A trainer at LA fitness had his client do behind-the-neck barbell press. He said to his client, "they're bad for your rotator cuff...but, I like doing them.

this isn't ggo, but i posted in H and F and no one has replied and I'm going to the gym today, so:

I'm looking for some helpful advice from some squat jedi's:

I had an injury in the gym six months ago. (actually mentioned it in this thread) I hurt my back by doing squats with barbell, due to improper form and too much weight. When I had this injury, I was just kind of a squat newb. I was trying to go deep (past parallel) and unfortunately leaned a bit forward at the bottom of my descent and ended up causing a major chronic pain in my back that lasted about 6 months. During this time I was not lifting and only doing a little light cardio while letting my back heal. It took a ridiculously long time, but its finally feeling better (but not perfect) and I'm slowly getting back into the gym.

I'm planning to start some super light squatting again today, and am trying to decide if I should start with barbell squats in the squat rack? (which is how I F'd it up in the first place) or squatting on the smith machine. Its common knowledge among brah's that the smith machine is inferior to a free barbell, but for my specific situation I wonder if it would be a good idea to start in the smith machine to make sure I don't lean forward, at least till I get comfortable with a light weight and the proper form/motion? Or should I start with leg press, which as I understand is the dumbest way of the three, but would offer the most stabalization lowest risk of injury. Again, I hope to eventually work back up to barbell in the squat rack, I'm just looking for opinions or advice on just for starting out first few times back......

yeah, wrong place buddy. try beginner questions, or maybe Cha's log

p.s. avoid the smith machine

My gym only has one power cage, and as I was doing squat and press I was in there a while today, maybe 45 minutes. At some point after I finished squatting (I think I was done with my press warm up sets) some guy comes over and asks how much longer I'm going to be -- I told him about 10 minutes or so and he gave a little grimace and went on his way. For the remainder of the time I was in the gym, he was throwing plates all over the ground at various weight trees and Smith machines, and muttering to himself, even after I gave up the cage. He wasn't a hardcore guy or anything (his work set was half squats with 155 and the pussy pad) and I thought he was just pissed at me for taking up the cage for so long. While that may well have been part of it, I finally figured out that he was pissed about the plates being out of order. He was literally moving every plate to the correct height on the tree while trying to guilt the other two people in the gym about it. I have no idea how this guy functions in life if that's enough to put him over the edge; I'll move a few things around here and there to clean things up, but he literally did the whole gym in between sets of his workout.

Do this to ease you back in with a barbell, or do something a specialist tells you, but avoid the Smith machine as a means of rehab.

I hate it when plates are out of order, . But yeah, I don't actually throw a public fit about it. I usually just rerack them where I'm actually lifting and ignore all the other ones.

You read people poorly. He was pissed at you, and taking his frustrations out by slamming and rearranging plates.

Don't press in cage if someone wants to use it. Rarely if never will somebody interrupt a session to ask how long, if they are just going to curl, because there are really are 20 other options at any gym.
You could have cleaned one of the bars off the many flat benches, incline benches or short bars, that I'm sure your gym has.

Yea I pretty much volunteer to give up the cage if I'm just pressing and I see someone who looks like they may need it I guess it depends on personal preference and what your alternatives are

F that, pressing is legit, and I can't power clean.

What do you press, 45 lbs? It is actually very hard to clean a decent amount of weight and get it into press position, especially for people that do not clean at all. This is a horrible suggestion.

looooooooooollllllll. Maybe once you get past bw, but definitely not before that.

edit: I do not press 185lb bw. I can do ~155x3 after cleaning.

I can (sort of) power clean and cleaning into press position for a set of 5 doesn't work that well for me. The issue is it is impossible (at this point) for me to arrange my hands in the exact way I am most comfortable pressing from the rack position.

Invariably, my hands are too wide and a little off balance, which really starts to add up with each rep.

This statement is ******ed. There is like 2 members on this board who can do press sets with their bodyweight.

I realize you are 100% troll, and you do have your moments, but this isn't one of them. I am ignoring you for the rest of the day. You can try again tomorrow.

I'm asking what exercise the dude wants to do in the rack. If I deem his desired use as unworthy, I keep pressing in the rack.

Could be, but he was muttering about the plates the entire time, so whatever. I'm not going to waste my time worrying about it, I just thought it was funny.

To get back to your other point, I disagree pretty strongly -- there's nothing wrong with having someone wait ten minutes while I finish my totally legitimate power cage exercise. I've certainly waited while others have done much less legitimate exercises; it's just one of the consequences of not having a home gym imo.

I probably should have asked him if he wanted to work in, which occurred to me later. I was gassed from squatting and psyching myself up for the press, but I guess that's not really much of an excuse -- I'll definitely have him work in in the future if this happens again.

Agree 100% with what jdock's points about cleaning your press weight up; I'm not pressing G4S weight but it's not nothing either. Cleaning is not an option.

I should clarify re: my earlier statement-- if there isn't another place where I can set up similarly to a cage/rack/stand, I'm staying put. My PC is better than 1.5x my OHP and I still can't get into an optimal setup from the floor.

I just looked at your log and saw you are doing 3x5 pendlay rows at 170lbs you are selling yourself way short. You are pressing ~140lbs you could hang clean that 1 rep for each set, easy.

I could, but I'd have to learn how to hang clean

It's on the list, but wasn't really an option I considered in the moment.

As an aside, when my workout partner (a colleague of mine) is there, we have definitely pressed outside the cage; even had it occurred to me to do so this time, it just wasn't an option I would have chosen at that point.

I'm gonna learn how to power clean and how to klokov press so I never need a cage again. Victory!

You keep missing the point. Its not that they cant clean the weight, its that they cant get in a desirable press starting position after cleaning the weight

I steinborn my squats when someone else wants to use the rack

notsureifserious.jpg

Impressive if true.

Wow, googling that just blew my mind. Looks like no reason for a rack amirite? Although, not sure about steinborning heavy work sets, seems like a bad long-term solution.

Saw someone doing this while lying on one of those giant exercise balls. Seemed like an excellent way to make your base really unstable.