Have you seen the flour bowl prank that’s been making its way around the interwebs lately?
Basically, one person pretends like they’re trying really hard to lift a mixing bowl that seems to be stuck to a countertop. Then they ask their (assumed) unsuspecting victim to help. Expecting the task to be difficult, the victim yanks on the bowl… and empties its contents onto themselves.
Here’s a short compilation of the prank in action:
While this might seem like just a silly trick, there’s still something we can learn from it about lifting things.
Ultimately, what’s happening is a misalignment of feedforward tension. People on the receiving end of the prank think the bowl is stuck (i.e. heavy), so they create a lot of tension in their bodies to prepare themselves to lift it. When it turns out that the bowl isn’t actually heavy or stuck but is instead quite light, their overuse of tension and force accelerates the bowl quickly, and basic physics creates subsequently entertaining consequences (at least for the rest of us).
Obviously the trick wouldn’t work if the prankster handed the bowl to the other person and asked them to put it on a shelf. In that case, the victim would become aware of the bowl’s weight as they grabbed it and use the appropriate amount of tension—that is, feedback tension—to complete the task without spilling its contents.
So what’s the application to safely lifting heavy stuff?
While using too much feedforward tension when lifting something light can lead to humorous outcomes, using too little when lifting something heavy, particularly off the ground, can lead to tweaks or injuries. This is often the case with back injuries that occur when deadlifting a barbell or performing other similar movements (e.g. picking up a small child, heavy shovelful of snow, or bag of water softener salt).
The lifter generates too little tension before beginning to lift the object, gets out of good lifting alignment, and tweaks a muscle (if they’re lucky, or something worse if they’re not) which isn’t meant to be on the receiving end of such an angle and weight combination.
Both humorous and injury outcomes are also possible with feedback tension, although they will usually occur near the end of lifting something.
In my contrasting example of a person putting a bowl on a shelf, it might be funny—more of an eye-rolling sort of funny anyway—if the person suddenly forgot that they were holding onto the bowl before reaching the shelf, relaxed their tension, and dropped the bowl.
I know that’s seems like a silly example. But, in a way, it’s not that much different than what I’ve seen plenty of people do when lifting something heavy. They relax ever-so-slightly before completely setting down the weight after their final repetition, get out of good lifting alignment, and, well, you know the rest of the story.
Putting it into practice
My two recommendations this week are simple. And while they might be new insights for beginner lifters, they’re good reminders for veteran lifters too.
First, be intentional whenever you lift anything, particularly at the gym. It’s good habit to approach lifting lighter weights with the same process and level of focus as if they were the most you could lift. That especially means generating an appropriate amount of feedforward tension prior to picking up anything from the ground.
Second, stay focused and maintain an appropriate amount of feedback tension until the weight is safely racked or put down. So be it if that means stopping a set early because you’re feeling distracted or excessively fatigued.
Because while misaligned tension can be quite funny if we’re lifting a mixing bowl filled with flour, it’s often quite the opposite when the object is markedly heavier.