this looks like an upright row from the ground...

You don't finish your first pull, your second pull begins out in front and is mainly with your arms, and your landing position is a backward lean with bent knees and extended hips.

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Scrap everything and start over.

Practice jumping/dropping into the landing position without a bar.

With the bar, begin at the hang. Touch the bar on your thighs in a jumping position, and jump the bar up extending the hips and shrugging without any arm bend at all. You should have enough upward momentum on the bar that it is actually kind of jarring to keep them straight.

Now do this but let the bar travel upward as you fire your elbows underneath the bar and stick the landing position. Figure this stuff out before you start pulling from the ground.

I'm not an expert. My power cling is middling, at best, so my advice is likely worth what you are paying. But you are a long way from home.

This is awesome. Would chortle again.

I just noticed that my left little toe is mostly healed. I dropped 110kg on it several months ago and it was discoloured and swollen and hurt when I touched it for a long time. I never had it looked at because I was sure it wasn't broken and was just badly bruised. Probably some minor internal damage or something. Glad it's better after so many months. I probably should have had someone look at it after the first few weeks.

I dropped a dumbbell or a plate on my big toe a few years back(can't remember, anyway both are equally stupid) and it swelled up so much it was waking me up in my sleep making me go OWWW! as if I had bolted up out of a nightmare or something. The swelling and fluids separated the toenail completely from the skin underneath and my toe got huge, so I had to have the toenail pierced by a doctor. If I had known how easy it was I probably would have done it myself. He burned a little hole through it and blood and pus shot out, then he squeezed out the rest and put some antiobiotics in there and bandaged it. Wound up being a surprisingly painful and costly and time-consuming thing, to originate with such a small quick moment of stupidity. I learned my lesson about paying attention to even the littlest things.

Man, I squatted sweet today. 3x5x105kg best weight and didn't even feel too heavy. I think I could have done 110kg.

Very little alcohol on the weekend therefore much more/better sleep and much more/better food. imo.

Rate my PT experience

There was a PT there (I think he might love me) who has commented/complemented my workout in the past, and he came and had a chat to me between sets, so I asked him to check out my squat form to see what he says...

He said it looked "good and strong." I asked him if he thought my back was rounding too much at the bottom... he said maybe and that I should do something along the lines of "drive my neck back" or up or neck into the bar or something like that... and that coming out of the hole, the first thing that should move is the bar not the hips...

He also said that if I found my squat stalling that box squats could help.

He also mentioned that he is a fan of westside barbell.

I also mentioned that I want to work on my speed. He mentioned something along the lines of for x% bf you lose, you should gain y% speed increase. I think he said 3% bf loss will give you 6% speed increase.

It all sounded like a mix of non-commital + susspect advice to me.

I had a bit thing writ up, but then I realized I don't know if you are high-bar squatting

if you were high-bar squatting, every comment he made was 100% right and I would listen to what this guy tells you.

If you are doing PL type squats, then there is some nitpicking that could be done over what he said, but whatever.

Read SS. Your comments are again of tripe level.

wrong sir. Does this mean our poster was doing Rippetoe squats as I feared? If so there are a number of things the trainer probably said, and at least one of them will go against rippetoe's advice for the squat.

Assuming a Rippetoe squat:

"drive my neck back" or up or neck into the bar or something like that...

What I HOPE he said was to drive the bar hard into your traps and upper back. I also hope he said to drive the elbows forward, which Rippetoe disagrees with but is otherwise common powerlifting technique. Doing this will keep the bar very tight on your back, and to pull the chest up and arch the lower back.


and that coming out of the hole, the first thing that should move is the bar not the hips...

In a low-bar, the first thing that moves is your head =) then the bar. Just nitpicking there.

Yeah, low-bar squats.

Gah I didnt gain a single pound this month even though I feel as if I'm stuffing my face and the only work outs I'm doing are 3 a week for starting strength

My squat started at 85 and is now 175 (which is my weight) but I just dont see any trasformation body-wise (yes, took pictures). I've been eating 2500-3k calories on a normal day and have 2-3 cheat meals a week. I don't do the SS milk thing, guessing I could start chugging a few glasses a day.

that's not enough food. Add some milk and olive oil into your diet. Eat "unclean", gasp. Cheat more. It will be fine.

I don't think 2.5-3k cals is that much if you are trying to gain really...

Yeah 2.5-3k is probably maintenance which would explain not gaining any weight. Really eat lots it is not that easy to gain weight and especially lbm.

fer****ssake I wish I had all your gaiz' problems with eating and weight.

I mean I can put on fat easy, just lbm is becoming difficult

Spenda - I'm skeptical that you really didn't notice any difference. What height?

On a somewhat unrelated note, I have some absolutely hilarious-looking progress pictures from June through now. They start out with me at a very pudgy 158, going up to 163, then cutting back down down 156. The change in just 4 months is dramatic -- I dropped a lot of excess body fat, from probably 17-18% down to 14%. I'm 5'10", have the skinniest wrists and ankles, and I've broken free of the need to be huge. I'd like to float around 160 lbs. at 10-12% ideally. Doing SS, my squat is around 200, bench at 150, deadlift at 235. Slowly but surely, I'd like to get to 200/250/300. God my grip strength sucks though. This is of course after doing SS for a year, then taking a year-long sabbatical consisting of lots of steak frites and 0 lifting.

5'10 173lbs

Im thinking tomorrow I'll pick up milk and peanut butter and add 500 cals to my daily total this week.

I mean, this is pretty standard especially if you're a hard-gainer.

It's easy to gain "weight" - which is fat + LBM, then you have to cut down later.

It's been said many many times but it's extremely difficult to gain pure LBM without packing fat on along side it, which is why everyone recommends cutting and bulking cycles.

skunk,

I'm gonna hope that the first set of numbers and the second set aren't in the same order. Or I may cry.

I have seen a nice increase in grip strength over the past few years just using the grip thing for your forearms that you squeeze. I'll just do it a few times a day while sitting around, worth a shot imo.

For whoever has mentioned to make a sub-section for logs this is a definite must imo and I'm surprised it hasn't been done.

Traffic is super low and it'd divide it up more.

How did that make you feel?

Keep your neck/spine neutral.

The hips are driving the bar, so if the hips move and the bar doesn't move, it means that the chest hasn't stayed up and maintained the proper back angle.

These could be coaching cues more than actual prescriptions. It would be unfair to call him a goof-- but even though he is a trainer, it doesn't mean that he has a wealth of experience teaching people to squat correctly. In fact, it would make him an exception.

He's learned this from westside barbell.

Enthusiasm is nice.

Yeah, the logs aren't pushing anything out of the way.