Clips

Have you ever be unfortunate enough to witness someone “rack” a bar and miss one J-hook. The one end of the bar falls, all of the weights drop off then the other side hurdles toward the ground, sending a forty-five pound steel bar flying into the air. It sure sounds terrifying and, to be honest, it is terrifying when you see it. The obvious dangers here are pretty easy to uncover.

Our main overarching goal with our GPP program is to render fitness safely. Of course, pursuing fitness has its risks. There are always risks when there are moving parts. Hell, you could be at risk of a bird pooping on you while sitting still. There are risks all around us. Some of them we can insure ourselves against with things that are directly in our control.

Putting clips on your bar is on of these things we can control. With multiple athletes moving, multiple bars moving, clips need to be a mainstay. I am not sure if we want to go as far as saying an unclipped bar is a bar that is not respected, but when I see someone that has an unmowed yard, and I immediately begin to think that person may not value their yard.

You see we are in a lab. It may look and feel like a gym, but we are experimenting with the wonders of the human body. We are driving adaptation. We are pursuing growth and betterment. You’d better believe that equipment in a real lab in a hospital is cleaned and counted and organized to exacting standards. Well, if you’re looking for growth and gains and improvement in your fitness and your life, you may want to see if that enthusiasm trickles down to clips on the bar. I can tell you that if you miss racking a barbell accidentally and you avoid the mess I began this blog with. You may have some gains in your life that hadn’t been there otherwise.

If nothing else, maybe the safety of your fellow athletes will drive this. Here’s to many more sessions of lifting with no flying barbells.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie