Sealing smelly rubber?

[anatomist1]

This isn't about sculpture, unless you consider low quality, solid rubber bumper plates used for Olympic weightlifting sculpture. Nonetheless, I have some of these plates, and I'd like to keep them in a fairly small apartment. The problem is that they are made out of pretty much the same kind of rubber as car tires. I had the barbell with the plates on it sitting in my living room, and in almost no time the room smelled like a tire store. I tried washing one with a brush and dishsoap, but it didn't do much. I think the rubber itself is constantly leaking out gases of some sort.

Does anyone know of anything that could be put on rubber that remains flexible, and might seal the gas in? The plates are pretty flexible, so it can't be any kind of lacquer or paint. I'm thinking of something that might soak in a little, like Tung oil does with wood. If nothing will work, I'll probably have to buy competition quality plates, which cost $100 or more per plate.

[PTsideshow]

If any place has anything or even an answer for you this would be it (http://www.eastwood.com/) :D

[evaldart]

Jeez Anatomist, do you have to do your snatches in the apartment? If your not a practicing olympic-style lifter you dont need those things. Plus, they'd fetch a pretty penny on e-bay, especially if they're Ivanko. Sell them and get some Iron...a 310 lb set averages no more than 125 bucks, including the olympic bar and collars. Toss an attractive, non smelly piece of carpet beneath them and presto! apartment-friendly free-wieghts.

[anatomist1]

I have steel plates too. I actually do the oly lifts, or at least I will once I get back a strength base. For now, since I do only standing barbell exercises, I use them to get the bar into position to do basic strength exercises, like overhead press, front squats, overhead squats, romanian deadlifts, barbell rows. I like the simplicity of a floor and barbell situation, and I don't really want to get into setting up my squat cage in another apartment. I don't plan on dropping the bar, but I like the oly plates because they hold the bar a reasonable distance off the floor for picking up and putting down.

I still haven't found the apartment yet. If the ceiling is too low or it's too small, the deal will be off anyway, and I'll have to find somewhere else to do them. Outside is not good, as we're talking Milwaukee right off the lake, through the winter.

[evaldart]

Anatomist, be aware that those olympic movements lend themselves largely to just getting better at the olympic lifts. They focus more on technique and athleticism than strength - which does arrive, but possibly at the expense of your back and joints. I have found that the purity and simplicity of the power-lifts (bench, squat, deadlift) performed at low repetition and high intensity to be the shortest route to strength improvements. Less sets, more wieght...progressive overload. The strength you gain from these lifts is very useful in everyday life. And posessing great manual capabilities is the best tool a sculptor can enjoy.
There are few olympic lifters competing past forty...their bodies are wrecked. And while wear and tear will always eventually occur, it is not unusual for powerlifters to surpass personal bests well into their fifties.
I do not have the time to pursue these things as I once did but I know that, should I choose to focus, I could be at peak strength in a matter of months (not without some aches and pains, mind you. I'm 43). For strenght your gonna have to have some access to racks...other than that its just conditioning.

[anatomist1]

Sorry, Evaldart, but I disagree completely. I should preface by telling you that I studied exercise science intensely for several years, and have training certifications from the NSCA and USA Weightlifting.

To start with, you don't seem to even be using standard exercise science terminology properly. Conditioning is a generic term. The Olympic lifts develop both strength and power - also called speed-strength or explosive strength - and progressive overload is just as integral to the training. Power is a distinct motor quality, separate from skill, and it is just as transferrable to other activities as strength. Moreover, training Olympic style is not just about training the explosive lifts, but also doing an array of supplemental strength exercises, including squats, deadlifts and overhead presses, etc... So the claim that this kind of training does not develop strength is plainly false. It develops strength and also power. "Power"lifting only develops strength.

How much transference one gets from the training routine to other activities has to do with how similar the movement patterns, energy systems used, and motor qualities are to the target activity. As far as the usefulness of movement patterns go, I find a weightlifting-style routine more useful. The explosive power will help me move off the line and strike faster in martial arts. Olympic lifts (mostly power cleans) are now part of the training routine of every type of sport that involves jumping or explosive takeoffs of any kind these days for good reason. No exercise has been found as effective at developing power. World class Weightlifters can sprint about as fast as world class sprinters for about the first 50 yards or so, with no running technique training or practice of any kind.

