath (Marib & Hoehm, 2010). This in the land of the internet should be linked to the source data, or at the bottom of the document state the source title, authors, publishers and page numbers.

This alone however, will not secure validity in the author’s statement. It is up to the reader them self to investigate the said sources; so let’s look at some options:

 

Blogs, Facebook and website sites (such as this one) often have little to no credibility; they can be written and published by anyone at anytime with no scrutiny what so ever and there may be undeclared financial interests behind their writings (Body Building dot com anyone?)

However, if the authors of the site have referenced their said statements there may be some merit in what they say (such as 8 weeks out).

 

Mags should declare financial interest

Magazines; This is a hotly debated topic, as with websites mags pretty much always have some form of financial interest. For example Muscle & Fiction magazine rely on advertisement from supplement companies to finance their publications. Do you think they would ever write an article questioning the effectiveness of sport supplements?   

 

Books; remember that old saying ‘don’t believe everything you read’ it’s pretty much true here. Typically a book will not be published if the publishing company question its validity and merits (self published books are pretty much always bullshit!). So for the most part you are relatively safe. However, in the world of sport and exercise science the information can become outdated and superseded quite quickly. So check the date of publishing!

 

Case Studies; A case study typically contains a report of action upon a single person. For example; I personally did four weeks of sled sprints at a ratio of 1:2 and found my fat mass has visually decreased. This is fine and does have some merits. However a large amount has been left uncontrolled such as what my nutrition was like during this period and what other training did I partake? Furthermore; this concept may have worked for me, but if its trialled on 100 people what percentage will report similar results?

 

Mythbusters? Ah who cares its Kari Byron!

Scientific Peer Reviewed Journals: For something to be labelled a science it needs to be controlled, observable and repeatable (Red plus Green equals Yellow). For a journal to be published it must first be critiqued by what is known as ‘peer review’ this means other experts in the field will analyse the data and give it the all clear for publishing. Peer review is considered the gold standard in referencing. However, also check the author’s credentials before accepting their position as fact. This can been seen by the now discredited work of social psychologist Diederik Stapel

 

I have made it very clear before; personal trainers (& other so called health experts) simply can no longer make outlandish statements without a shred of evidence to support their theories. The old cliche 'There is no experience better than one thousand hours under the bar' simply will not cut it anymore.  However, since the internet remains completely un-moderated it is up to you the reader to investigate and formulate your own opinions!

Bite the Hand that Feeds.

I predict in 2012 the Sport and Exercise industry will have completely adopted the same employment models as the entertainment and nightclub scene. A trainer or coach’s entire employment will not be based on skills or qualifications. Rather, how many Facebook friends you have and how pretty they look on camera.

A little bit of Photoshop goes a long way

By the year 2015, 1 in 3 Australians will identify as a personal trainer and 1 in 5 of those will claim to specialize in strength and conditioning, while the rest will teach Zumba to the Macerena.

I then predict by the year 2020, the entire industry will collapse. Trainers will quit, gyms will close (if they’re not already) and the health burden of inactivity will triple.

Slow down, this is not global warming, back up the dooms day truck a bit.

Over the last 5 years the nightclub and festival scene has become a victim to its own success, venues have opened, punters have come out and the number of people identifying as DJ’s has sky rocketed. This sees an already competitive industry become cut throat, in a desperate attempt to bring heads through the door the industry came up with the employment model of ‘Promoter DJ’s’. What this means in theory is, DJ’s are expected to bring a certain amount of people to the venue each week from their own self promotion. That DJ who offered you cheap tickets to a festival or an exclusive door listing? He is on pay for play. 

So what we have now is rich kids buying their way to gigs, DJ’s spending more time spamming than mixing and perhaps the most concerning part is a division and competition between those who work in the same venue. However, it is all about the music… Right?

It is plane to see the artistic integrity of the DJ has been eroded.

So, how does this relate to the commercial fitness industry?

