Do you actually come to a full stop in the sitting position on the box and try to spring back up or do you just squat down until you touch the box? And how high should the box be?

Pause at the bottom, but use the box as a tool to make you a better low bar back squatter. You can sit back with more confidence - set the height of the box to the exact height where your spinal extension breaks down etc. etc. Drop the height of the box until you're at a good depth for free squatting. Bring the weight up so it's challenging and make sure your technique is perfect (weight on heels, knees to the sides, NO DRIFT FORWARD).

Smiley is rocking forward at the start on the concentric(whilst box squatting) even the slightest a nono?? And an indication you are squatting too heavy?

If you're doing box squats the way I'm telling JF to (technique is priority #1) than yea, that is bad.

Your form sucks imo. j/k but wtf are you doing wearing squishy shoes fool?

Can't really see what's going on with your form from that angle.

This. You are leaning way too far forward coming out of your squat. You can try not putting the bar quite so low on your back. The farther down your back the bar is, the more you have to lean forward to keep the weight centered.

I think you already know this because you mentioned it. The dead lift video was too dark for me to see well for some reason, but certainly on your power cleans you are rounding your back. Also you might want to try and get more depth with your knees at the catch. It looks like you are pulling the bar a bit with your arms. You should not be reverse curling the bar.

can someone please explain what a "good morning" is when you squat? i'm thinking its when you lift your butt up coming out of the hole before your legs get involved.

Good Morning Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUpOZnhS4FI

So basically the legs are coming up while the back/torso is staying bent(so to speak) and you're leaning forward so you end up bent over like he is(when he's at the bottom) and trying to finish the rep by raising the weight by doing a version of a good morning using only your torso. This happens often when you end up with the weight on the balls of your feet and/or end up coming too forward and don't keep your knees at a solid position from the first third of the lift through the bottom and all the way back up.

I hope that makes sense.

back angle isn't the real concern. A low-bar back squat will have a steeper angle and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as your hips and shoulders rise at the same time. The problem is hips rising and the load not, and thus needing to finish the lift with your torso.

Yeah my shoes suck, I'm getting some for Christmas, so I have to just suck it up until then.

Alright, squats aside, I got a decent workout today. I've really been freakin' slackin, and I knew it would be hard to be consistent this month, but that's no reason to slack off when I can be workin out. I started off with 5 min on stationary bike+some dynamic stretching and warm up sets.

Squats:
225x random reps of really sucking at squats

Press
102.5x3x5

Power Cleans:
150x5x3

Kettle Bell Swings:
[16kg x 3 x 10]+[32kg x 1 x 10]


1 Dead hang Chin up
10 jumping chins + 10 push ups (x3)

Notes:
Squats: I really tried to keep my back tight but I could really just feel it go limp when I tried to get deep. I am considering doing a massive reset on squats just so I can get the form right, possibly all the way back down to 185 or so. We'll see. I attempted to do box squats, and I did them for my warm up sets and they went ok. The problem is, the only box I could find that worked was too long and when I unracked it only gave me about 2 inches to step back. It just made it weird and cramped. I successfully did 195 x2 but I had to stop because I kept hitting the pins that you rack the bar on.

Press: Hooray for 10" washers! I decided to do a reset on the press last time, and dropped all the way back down to 100 and will just micro load it from here on out. My goal is to get to 130 for my work set, 2.5 pounds at a time. I tried to do a little less payback than I was previously doing, I think I was successful in this.

Power Cleans: Meh, these felt super easy considering I am doing a reset and am at 10 less pounds than I was at last time. Having said that, I have no idea how my form is. Is my back to vertical? It looks straighter than it used to be, but maybe I need to be getting my back straighter and more horizontal. My shrug also looks pretty meh. Might start adding in some shrugs for assistance exercises.

KB Swings: I figured I should at least do some swings after sucking at squats so bad. No idea if I am doing these right, so I figured I would upload a form check to find out. They did feel a lot easier than last time I did them, 16kg was a piece of cake, and 32kg was a lot easier than I expected.

And to really punish my self for slackin I did a brief little jump chin/push up super set. I can finally (barely) do 1 dead hang, so I did that and then pumped out some jump chins and push ups. Sweet.

And enough is enough! I am tired of looking relatively fit and having this huge gut hanging out. I am officially going on a diet of hopefully ~2500 cal a day. No more fatties!

Hey Johnny swings were too high. Make sure the arms are like ropes in that they are passive. The momentum is derived from hip drive. Sit back and snap them through. When you sit back obv you should have you lower back extended.

Too high? Hmmm I'll have to go back and watch some videos and do some more research. I remember just thinking 'swing em high!'

And I forgot to do my post workout meal:




Hooray for dieting!

Too high?

Anything above eyeline is fine as far as I can tell. If you want to swing the bell over your head who gives a ****. Just don't drop it on your face and die.

as long as your arms aren't doing anything it doesn't matter. There might be some shoulder reasons not too but none that i'm aware of

pls to be doing your swings with more of a russian influence and less of a pussy crossfit influence.

they look pretty good though(feet could be a little wider but you're still within the realm of a proper stance, make sure to really dig in with your heels, barefoot is better than running shoes if you have a comfortable nonslippery surface to stand on), if the bell feels light swing it to a little above shoulder height and try to actively push it back down, you'll get more reps in a shorter amount of time and the bell will feel heavier to your body eliciting strength gains that you wouldn't have normally gotten from the bell

kpc, I read some crossfit blog where they were saying the "American" swing had more crossover to olympic lifts or some bull****, whereas the "Russian" swing was too horizontal in nature.

lollercopter or whatever

It did indeed bring the luls.

