To Flip Or Not To Flip
WARNING – I think they may have given me an extra shot of espresso this morning at Starbucks or maybe I am finally getting over the cold I have had for the last three weeks, but I feel pretty full of *** and vinegar today – you have been warned.
It looks very cool, I cannot argue that.
Did you see the size of the tire that guy flipped? Holy – heck, he is a hard-core-monster-beast-ageddon-man. And the next time someone is looking to flip a player off his skates and into his own bench (one of my favourite plays in hockey by the way), then he is YOUR guy!
Does this exercise have its place in your off-ice hockey training?
Let’s just say, I haven’t made room for tire flipping in the ol’ RevCon gym yet.
Now, if you flip tires at your workout and you love it, then go for it. I still love you, I am not judging you, I am just saying it is something that I would not choose to do myself or with the athletes who trust me to train them, that is all.
And here is why…
I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever (you get the idea), freakin’ EVER let a hockey player march into my gym and pull a big deadlift from the floor with a rounded lower back – never.
It is not your fault; it is fully the tire’s fault, but I don’t think you can get a heavy tire off the ground in the first place without using a poor lifting position. Now there may be a perfectly designed tire out there somewhere that lets you do it, but I am unaware of one.
You see a heavy tire is going to be a wide tire (like from a tractor) so you need to either bend forward at the hips to get your hands under it, but then your head is in the way, so you either look way up to the sky or tilt your head out of the way. Your other option is to squat way down and hook your fingers under it like that, again trying to keep your head out of the way and the top of the tire pushing your chest up.
Please resist the temptation to search the interwebz to find the one video of a guy who actually manages to flip a tire with good form – I will respond by either ignoring you or if I have lots of time on my hands, I will post 20 videos with people doing tire flips with spine-crushingly (new word, just made it up) poor form.
I also fully appreciate that not everything in sport is neutral and nice all the time, we have ways to train for that which do not require tire flipping.
Do you have to run screaming from a tire flip as though you are passing by a rattlesnake infested poison ivy patch? No. You can try tire flips if you wish, but just be aware of the risks and I strongly suggest (i.e. forbid you ;)) from using them as a regular part of your off-ice hockey training. Deal?
If you want to do a deadlift, do a deadlift. If you want to lift and press something heavy do a clean and press. If you want to push something heavy push a sled.
Cheers,
M