In general, I see a powerlifting routine as far less useful or safe, primarily because the bench press is a dangerous and practically useless exercise, while the overhead press is healthy and useful; secondarily because powerlifting does not develop power. The main problem with the bench press is that the shoulder blades are braced against the bench, which serves as a crutch in stabilizing them. With heavy emphasis on the bench, this can and often does lead to strength and postural imbalances in the shoulder/upper back and injury problems.

Moreover, the movement pattern has low transference to most any practical activity, because pushing perpendicular to the torso makes no biomechanical sense. Unless you brace your back against a a specially designed narrow bench, you simply can't push anything heavy along that axis, because your own push just tips you over backwards. You can't use a wall or the ground, because it blocks you from retracting your elbows. If you want to push a real, heavy object, like a car, you lean forward and put your entire body in between the points contacted by your hand and feet, using your legs and low back to help, and you push with your arms in the same direction you would when doing... the overhead press.

The overhead press more closely mimics both pushing heavy objects horizontally across floors, and lifting things overhead, both of which are basic practical activities. The bench press has no corollaries. Furthermore, the overhead press is healthier because the entire shoulder is free of crutches and is forced to stabilize itself. It is an inherently balanced and safe exercise for the shoulder. Even furthermore, it also serves as a great exercise for the trunk and lower body in stabilizing the body during the lift - the body becomes a long lever-arm with a small area of base with the weight fully extended overhead. I see the overhead squat, a related Oly supplemental exercise, as the ultimate "core strength" movement.

If you want, I can also provide a similar argument for why weightlifting style squats are healthier than powerlifting style squats - it has to do with powerlifting squats disproportionately emphasizing the glutes and hams. Usefulness-wise, the powerlifting version is probably better for picking up heavy stuff, and the weightlifting version is better for transferrence to sport activities like running and jumping.

As far as your claims about the dangerousness of Weightlifting vs. Powerlifting, I'm afraid they are just plain false, regardless of your anecdotal experiences. My anecdotal experience is that powerlifters always seem to be the fattest, least healthy, most strapped in, taped up, and injured inhabitants of any gym I've ever trained at. The claim that this is a healthy activity seems ludicrous to me. I would sooner bodybuild - at least I would look good and not have obesity-related health problems. I've hardly ever met any weightlifters, so I can't compare there.

As far as evidence on the injuries goes, to start with, several people per year die during bench presses due to accident. I have only found one case of death during weightlifting ever - a heart attack during a competition. I have looked at a number of studies and read a lot of reference-laden scientific texts on strength training. I have never seen any mention of weightlifting being particularly risky or injurious, except to acknowledge how common and baseless the myth is. In fact, a couple of studies have shown it to be safer than general weight training or powerlifting. One shows no difference in injury rate between elite level powerlifting and weightlifting (both were lower than 3 per 1000 hours of activity, the differnce was that powerlifters hurt their shoulders more (see above) and weightlifters hurt their knees and back more). One study even showed a lower incidence of back problems in weightlifters vs. a sedentary control group, which doesn't surprise me at all - weightlifters have strong backs and couch potatoes don't - duh. At the competitive level, the injury rate of Weightlifting is less than half of most other vigorous sports. I can seek out references if you really want to look them up.

For me, weightlifting will be even safer than suggested by many of these studies, as I will not be pushing anywhere near the kind of limits that competitive lifters do - I am just in it for health, injury prevention, and martial arts performance enhancement.

