Don't care how you do it man. Core and glutes. Fix 'em, fix your back. Doesn't have to be Stu style, plenty of safe core strengthening stuff to do that is safe for your back. I will think about it.

let me know what you think of!

didn't have much time yesterday, basically just did

treadmill

3x10x22kg goblet squats

not sure what else to do for legs

Following a four or five month lay off after bungling my back up last year I have been doing a pile of:
Camel Cats
Bird Dogs
Pelvic Tilts
Glute Bridges
Dead Bugs

I target doing these 5 times a week for a good 10sec count on each rep (other than camel cats) x 10 reps. It may well be anecdotal but my back has been pretty happy. It only takes me about 15 mins per session with an added knee to chest stretch thrown in.

tbh single legged leg work is arduous in the best of times. I still think the best bet for you is to go back to the most basic bird dog progression aka just lifting one hand. Then once you can keep your core braced and breathe normally with that hand sweeping back and forth progress to just the opposite leg going back and forth and really focus on breathing normally. Then onto proper birddogs.

You basically have to think of this as practice for motor units in your core to start responding accurately to an ever increasing difficulty of complete volitional control.

You have to un-learn bad motor patterns that utilise the core muscles incorrectly and it's a two way street. Your core muscles are under-utilized and in some postures, over-utilized.

For instance, you even have to come up with a safe postural schema for opening and closing the door behind you because I bet there is some twisting in how you normally do it.

WAR GSP

treadmill
1 mile

front squat
30kg 3x10 (lol this was actually not easy)

Health was not good for a while, got back to the gym two weeks ago and have been doing random stuff just to get my body used to exercising. Really glad to be able to exercise again!

Rode a small bike to and from gym which was way more exhausting than expected lol. Going to try incline bench next time and maybe switch to that for good. Even with a small arch I still get back pain, also incline should be better for my shoulder.


Bench
10x bar
5 x 30kg
5 x 40kg
5/5/8(amrap last set) x 50kg

seated DB OHP
1010/9(failed 10th) x 10kg's

facepulls
3x10 lowest weight

Welcome back Khan. Good luck getting back at it!

Thanks! it's nice to be back

Front Squats
10 x bar
5 x 40kg
3 x 50kg
5/5/6 x 55kg


gym only has 2.5kg plates as the lowest, so have to go up in 5kg increments. I didn't think that would be any issue since I thought i was doing sets of 10 at 50kg last workout. Turns out that was my bench workout I was looking at and the last time I did front squats it was with 30kg, no wonder the bar felt so heavy with a 25kg jump lol.

Could of done 1-2 more in last set, but my back was feeling strained so I chickened out and lived to fight another day.

did random shoulder rehab stuff, side lat raises and a rotation thing, all with 3kg DB's.

Biked 4km before and after the workout, feeling pretty destroyed today. It's awesome

4/27

Front Squats
10 x bar
5 x 30
5 x 40
3 x 50
3 x 5 x 60

Incline bench
10/5 x bar
5 x 30
3 x 5 x 40

Deadlifts
5 x bar
5 x 40
5 x 50
5 x 60



I was so ****ing happy to do deadlifts again, it honestly made my entire day. I didn't go hard, just wanted to see how my back would do with it.

4/29

FS
10 x bar
5 x 30
5 x 40
3 x 50
3 x 5 x 62.5

DB Bench
5 x 10s
5 x 15s
3 x 5 x 20s
Wanted to see if these would be easier on my back/shoulder.

DL
10 x bar
5 x 40
5 x 50
5 x 60
8 x 70
I could of gotten a few more reps, but couldn't be sure my form would hold. Wanted to see where I am at in terms of strength. Probably could not of gotten more than 10.

doing a bunch of reps to try to get form down with everything, loosely following starting strength now, trying to figure out how to do that with front squats and incline bench

Glad to see you back!

