First sumo pulls ever. Do your worst.

185x3 (front)
185x3 (side)
225x2 (front)
225x2 (side)

Next attempt at the front squat

Seems to me that I'm not keeping my back straight enough, which is causing the weight of the bar to go on my wrists rather than my body at the bottom of the squat. That might explain why I find it more comfortable than a back squat, since there's basically no weight on my body at the bottom, which obviously won't fly with any real weight.

Not sure how to fix that. To successfully get my back and chest pointing up I need my hips to be coming straight down rather than back, but to do that I'd need to get my knees really far forward, which would require way more ankle flexibility. I'm not sure I'm on the right course here, also doesn't seem like most people push their knees much further out than their toes.

The other possibility would be to increase back flexibility to flex the upper back and keep the chest under the bar.

One of the mobility exercises I'm using is squatting a few inches away from a wall. I can not getting anywhere close to parallel before my head starts tilting forward and makes contact with the wall.

Still learning these. Stance and grip widths are chosen purely based on what feels comfortable, so I'm open to input on that as well as anything else.

Looks really good. Must be nice to finally be pulling from the floor

Ibavly: I can't be sure but it looks like your ankles stop moving really early, preventing your knees from moving forward so there is probably some mobility issue there. Your back rounding could also be hamstring mobility issue.

Posted my last few weeks of deadlifts in my log.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...2&postcount=97

Another shot at the squats:



Mobility still isn't great, shoes definitely help. Feels like I'm not using my hips enough.

bobbo,

You're still starting with a rounded back and not locking out your knees. I'd like to see if you can bend over and grasp the bar without rounding your back. Basically, it involves keeping some tension in your glutes and hamstrings as you lower yourself to the bar. I'm guessing you won't be able to. If that's the case, I'd suggest pulling from some 3" or so blocks or switching to sumo.

ibavly,

They look fine, at least good enough to keep increasing the weight. You're not really using enough weight to cause significant form breakdown. Even that last rep of the 10 went up pretty quickly, though you appeared to be pretty unstable at the bottom. Was that a sticking point or did you just lose your balance?

While I've been losing weight and after a short injury induced break, most of my lifts have suffered a bit. The only one that seems to have improved a lot are deadlifts. I'm doing them faster than I used to and taking shorter breaks between reps.


It seems like I am not tight enough for the first few reps as my hip moves around a little, but that seems to get better on the later reps. I had tried to not overextend my head as much in the beginning and forgot to do that later. Maybe that has something to do with it. I think I could also get my shoulders up a little more for the start of later reps.

Any other advice?

I think they look pretty good man. Last couple reps the bar path is a little jacked up, the bar is getting away from you.

If I had one critique I'd try to squeeze your chest up a little more in the start position.

On the descent, unless you are lowering slowly on purpose (for hypertrophy) you probably want to learn to keep your knees from bending until the bar is past them so you can "drop" the weight without fear of sheering your knees off. Right now I can see the bar path curve out on the way down--and I always feel like that leads to the bar getting away from my shins on the way up.

Thanks for the advice. I think the chest thing comes from trying to not overextend my neck. Doing those two things together correctly is something I guess I should focus on.

I'm not intentionally lowering the bar slowly, but someone mentioned to my in a video a few months ago that my lower back is rounding on the way down, so I try to keep some tension in there until I drop the bar around mid-shin. But I've been given the advice to break at the hips more strongly before, so that seems to be another thing I should keep paying attention to.
My next deadlift is on Sunday and then I'll be gone for a three-week trip. I guess I'll move down to 80 or 90kg after that and post another vid.

Why do you want to bring your shoulders up? I think I read that you're better off getting your shoulders as close to the bar as possible.

Posting another squat video, I think its an improvement on the last time I posted but still looks to me like the bar keeps drifting forward. Camera switches to side view midway.

It appears you're not keeping thoracic extension, your upper back is rounding as you descend, it almost looks like your entire torso is closing in on itself with buttwink and upper back rounding forward.

The fact it appears you're collapsing suggests the weight is simply too heavy for your upper body to handle. The other 115lb video you posted they did look great - little high but no biggie. Nice solid neutral C, T to L spine. But that 175...eeeeee. Good depth but that upper body rounding inward is going to lead to a fail that'll have you pitching forward if not folding under the bar.

Your quads and glutes got it, but the rest doesn't look good to me. But I'm a nub so I'll let someone else chime in.

Maybe try some paused squats to develop some stability and confidence in the bottom position. I'm probably just biased because I've always done them and felt like they've really helped me. I like doing them for around the same weight as my main squat and cutting the reps per set down as necessary. I find it carries over way better than if I pause with like 80% of my squat weight.

To me it seems like I have a slight rounding in my upper back even when it feels like my back is straight. But I really have no idea. If anyone can reconmend instructional deadlift videos that deal with that, I'd appreciate it.

damn now that you point it out its pretty terrifying to watch my back in this video. I actually think the upper body strength is there,the tension just slips my mind as I'm trying to focus on so many things. Was focused on hinging the hips and getting depth. Also probably was over reliant on the belt, so didn't focus enough on upper body tension.

I was doing paused squats for a while and they were good. I'm not really struggling at the bottom, my sticking point is about halfway up.

See if this helps, its about using your lats properly which will help prevent rounding.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7sFDX30WPM

I give my elbows a slight inward rotation towards the bar as a cue just before lifting like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuV_ZMZU9qc

Hey guys and gals, was hoping people could give me some feedback on these power snatches. All are done with 50kg

WS1:
WS2:
WS3:

I feel like these got better as I went along, definitely some press out on the first set.

If someone does decide to look at my power snatches, here is another more recent set of videos:

Power Snatch:
6x2x115

WS1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3dmIWG2LU (side view)
WS4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka7bd96Si5M (front view)
WS5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t7PYlQdJXM (front oblique view)
WS6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJSA87tzjiI (front oblique view)

The biggest, most obvious problem with your power snatch is that you are doing almost all the lifting with your arms. The acceleration is supposed to come from the extension of your legs (and hips). The only thing the arms do is guide the lift up past your hips.

More precisely, when the bar meets ~your hip crease, you want the arms to still be in full extension. You can try to think of your arms as cables / ropes. Any "pulling" movement by the arms, should only result from shrugging your shoulders at the point of "triple extension":



See how his knees, hips and ankles are all locked out ("triple extension"). His arms are fully extended, but he is shrugging his shoulders (actually a bit difficult to see in this picture, his muscles are in the way).

Compare that to some stills from your video:



This is the point where you start to bend your arms.. way, way too early!!



Here you can see what that has caused.. The bar is already past your belly button, but your knees are still bent. What this means is that you are simply pulling the weight up with your arms and doing some silly jump after that.

There is other stuff as well of course, for example your set up. But let's start here.

Next time, don't bother with the front view.

Ok thanks

Next try at squatting video, 190lb, feels a lot better

nothing glaringly bad, so that's good.

your depth is a little suspect on some reps.

I would try narrowing your stance by about an inch. Focus on really driving out of the hole.

*note: high bar

I tried out some tempo squats. These are pretty light and I'm doing them to focus on form so I'd like them to be as close to "perfect" form as possible. What do we think?

I noticed right away in the rearview video that my heels are starting to come off the floor in the hole. FWIW I didn't feel like I was losing balance in those reps. Does that mean it's a lack of dorsiflexion?