[evaldart]

Anatomist. well I do not have any certifications other than 30years of powerlifting experience and a handful of ADFPA competitions(1660 total @220's, and 242's, no fat guys there) under my 4"belt. You have done your research and seem to know what you want from lifting but I have seen much theory go down the tubes when its time to get in the gym and make steady progress. Over-training is almost always the culprit for lack of progress...second only to bad form.
If you train with other activities in mind then yes, the athleticism that I referred to in my last post will be better served by the olympic routine. I have always been able to give up a little athleticism in favor of some strength. I have never incurred a serious injury.
Regarding the bench press, most power lifters can out-press olympic lifters overhead without ever training that lift. The reason the overhead press was eliminated from the olympic lifts is because lifters were contorting their bodies into mid-air bench presses, i,e arched backs, not good.
Over the years I have trained many novice level lifters and watched as the powerlifting principles catapulted their performance at amazing rates.
Regarding the usefulness, your speed and quickness probably comes from the dna that graced your nervous-system, not necessarily from practised movements. And the ability to be able to lift VERY heavy stuff has always enhanced my experiences in artmaking, allowed me to accomplish unusual things. The steel moves pretty slow, so I don't need any explosiveness. (when I threw the shot they had me on a clean and snatch program...I just could not get flexible enough to perform those lifts that well. Years later after achieveing new levels in powerlifting I took up the shot again and exceed by ten feet any previous effort.)
I could go on and on (I love talking about lifting) But I will continue my abbreviated maintenance program of squats, shrugs, chin ups, bench presses and deadlifts.
There are no books or statistics designed for your own special body, that knowledge will come from trial and error, and the constant tailoring of your routines to agree with ever changing priorities.
Maybe we should have a section here to argue about health and fitness and how those two things have nothing to do with strength...we sculptors need our bodies to perform at higher levels than other artists. Just living a long time is not good enough.

Oh, and everyone knows that the bench press, flat, incline or decline, is the KING of upperbody movements - nothing else compares.

[anatomist1]

I guess I've lifted weights off and on for over 20 years. Most of that time I didn't make much progress, as I was still using bodybuilding principles and almost always concurrently doing lots of running. The bodybuilding stuff had me overtraining by miles most of the time - way too many exercises, too much intensity, and too much frequency.

I got in my best shape a few years ago, when I was planning on going into the training business. I throttled back to training shy of concentric failure, only doing one or two heavy work sets per exercise, and using only big, multi-joint movements. I suppose this is similar to powerlifting training in principle. Reps-wise, I rotated between low and medium rep ranges over time. I also learned about HIIT and got in the best shape of my life in terms of shorter bouts of high intensity endurance. It had me in much better shape than I ever needed for Aikido. Also lowest bodyfat. Then I broke up with my girlfriend, moved into a city with a bunch of old party buddies, and steadily went to hell physically for a few years.

Since then I have gotten back up to a really low level of fitness with infrequent Aikido and interval training, and am just now getting back to weights. I don't anticipate needing massive strength for sculpture purposes. As I get better, I seem to be building things even more hollow and lighter. In fact, I have just developed an extension of my technique into using stips of sheet that will allow me to make much larger sculptures with bigger solid-looking masses that are in fact mostly paper thin.

I hate the bench press, and always have. I can see it being "king" in the sense that it allows you to move the most weight - mostly due to the crutch effect I described. If you get huge enough, sure it will have some transfer to seemingly dissimilar movements, as cross-sectional muscle area is also a factor in strength. Most everyone I know that ever benched heavy had shoulder problems though, which is usually among the factors that led them to quit lifting weights. I think one can get much safer, more functional upper body development without them, using mostly OHPs, dips, pullups, and rows.

I guess I also don't like what they do to body aesthetics - I've got man-boobs enough already. Another of my least favorite physiques is the tough-guy look wherein one does tons of benching and curls but not much else, ending up with puny legs, no back, and bulging pecs and biceps. For some reason these guys always wear really tight t-shirts. Heavy emphasis on benching can also shorten muscles on the front side and cause hunched shoulder posture. Or, some guys get used to pinching their scapula in an overly retracted position, and get the puffed out look. Emphasis on the olympic style overhead stuff tends to straighten my posture and keep my shoulders just where they should be. I didn't like the look of the world class weightlifters I saw at the Olympic training center though - their traps were so huge from all the pulling that it made them look kinda no-neck/sloped-shouldered. Won't catch me doing shrugs either.

