All the Getbig experts have arrived now! Listen, Melvin, if you need to wrap a joint to train it you are doing something wrong. Do something else for a start.
That machine I made has stainless steel parts, special shafts and bearings and took a long time (over 120 hours!) to design then 6 months to build, plus it has been modified several times. It owes me at least
$30,000 and that doesn't include factory costs. I built it to see if I could make the best piece of gym equipment ever put in a gym. I think I succeeded. It doubles as a
Calf slide machine. That is why I increased the angle. We had a big bloke named Joe L who would load 700 pounds + on it for heel raises. On the low angle the shafts would bend
so I decided to make it steeper. Some guys don't like it now and said it was better before. Everyone is an expert in this game!
What about weight belts? I never wore one since, if you know me I'm all about Chi and deep breathing. But it seems like all the hard core muscle monsters do. Speaking of which, they also wrap their knees. Seemed like Coleman spent more time wrapping and unwrapping his knees than actually squatting. Not criticizing, just saying.
BTW, when I was a little tot, about 9 years old taking Aikido classes, the Jap instructor told me while trying to teach me how to breathe through my diaphragm that Americans where shallow breathers because they wear belts which puts pressure right below your belly button where the Chi is centered. Americans have under developed Chi which makes them less calm and centered and sometimes drives them to blow Japs up into a mushroom-like cloud of smithereens.