Review: Original Rehband Knee Sleeves

In training terms I'm an old dude. I've been doing this for most of two decades and I've accrued a long laundry list of chronic ailments (right elbow), nagging injuries (hello shoulders!) and various aches and pains (too many to note). A year or two ago I had a painful clicking in my left knee that I ignored mostly...until it began interfering with my training. It was then that I read Mike Robertson's article "18 Tips for Bulletproof Knees" on T-nation. He suggested wearing knee sleeves. I'd wrapped my knees when squatting heavy but I'd never used knee sleeves. I already knew enough by then to take Robertson's advice seriously (dude knows his stuff) so I got a pair of Inzer knee sleeves, the ones with all the velcro straps on them. They were sort of awkward (more on that in a separate review) so I tracked down the Rehband knee sleeves. For those not familiar with them, they are the kind all the strongmen on ESPN use. These were a distinct improvement. I've used them regularly ever since, whether I'm squatting, deadlifting or doing single-leg work. They keep the knees plenty warm--in fact they are usually soaked with sweat after a workout--and they provide a little extra stability to the joint, or at least the feeling of extra stability, which in turn provides a little psychological comfort and a small mental edge when approaching a difficult lift. For those of you who are accustomed to wrapping but have never tried the sleeves, don't expect them to work the way wraps do. The sleeves provide absolutely no rebound in the hole--which is mostly what wraps are good for. Nor will you bodybuilders get to look cool while enjoying the ritual of wrapping. The sleeves are strictly functional and they aren't much to look at. But I am sold on them. They've held up really well with time, and considering that I've never quite gotten around to washing them, they don't even smell too bad despite all that sweat they've absorbed.

Highly recommended and not just for old dudes!

Rehband has since come out with a new style of sleeves and I've only tried the elbow variety but I believe you can still get the original style sleeves at Jackal's Gym.

Ed Coan 2007 Nationals

Was just poking around on YouTube and watched Ed Coan from the 2007 USPF nationals. It's pretty impressive watching him walk out 929 lbs before he squats. I know he's squatted over a grand, and he must've walked that out too. I don't have any axe to grind in debates over gear and monolifts, but it is something watching him walk that weight out and stand there for a few seconds before squatting plenty deep. And to think he's in his mid-forties. One damn strong man. You can read a recent interview here.

Our Steroid Schizophrenia

There's an interesting article by Radley Balko, one of the libertarians at Reason magazine, that asks whether performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports. Given that Balko is a libertarian you might be able to guess what his attitude is:

Let me start by saying that I believe private sports organizations should be able to set their own rules, and that they should be free to discipline in any manner they see fit the players who break those rules. I don’t think Congress should forcibly allow performance enhancing substances in sports any more than I think Congress should prohibit them.

He offers a few relatively convincing arguments in support of his position, which is more than many of his opponents on this issue can claim:

So what is this debate really all about?

I’d submit it’s about paternalism and control. A few luddites and prudes have successfully induced a full-blown moral panic over a set of substances that for whatever reason have attracted the ire of the people who have made it their job to tell us what is and isn’t good for us.

Our society has an oddly schizophrenic relationship with pharmaceuticals and medical technology. If something can be said to be “natural”, we tend to be okay with it. If it seems lab-made or synthetic we tend to be leery. But even synthetic drugs and manmade technology seem to be okay if the aim is to make sick or broken people whole again.It’s when we talk about expanding or transcending what we’ve come to consider “normal,” be it through psychoactive drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, or genetic or biomedical technology, that a certain uneasiness sets in.

But the cat is already out of the bag. Has been for a long time. Which is not to say that there should never be any limits, nor any conversation about these things, but "natural" and "normal" are an awfully slippery slope. Balko is absolutely right to suggest that our hypocrisy concerning steroids and hgh is troubling. You can read the whole thing here.

What the hell is Iron Dog?

Q: What the hell is Iron Dog?

A: It is a site where I shall discuss, comment on, make fun of, recommend and otherwise review various products in the fields of Strength & Conditioning, powerlifting, personal training, weightlifting, bodybuilding, etc...I will also reserve the right to talk about anything that strikes my fancy. Luckily, my fancy is not very fancy and probably won't stray far from those topics.

Q: What kind of products are we talking about?

A: Anything and everything really. Training manuals, Dvds, weight-training equipment, powerlifting gear, supplements, rehab stuff, articles on the internet, websites, anything related to training that I use, read, eat, drink or otherwise consume.

Q: What qualifies you to provide these reviews?

A: Well, mostly the fact that I'm poor from buying all sorts of training shit and spend copious hours of my time reading about training. I've been training for going on two decades, I've used many of the products and systems that have come and gone over the years, and I've learned some hard lessons along the way. I'm a certified personal trainer (NSCA) but frankly I don't think that matters. There are plenty of folks with no letters after their names who are absolute experts at what they do. I'm not an expert, but I am a thoughtful, open-minded sort of guy with some opinions to share. Usually I offer legitimate reasons for my opinions. I also don't make the mistake of thinking that just because I don't like something personally that it must suck. Or vice versa. I'm pretty fair in my judgments and will freely admit it when my opinion is purely subjective. Feel free to disagree with me.

Q: Why "Iron Dog"?

A: Well, originally I'd thought about something like "gymrat," in the sense that I'm just an ordinary schmoe who loves to go to the gym and train. But I realized that's not really true. All I had to do was look around at all the schmucks at my horrible, horrible gym. They are the gymrats of the world: bicep day is three days a week and the days in between are bench day. Little or no work involving their posterior chain, little leg work unless you count leg extensions and the Smith machine and I don't. No rhyme or reason to their training, in fact, they don't train, they "work out" and they haven't made any progress at all in the two years or so that I've been watching them flounder around in the gym. Iron Dog is committed to sniffing out superior training information and products. You can lead a gymrat to knowledge but you can't make him think. But if I can lead a few to some good stuff then I've done my part.

Also, and this is where the name literally came from, I am told that Iron Dog is my chinese astrological sign or some nonsense like that. I have little patience for astrology and other hippy-dippy bullshit, but I am more inclined to tolerate it when it gives me a really cool name like Iron Dog.