Hello, everyone. Today I tried a new exercise to my routine, one which my mind came to after a meeting a carpet-cleaning lady who’s back was hurt from picking up the buffering machine. This series of movements, I thought, would somehow make a person adapt to lift weight in everyday tasks a little easier (on the physical body and their sense of fatigue). Well, of couse this exercise has probably been thought of before, but not knowing its proper name, I will describe it and illustrate it in a picture.
The exercise is done with a person standing straddling a gym bench with some dumbbells on one side placed vertically. I, for example, started with the dumbbells of 90, 60 and two of 45 lbs on the right side in that order of 90 being the closest to me. Then, the lifter begins the movements by bending and picking up the first dumbbell, moving it with a straight spine over the bench and placing it on the other side. The movement is done somewhat like a crane picking up a load and putting it down elsewhere. So, same thing with all the dumbbells, and I think that the lighter the weight, the faster you want to go with it.
After some reps of this exercise, I felt my lower back getting tired and my heart pump harder. Before long I was catching my breath, trying to keep up the tempo. By the way, I counted one rep when all the dumbbells were moved from one side to the other. Of course, as with all deadlifting-type lifts, I kept my stomach nice and tight.
Well, the usefulness of this I think, would be primarily core strength. It goes well to teach the principle of having a straight spine while other parts of the body move. Muscles of the torso are activated in a rather functional way as well due to the movement from one side of the body to the other. All in all, I see this thing as a good way to improve core strength and endurance, and prepare people for lifting groceries maybe.
Any comments, flames,$0.02’s welcome.