Thanks! It's awesome to be back

This is the first DL workset, i need to keep my chin down. Need to get vids of front squats for review since I have no idea what i'm supposed to do form wise other than keep my elbows up

I would really appreciate feedback on these videos. In the front squats it feels like i'm doing a good morning on the second half of the lift. I get halfway up much easier than the second half. I'm not sure what to do to correct this, my back is a bit sore today because of that (and maybe the DL's).

On the Deadlifts, I need to work on the fundamentals of the setup again. I was pulling my lats back but forgot the que of chest up. I tried to keep my chin down but failed on that.

FS
10 x bar
5 x 25kg
3 x 40kg
2 x 50kg
3 x 5 x 65kg

Incline Bench
10 x bar
5 x 22.5kg (this is a lie, i just did 5xbar again lol)
3 x 30kg
2 x 40kg
3 x 5 x 45kg

Deadlifts
10 x 30kg
3 x 45kg
2 x 62.5kg
5 x 75kg

SQUATS






DL WARMUP


DL WORKSET

Front Squats
10 x 20kg
5 x 25
3 x 40
2 x 50
3 x 5 x 67.5

OHP
10 x 4kg (dumbells)
5 x 6kg
3 x 5 x 20kg (barbell)

went light on these to see how my back does, seemed fine other than one rep where I wasn't staying tight and let my core go loose.

Deadlifts
10 x 30kg
3 x 50
2 x 70
5 x 80

With the caveat that I'm far from a front squat expert:

Front squats look like the bar is a bit forward of midfoot essentially constantly, likely due to poor thoracic mobility.

Maybe PM Syn, Evo, and any other famous olytards and ask for input?

Re: these latest sets of deadlifts, you're pulling the bar around your knees. It's hard to tell from the video, but if you're a fellow long limbed individual, angling your feet out and getting your knees angled out over your toes is going to reduce the effect distance over the bar your knees are and allow you to pull the bar vertically off the ground.

Obviously your lumbar is pretty extended on those - perhaps overextended. Can you keep it in that position when doing weight that is at all heavy for you?

here's an old DL vid, it looks like I was going around my knees here as well but it's a little less pronounced. I also noticed my back seems a little bit rounded here compared to my latest vids. Those two things could be related.

I will try angling my feet out. Does the old back position look better than the new arch?


Your comments on the front squat make a lot of sense, the bar does feel too far forward at the end of the squats.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

I have two tips that I think will immediately fix/improve your frontsquat. A few years back I spent a couple of months in the online coaching group with Vasily Polovnikov and Yasha Kahn and my frontsquat got really good because of their advice.

1) Balance in the front squat:
-Go down slower concentrating on your balance through your midfoot.
-After hitting the bottom, drive up as hard as you can through your heels.

2) Raise everything when coming out of the bottom:
-Push elbows up
-Push shoulders up into the bar
-Push your chest up
-Push your chin up

If you start doing these two things simultaneously your frontsquat should start looking a lot better. Looking forward to seeing your next video if you try this.

One other thing that would allow your torso to stay more vertical would be to wear oly/squat shoes because of the raised heel.

By the way, that balance tip is for front squats only. During back squats they always hammered balance through midfoot at all times.

hahahaha, i completely forgot about this post and sensei's reply, almost made the exact same post last week. I should reread more of my log to avoid repeating dumb mistakes.

Excited to try these out! Thanks again for the advice

Random excuses for not going to gym coupled with a sore back mean I’m just doing McGill exercises at home today.
Pretty sure the sore back is of my own doing, had a very long late night poker session on Sunday and didn’t get up and move around enough.

should of gone when i had the chance! Got sick for the rest of the week, weather has turned cold here again and it's like a 2nd flu season.


pretty annoyed that my phone randomly stopped recording in the last set, had more grindy reps that I was happy I made it through, also wanted to see if my form was collapsing at the toughest points. Tried to focus on driving through my heels, hard to think when you're struggling sometimes.

Front Squats
3x5x67.5kg

Incline Bench
4 x 47.5
4 x 45
3 x 45

Failed on each set, not sure why these were so tough

DL
5 x 80kg

moved my feet around and ended with them closer together, i think this helped with the bar path