[Landseer]

Speaking of injuries, here's a video clip of a guy lifting weights off a rack, he took a couple of steps back, his leg crumpled and he went down;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s802K8ubAHI

Here's another one of some kids on a trampoline, one gets his leg caught in the basketball hoop- breaking it, and his buddies make it worse and then keep bouncing around and playing with the ball while the 3rd kid is screaming- Darwin award candidates;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpx9eTy-ew

[EJB]

The argument of which weight sport is superior reminds me of the time I had a studio tour and during our little Q&A someone asked me with all seriousness, "Which is better, sculpture or painting?". It took me a moment to digest that one before I answered, "The one I'm better at."
As a former athlete and coach, my preference has always been with the Olympic lifts. For all of those reading this thread and can't grasp what all the debate is about, here is the famous analogy used to describe the differences between the three weight sports. OLYMPIC weightlifters are like ROCKETS; very fast off the mark and powerful. POWER lifters are like TANKS; slow, yet steady with lots of torque. BODY BUILDERS are like FERRARI'S........without the engine.
Back to the original dilemma ......the newer and cheaper your rubber bumper plates are, likely the higher level of VOC's. You might try 'cooking off' some of these by placing them outside in the sun for awhile. Sealing them will likely only compound your problem, might be best to try something to absorb these compounds. In every weight room I have ever been in the plates were covered in dirt and chalk and I never noticed a rubber smell.
Good luck!

[evaldart]

EJB. ahh the dirt and chalk, signs of a good wieght room. Only the sounds of clanking iron NOT that annoying passive whirring of stationary bikes. You summmed it up pretty good, of corse cross-over is not unusual. Our (USA) two best heavywight olympic lifters of recent years has been Marc Henry and Shane Hammen...both converted powerlifters, both obese, both could dunk a basketball. Sometimes powerlifters turn to bodybuilding to lose wieght and get in shape, all they've got to do is shed some fat and do some curls. In general, olympic lifters just stay olympic lifters.

Anatomist, you are indeed aware that a wieghtlifting regimen can enhance ANY sport if properly designed. I have passed through the overtraining part of my lifting life as well (as a kid I benched three times a week). Just get loose, make it through your heavy sets and get out of the gym...the strength will come. The martial arts will take care of the conditioning. For me the sculpture-making is the conditioning. Think ahead to the day when you have your own space/equipment/facility. You might change your mind about the making of heavy things - in the interest of maximizing the potential of your developing aesthetic.

Landseer, CRINGE! Man I hateseeing those wieghtlifting accident clips. Most of the time that shit happens because some idiot has crappy form and is attempting to do something way over his capabilities to impress his buddies. In competition I never tried to do anything I had not already done often in training.

[Daniel]

Being a scrawny 140 lbs, I think I'll stay out of the powerlifting discussions. Back to the rubber, though, are the pads brand new? Maybe the smell will dissipate on its own over time the way a new car slowly loses that new car smell. Maybe you could put it outside in the sun for a month or so. I have used some flexible coatings before for a couple of projects involving flexible foam with a rubber skin. I will have to look up the name of the product since I don't remember off hand. The thing is, I don't imagine it will hold up to the abuse it will likely receive, and I seem to remember it having a funny smell of its own.
Take care
D

[Landseer]

Landseer, CRINGE! Man I hateseeing those wieghtlifting accident clips. Most of the time that shit happens because some idiot has crappy form and is attempting to do something way over his capabilities to impress his buddies. In competition I never tried to do anything I had not already done often in training.The clip doesn't say how much weight the guy was lifting, but he had it on his shoulders, looked to me like his knee gave out after he took a couple of steps backwards and kept spreading his feet father out with each step- the right one caved in and down he goes. He was lucky the weights didn't land ON him- looked real close.

[nirp1981]

hello there...
speaking about the rubber... have you tried using car tiers solution (the one that keep the tires shinny)? it might work for you ' and i also know it smells pretty good and it guards the rubber , so it might solve your problam...and might not:)
anyway good luck with the weight liffting... nirp from DiscussFitness (http://www.discussfitness.com)