I ignored my bench press form for 5 months of lifting. Pretty darn stupid. Anyhow, here's me trying to fix back arch, bar path, grip width, focus point (I put a nail in the ceiling), elbow flaring and descent speed.
Bring my feet in a little more? Bar descending too fast?
I lose the bar path here since this is my 1RM. I'm trying to sneak in some intensity to prevent muscle loss once a week without too much volume at the upper end while my shoulder clears out. I'm getting in lots of very low weight reps every week to try to get the groove. Not sure about the best strategy to recover from a failure to learn it right the first time.
I ignored my bench press form for 5 months of lifting. Pretty darn stupid. Anyhow, here's me trying to fix back arch, bar path, grip width, focus point (I put a nail in the ceiling), elbow flaring and descent speed.
Bring my feet in a little more? Bar descending too fast?
I lose the bar path here since this is my 1RM. I'm trying to sneak in some intensity to prevent muscle loss once a week without too much volume at the upper end while my shoulder clears out. I'm getting in lots of very low weight reps every week to try to get the groove. Not sure about the best strategy to recover from a failure to learn it right the first time.
I wonder if your eye level should be brought a little closer to the bar? It seems that you probably a bit to far down the bench to really get a solid push off using your lats. I can't seem to recall what video I saw that specifically talked about how to keep your shoulders tucked while lifting off to start, but the key to the idea was keeping your eye path right under the bar. Rippetoe doesn't says to keep your eye level below the bar, but in his videos its pretty much right underneath it (http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wi...h_Press_Videos)
I think you should set your arch before you lift off. It looks like you are adjusting your leg drive/arch after you get setup. What I try to do is get underneath the bar, take a few breaths, and right as I am about lift up I drive my legs and tuck my shoulders, creating an arch, then lift up and then get set. I then take take a deep breath during the descent, touch my chest and power up.
From the top of your rep to your chest, is the bar hitting your nips or well lower than that? From the top, it looked to me you could drop straight down and hit your nips, yet the weight seems to descend at an angle towards your lower chest. I think I could be seeing your setup wrong though and maybe you are setup above your chest and lifting more like the style in Dave Tate's videos? If you are trying to do bench more like Rippetoe talks about, I think you to keep the bar path perpendicular.
As far as doing 1RM, you seem to follow a lot of what Lyle McDonald says and I like this article here about the minimum work needed to maintain adaptation:
The basic conclusion, again from both research and practical experience is that both volume and frequency of training can usually be cut by up to 2/3rds (that is, to 1/3rd of what you did to improve it) but with one massively important caveat: the intensity of that training must be maintained.
If you are worried about your form, maybe it would be a better idea to crank out 2 heavy seats of 4-6 reps, but keeping your usual intensity to give yourself some more reps to work out form issues without losing any of your gains thus far? I try to think more about form in my warmups and then trying to keep that form when I get to my heavy sets, though maybe that's easier said than done...
I think I actually couldn't unrack it while my back was arched and I was set. Definitely losing a lot to adjust after I'm holding all the weight. I think you're right, I need to be a little further under the bar. I'm a little shoestrung by my rack on this unfortunately.
I'm aiming for my nips, and I think I hit them here. The bar ascent isn't straight line, because it's just not going up very fast despite my best efforts. Ends up hovering into my old, incorrect groove.
Yeah, I'm following that Lyle article about minimum strength maintenance. As I'm rehabbing my shoulder, I want to keep heavy pushes to the minimum necessary to maintain muscle. Seems to be working *knock on wood*. Another week at least before I want to try 2x5 with heavy weight.
So is your rack stuck where it is relative to the wall? If you could push it out a foot or so, then I think you could get a bit further back. If not, maybe you could find pins for your rack that could allow the bar to roll away from the rack. I have pins for my bench that allow me to roll the bar about 6 inches outward. The video below is an old from me (not really posting it to show off my form, just to show you what my pins look like):
I just watched the video again and I think your forearms might be what is taking you off the perpendicular path. It looks like you are tucking your elbows to your sides and not keeping them flared out in plane with the bar. The Rippetoe bar path video might help you out here.