Quantifiable Results are irrelevant

In the same 5 years, the commercial fitness industry has seen the same progression; Fitness farms owned by the private equity firms fronted up from overseas. Industry accreditation companies started pumping out personal trainers at the rate of knots and the integrity of service declined.

Now, I personally have been through the ringer trying to find a job, and there are two common themes I hear, ‘we do not hire trainers, we lease you floor space’ and the next is ‘if we hire you how many people will you bring through the door?’

I am yet to be asked if I can produce quantifiable evidence of the effectiveness in my training systems.

So what you have now is rich kids inheriting industry qualifications, paying for pretty photo shoots, buying their way in to gym floors, fighting with other trainers for clients and spending more time on Facebook trying to obtain the holy grail of 5000 friends while legitimate coaches and trainers are left in pieces bleeding on the floor.

Taking the AVON business models is simply not acceptable in any industry. Relying on marketing and promotion, to build a gym is completely un-ethical and ultimately at the expense of best practice modelling. While the original framework of pay for play may have benefited a few, it has lead to a industry at civil war, and like any civil war, both sides end up dead. Now please excuse me, I have to go finish my sport science Degree

Quantifiable Training

I don’t know much about cycling, apart from Cadel Evens winning the Tour de France, and I did race BMX a bit when I was a kid. But, for the most part, when it comes to training for mountain bike racing. I am not your man. 

However, I do have a client who races at club level. The style of racing she is involved in, is off road endurance based, most races last around 90-120 minutes. Naturally a high volume of training is required. So I started researching pacing, and pumping and all kinds of sexual connotations found in cycling training. I then started asking about her training, she told me of some pretty big obstacles in the way, such as work and other commitments. We then further discussed the ‘style’ of the coming races, two, are technically challenging, while two, require more all round conditioning and less technical skill.

 I then asked the said client to show me her training logs, to which she replied “I don’t keep training logs, I just go on what feels like it is working”

‘Feels like’ is not exactly a quantifiable term. How does she know what is working and what are her key performance indicators, heart rate? Watts output? 5’km times? What? Furthermore, cyclist rely heavily on periodization of training, so how does she gauge her current performance on this time last year, or the last time the current block of training was in place?  And finally, If she has 5 blocks of training per week, how many and what sessions is she going to change week to week, to cater for the next races specific details? 

The 6th hot chick on this blog

So, overall, her training is made entirely of guess work with no real direction or goal, she can’t produce her training results to a coach or mentor and she can’t quantifiably identify weak points in her game. 

When I spoke to Australia’s strongest man Derek Boyer, he explained to me that he limits his training to 6 hours per week. This is even more important in an endurance based sport. Where, every minute of training should have value.

 Personally, I have tried many different ways to log my own training, and have found the most effective is the ol-skool diary, I log each set and what phase of training I am in. This is the simplest filing system I have found and gives clear structure to my training.

The point I am trying to get across here is, plan ahead, log your entire training, make it quantifiable and set key performance indicators. Give yourself clear goals that are based on results not ‘feels like’ fiction. Map your progress and watch your performance output improve.

Getting Your Head (Job) in the Game.

Its 90% mental and 10% Physical, right? 

Elma Thudd is the course coordinator of Sport and Exercise science at my University, He believes his 1994 (un-referenced so to avoid defamation law suits) research on psychologies effect on tri-athletes maximal grip strength is proof of the hypothesis that all sport performance is based upon self imagery and psychological modelling not prior training. 

The Elma Thudd impersonating Psychology lecturer claims ‘Psychology is the scientific study of people and their behaviours in sport and exercise contexts and the practical application of that knowledge’

Forget mental imagery, lets fuck!

To make some kind of sense out of this statement we need to clarify a few points. For starters a science is; the systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe (REF).

These predictions often gain creditability by their ability of reproduction. For example; red plus green will always equal yellow no matter what the circumstances. 