Wow 10 days without working out. Wayyyy too long. My reasons (excuses) for this are I was super busy (christmas+birthday), I have been sick, and I just have been generally lame/slacking. Anyway, I got my Do wins (hooray!) and my belt (hooray!) and I got a chance to use them today. Lol@ squatting 225 w/ a belt but whatever I was anxious to use it because I've never used a belt before.

So today for my work sets I did:

Squat: 225x3x5

Notes: I know, I know. Lol@belt@225. But, I haven't squatted in 10 days, and I wanted to get right back to 225. ALSO, I think it helped my form A TON. My first rep of the first set was shallow, as was the last rep of the last set. But I think I successfully rid myself of my lower back slacking really bad at the bottom of the rep. It felt really heavy and I'll probably ditch the belt, but I'm not sure yet. And, I don't have any lower back agitation that I was getting which I'm pretty sure was from my lower back rounding at the bottom of each rep. I think my form might be getting better (crosses fingers.)

DB Bench: 55x5/4/4

Notes: Lol fail twice. It looks like I had the very last rep but it just wouldn't go up. It looks like I am using zero leg drive, and I must not be. It sure felt like I was though. The problem on the last rep of the second set was that I brought the DBs too far away from my body on the way down and that was the end of it. Sigh. I will be purchasing a bench very soon, hopefully by the next time I bench. I am looking forward to getting back into actual bench pressing.

DL 365x1

Notes: As the guys pointed out in the Whiteboard thread, I didn't get to full lockout which annoyed me when I replayed it and watched it. I never have a had a problem locking out on DL, and I am going to go into denial and say that I actually had it for .01 seconds. It's amazing to me that I can miss 10 days working out and beat my last DL PR by 20 pounds. Must have to do with the super long recovery times on DL. Anyway, I think I'll be doing rack pull next time, and hold off on full DLs for a couple workouts.

And I did double 16kgx10 clean and jerks (Not sure that's the right term) with kettlebells. Actually pretty tough on the last few reps.

I forgot to do chins today. Bleh.

And YAY! I ordered my squat rack and it'll be here in the next couple weeks. Hoooooray!!!!

And now I am going to go get down on a bunch of pizza. Omononomomon.

You are getting no stretch reflex out of the bottom of your DB bench. Take a big breath, press, exhale, inhale, lower, then press them out of the bottom quickly. Breathe at the top.

Using the stretch shortening cycle is not cheating.

Your form does look quite a bit better with the belted squats. That's kinda weird, I actually had to ween myself off of a belt during squats because it was noticeably degrading my form.

isn't your lower back rounded bigtime on the dl?

Yes, I guess I forgot to mention that in my log, I pointed it out when I put in the white board thread. I was attempting to fix that but I made it worse. Bleh.

Anyway, I just finished my workout today. And filmed it. If nothing else, I feel pretty diligent and am proud of myself for filming most, if not all, of my workouts since starting part 2. I plan to keep it up. Here is what I did today:

Squat Work Set:
230x3x5

Notes: I only filmed the first set because there were to many ****** running around doing circuit training for me to find a spot to set it down. My squat rack on it's way so I won't have to worry about it any more. I'm not sure about this today. Even though I think my form is improving with the belt, I don't think I got deep enough on my reps. I will have to focus on the next time. Also, my knees might be tracking a little too far forward, not sure. Actually, watching this again I'm sure that my reps are too high.

Press Work Set:
105x3x5

Notes: Still a lower weight because I am resetting and micro-loading. I really hope to micro load all the way up to work sets of 135. I think I am just plain genetically weak when it comes to upper body stuff, so we'll see how that goes. I also noticed my lay-back gets more pronounced as the weight increases.

Power Cleans Work Set:
155x5x3

Notes: Not sure on these really. I think I am improving my starting position/back angle a little bit but it looks like it decays as I get fatigued. I strained my arm squatting, hurt it a little more pressing, and by the time I was catching the bar in the rack position it was really agonizing. It's happened plenty times before, and just like before it feels fine now, only an hour or so later. I also realize that the last 3 angles I used are pretty much pointless, and I'll stick to more side-like angles in the future.

Double Kettlebell C+J
35x8

Notes: Not even sure if that's what it's called, what I'm doing here. I didn't realize the camera angle was so bad, but I did get to lockout on all the reps. My camera freaked out when I was uploading so I don't have all the reps recorded. Bleh. Oh well. Not even sure if I'm close on these. Am I supposed to be jumping when I do these?

Kettlebell clean
70x1x each arm (Fail)
I tried to clean my 70 pound kettle bell once with each arm. I got it up to the rack position pretty easily, but as soon as I got it there it was too heavy and I dropped it. I filmed it but it didn't upload for whatever reason. Will try to do these successfully soon.

And I have been successfully eating way less calories everyday, 2500ish or so. I'm also getting lots of protein. Even though I'm getting stronger, my gut is getting disgustingly big. Hopefully it will be a lot smaller in a few months.

Post Workout Meal:

A protein shake and about 1 pound of raw fish:

Not sure how much that is but I had 4 servings of this I figure it's about 4oz each servings. I had 2 servings of salmon, 1 serving of white tuna, and 1 serving of regular tuna. There was a little cucumber with it, too. Yum raw fish.





I'll eat some more veggies and fatty nuts at work tonight

press form just looks weak. like you're just holding a bar, kinda letting it sit on your chest a little, oh wait, my elbows are behind it, i should lean back a bunch to get them under the bar. your abs and glutes should be super tight in the start position, so that if you do lean back it's more a "system wide" lean than one that starts at the lower spine.

imagine a guy is going to punch you in the stomach when you start every rep and another guy has a gun to your head and will shoot if you fail.