The wall isn't in play. The bench is up against the bottom of the cage. I can probably slide a little further up the bench and still have my head on it, and see if that works.
I am not a sumo expert, hopefully someone else chimes in. But I don't think your hips are low enough, so your legs reach extension then you lever the bar up with your back.
CP commented in my log, too. I'm gonna try to go a little wider, feet pointed further out, wear shorts and get a camera angle from the front. Wider stance might get my butt a little lower. The descriptions I read about sumo-style both warned about getting the butt too low and turning it into a squat, maybe I overcompensated.
Cressey recommends sumo style for people who walk with toes out, so maybe this will be the ticket for me. I don't feel comfortable with traditional.
I thought sumo had you get your butt lower than conventional, and was partially to help good squatters treat their deadlifts a bit more like their squat. It'd make sense to follow this up with advice to avoid going TOO low. But I'm totally speculating right now.
I do the half sumo thing and put my feet just wide enough to get my hands inside because it just feels great to me. My stance is very close to my squat stance in this scenario.
I did try to do those measurements a few weeks back with a tape measure, but the math said my arms were really long, and I know they are average or a tiny bit short.
I widened my foot angle from like 40 to 50 degrees, and it was way easier to clear my knees with less ROM in my back.
This really feels like it's a lot of adjustment just to make it legal for a meet, and I should just be using a trap bar (if the FT money comes in) or lifting off from higher (off plates) if what I really want is to pull more weight.
I did SS today and filmed most of it. Let's start with squats; here are 3 sets of 95kg or 210 lbs, which is around 7.5kg or 15lbs below my PR. How does it look?
BB: +1 bar too far in front, see Sylar's lift 1 post newer.
Sylar: Looks good to me, but IANAE
Acehole: SS is Thumbless Low Bar squats, not thumb under HBBS! You're craning your neck, too. Your wrists are jacked backwards a bit, which may give you problems. Put your thumb over and try to line up your forearm with the bar for less stress on the wrist. You may need your elbows a little further back for stability once you're not holding all the weight with your fingers. The actual lifting part looks good to me, but again IANAE.
I lose my lower back if I go lower. OK enough to go 230# Sunday? These felt pretty heavy, and I lost form a little more on 220# before I concentrated on keeping chest up for this set.
It looks like your knees go pretty far forward. Also, you look off-center in the one from the back. It looks like you push your left knee out ok, but not your right one.
Acehole: SS is Thumbless Low Bar squats, not thumb under HBBS! You're craning your neck, too. Your wrists are jacked backwards a bit, which may give you problems. Put your thumb over and try to line up your forearm with the bar for less stress on the wrist. You may need your elbows a little further back for stability once you're not holding all the weight with your fingers. The actual lifting part looks good to me, but again IANAE.
I will try to work on my grip, thanks for the pointer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by udbrky
Acehole:
It looks like your knees go pretty far forward. Also, you look off-center in the one from the back. It looks like you push your left knee out ok, but not your right one.
So my knees should go less forward? Do you have a tip on how to accomplish this? I will try to work on being symmetrical as well, thanks.
Here's my 235x5x5 from today. 3rd time doing HBBS. Either it's not that different from LBBS or I'm seriously messing up imo. Lemme know what you guys think.
Sets 2, 3, and 4 are at 2x speed for anti-boredom purposes. And the pause on the last rep is in fact intentional, lol.
they do look pretty good. Work on craning your neck less. iirc, you've had back problems, yes? Your low back position is OK, but I wouldn't call it perfect. It doesn't buckle, which is the really important thing, so I wouldn't fret if you feel fine. 11th rep looked as good as the 1st.
Lol, yeah I got a new super excited workout partner. Will keep neck neutral from now on.
Yes, I do have low back problems, which is why I am trying 531, as SS would kick the crap out of it as soon as I approached a certain threshold in weights, and I just couldn't keep up playing sports while on SS. I tend to round/hyperextend doing anything, my neutral lumbar position feels weak. I expect that to improve if I can complete one more 531 cycle, but it's already way better than it used to be.