So, if you wanted to conduct a Psychological experiment;  Stick a road works sign out in front of me, chances are ill ignore it and keep driving at whatever speed I am doing. Unless, I am having a relaxed day, then I might slow down, maybe. What this suggests, is in terms of my psychological predictability there is no repeatability what so ever. This proves the hypothesis that Psychology is not a science.

This brings us to psychology in sport and exercise, there is literally thousands of articles on line about ‘Getting your head in the game’ or ‘Thinking yourself thin’ as seen; HERE or HERE and THERE. Most of these articles do not even mention a word about technique, programming or performance. Why is this, could using Jedi Mind Tricks be a front for the vast majority of the commercial fitness industry that are fucking clueless about training? Do people who know nothing about physiology base their opinions on psychology?

You decide. 

The uneducated commercial fitness industry need to stop pumping this mental game bullshit as a cover for their lack of training knowledge to the hoards of punters that walk in to their gym, in application, its 90% Physical, and 10% mental, so start acting like it. 

Here is a link to a training program, read it and implement it.

Benching makes my Shoulders hurt........

I was reading on a popular supplement companies facebook today “people need to use a full range of motion when working the chest” [paraphrased] now apart from the obvious stand of ‘training muscles not lifts’ I tend to agree with this statement. 

However, when personal trainers make outlandish statements without any research to back it up. It gets under my skin so; 

PT Polo Shirt claims (Nothing to do with the said company) “It's well known that more shoulder injuries occur from people going too deep on chest than is caused by even training shoulders in isolation” 

I could not disagree with Polo-Style more, If you are going to Bench 'for the Pecs' with no activation of posterior chain and your elbows flapping around in the wind, then yes. You’re going to rip your shoulders to bits. This is typically caused by the Humeral head getting smashed out of alignment with the Glenoid Fossa

However, if you engage the posterior chain, keep the Humeral head in its spot and base yourself through the hips (not the shoulders like I see so many try) then you are liable to go 20 years without even a twitch.

Additionally, the highest rate of force on the shoulders and elbows has been reported at the reversal point of the movement (eccentric to concentric) this is why you see power lifters performing board presses and not reversing mid movement. In the case of body building, the pause on the chest works to remove this loading. (Think about box squatting) 

And finally, Yes. I can provide peer reviewed evidence to support my statement. However, you’re not going to read it, so I wont bother…….

Everybody Wants to be a Cage Fighter

It seems everybody wants to be a cage fighter these days. Some people have a better chance than others.

I once fronted up to a pub I was bouncing at, the guy I was working with stated "I’m only here because I got injured and missed my spot on The Ultimate Fighter" "I train in a shed with my mate"  He was about 165 tall and would have weighed 65-70KG. But, don’t judge someone on their looks.

Later that night the said bouncer got knocked clean out by some dude who was paralytically drunk.

He later told me he got hit from behind........

So you want to fight in a cage, full contact. Open handed gloves. Knees and elbows, The lot, Where do you start?

Its 6am the sun has only just started to peak over the horizon and its freezing. But, you have to get the run in, 20 minutes at least, with sprints & hills. Your girl is still in bed alone she respects your lifestyle but sometimes wonders if you have what it takes to raise a child and pay the mortgage if this whole fight thing falls through.
All fights start on their feet, so you want to train your kickboxing around 2 hours a day. You will need a world class coach and he or she will not come cheap.

After 2 hours of getting Thai kicked in the face, if you can still stand up you are going to need a pretty decent diet and supplement plan to recover. You have just 1 hour, so you hire a sport dietician with experience in fighting who understands the ins and outs of weight cuts. If you are not training 5 KG above your weight class you will be undersized come fight day.

Just admit it, you're fapping off

After your meal of plain pasta and egg whites washed down with a protein supplement that cost about $100 a kilo you front up to gym number two where you spend the next 2 hours having your limbs ripped off by a Jiu Jit Su coach. But you’re a tough camper it’s all in a day’s work.

Now it’s back home for an hours sleep, more plain pasta and chicken plus some of those uber expensive supplements since you physically cannot consume enough calories a day in solid food to maintain body weight.

The alarm goes off and you know the strength and conditioning coach is waiting for you with his trusty stop watch and heart rate monitor. You are now expected to plant your heart rate firmly in the heart attack zone for an hour.

Repeat this process everyday for 5 years. You will need to travel around the states or Japan to establish an amateur record. If you are really lucky that supplement company might give you some free stuff if you wear their shirts and your mate might let you sleep on his sofa, it’s better than a car.

Sooner or later the UFC hears of you and your class ‘A knock out in a rival federation they offer you a fight. You have made it, Professional fighting. Just don’t lose!

Here are the fighter salaries from UFC 132 the biggest purse to date. Unless you lost.

Dominick Cruz: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
def. Urijah Faber: $32,000
Chris Leben: $92,000 ($46,000 win bonus)
def. Wanderlei Silva: $200,000
Dennis Siver: $50,000 ($25,000 win bonus)
def. Matt Wiman: $18,000
Tito Ortiz: $450,000 (no win bonus)
def. Ryan Bader: $20,000
Carlos Condit: $68,000 ($34,000 win bonus)
def. Dong Hyun Kim: $41,000
Melvin Guillard: $64,000 ($32,000 win bonus)
def. Shane Roller: $21,000
Rafael Dos Anjos: $28,000 ($14,000 win bonus)
def. George Sotiropoulos: $15,000
Brian Bowles: $34,000 ($17,000 win bonus)
def. Takeya Mizugaki: $12,000
Aaron Simpson: $34,000 ($17,000 win bonus)
def. Brad Tavares: $10,000
Anthony Njokuani: $16,000 ($8,000 win bonus)
def. Andre Winner: $14,000
Jeff Hougland: $12,000 ($6,000 win bonus)
def. Donny Walker: $6,000

The Tire Flipping Conundrum

PT Bob knows what's best for his clients!



Ever since the UFC All Access on Sean ‘Muscle Shark’ Sherk the world has gone ape shit for tire flipping drills, I even said in a previous rant HERE if your gym does not have a tire find one that does. Now the dynamics of this movement seem pretty legit, Multi joint, large movement that looks something like a squat and deadlift combined and can be easily adapted to train alternate body systems, such as a small tire for reps or big fuck off tire for strength and so on.







Now the conundrum arises itself from a conversation I had with a strength coach, who talks too much but did mumble something intelligent “Tire flipping is an event, not an exercise. More bicep injuries have come from tires than anything else”

So this got me thinking, like all movements the technique and execution varies depending on any number of factors such as bio-mechanics and resistance (weight) so maybe it is time to research alternate techniques.

Hips back, Knees down - Drive forward 

Now I’ll be honest, The tire I have been using is pretty small (around 100kg) so the chances of injury are pretty low. However, recent additions at my gym have blessed clients and myself with a massive fuck off 300kg monster truck tire and guess what, when I had a crack; the tire stayed on the floor along with my massive fuck off ego and the bowl of sauce that goes with the chip on my shoulder.

So it’s time to do what no trainer has ever done before, admit they’re not doing it right!

Stage one of this operation requires I identify where my tire flip is at. Some research of various strength and conditioning facilities showed my current technique is the “Sumo” or some coaches call this a “Bicep breaker”  Put simply, the hips are tight to the tire, the arms are inside the legs and critically, the movement involves a vertical lift which in turn overloads the biceps. The key word here is ‘Vertical’

Abi Grove has nothing to do with this blog.

Now here is the thing, a tire flip is a tire flip. It is not a sumo deadlift so this requires a different approach to the movement. Further research found a “new” technique (if we assume this movement is only 5 years old) Here we see the hips are way back from the tire, the knees are low and it almost looks similar to a sprint start in its horizontal loading positioning. The chin is making contact with the tire and the obvious direction of movement is diagonal not vertical.  

Consider this, and evolve. You can never be too strong!




The arched back looks good, on paper