@Renton, yes I noticed this too and agree, but it is a problem I always used to have with conventional as well and don't know how to "fix".

Ditching the shoes might help him get into position more easily. I also have pretty bad limb lengths and it helped me considerably.

Also, it seems to me that tall people who don't intend to compete should just do rack/block pulls. It would be the same range of motion and work as a 5'7" guy's deadlift, right?

I think it's about the best position I can get in with my back, perhaps I only need to squeeze my chest up a bit more instead of dropping my butt down, that might help a bit. Will try next time.
I don't think my back is overly rounding though. It feels solid during the lift and it's more like a slight sort of natural curve.

In this vid of Rippetoe coaching there are some of his students who have a similar back position and he doesn't seem to think it's a problem.



Anyway will try barefoot next time as well. In my old gym that was frowned upon but this new one seems more lax about it. Have seen several bro's walking around barefoot or on flipflops already.

"ROM" in context of distance traveled isn't the complete picture because one mans levers will dictate the same distance traveled requires a less acute angle and if the angle is less acute that means the muscles full range of motion is not being activated. A persons height doesn't change how or where muscles work and attach. Everything is just further apart. Yes it makes some lifts more difficult for the talls.

I'm not sure I understand your question... Higher loads mean more strength and/or hypertrophy.

Bolded is exactly what he should be doing, for this exact reason...

Now, if we're going to start internet nitting your deadlift (which is very good already), he is probably right about dropping your hips the instant before you pull.

If you frame-by-frame your first rep, you can see the bar even rolls forward slightly as you flex your knees and then your knees are the first thing to extend as you start the pull meaning that you're using more quad than posterior chain to get the bar moving (look! Your quads are strong! you don't need to do any leg extensions )

I'm tired and I don't know what the cue you need is. Think about a more vertical shin angle at the start. Think about extending at the hips before the knees. Think about chest up earlier. Something like that. Maybe looking less down will help all this too.

Perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of your first statement. I thought you meant the absolute load being high enough for hypertrophy. I found that confusing as the load with which hypertrophy can occur is dependant on the level of the trainee surely

Man so much to think about in such a theoretically simple lift. Just pick up the damn bar, right?
I will work on head position and squeezing chest up/not dropping hips first, see how that works out.

@Snitch,
I agree and that is what I meant to say: anti-shrug is good, but don't do it by starting with shrugged shoulders - do it earlier. Because now it results in dropping the hips the instant before the pull.

@rAv,
To engage lats, try thinking of external rotation of the shoulders (bend the bar)

I'm just saying you could take any 6'4" dude and scale him down to a 5'7" dude with the same limb lengths and torso length and the 5'7" guy would be doing a block pull compared to the original guy. I'm sure it's possible to be 6'4" and have really short legs and long arms and be great at deadlifting, but the point would still apply, scale that guy down and he'd be even better.

How tall is this guy?

Do you understand what I mean by scale? Like if you take a 3m/4m/5m triangle and scale it up by a factor of 2, it becomes a 6m/8m/10m triangle but the proportions are the same. If you take rAv and shrink him by a factor of 0.85, he becomes a 5'5" guy with identical proportions. So to duplicate the exact movement of deadlifting for the 5'5" version of rAv, you'd need a bar that was 15% lower to the ground. Otherwise, he's doing effectively a block pull compared to 6'4" version of rAv. And the opposite, 6'4" rAv is doing a deficit deadlift compared to 5'5" rAv.

I understand what you're saying. I'm not arguing against doing block pulls as a tall lifter, merely that the full range of all joints won't be achieved. Would it have the same effect long term? Good question.

Leg day

Squats: warmups, 4x5x245 (PR)
RDL: 8x275, 2x7x275
Split squat: 3x8x105
Leg curl: 12x110, 11x120, 10x120
Leg extension: 3x12x141
Calf raise: 15x125, 14x125, 12x125

2x squats and RDL on video. Whattayathink about squat form? To my untrained eye it looks decent but not sure if there is still too much squatmorning going on.

Squats look pretty good too.

Again, if we're nitting there are a bunch of things you can work on...

- Finish more with your glutes
- Shove your knees out harder
- Keep your weight back more (knees shift slightly forward at the bottom on a few reps)

But it's all pretty minor.

Alright thanks

I'm not entirely sure... but I think overall the deficiencies (even though they are small) in your squat and dead both point to a little bit of a lack of glute activation. You break the floor in your dead with your quads. Your knees slightly cave in your squat. You don't really finish the squat with your glutes.

Again, it's all pretty minor, but I recognise it because I've been through it (still am going through it) myself.

I think some things that helped me get better at "feeling" my glutes were glute bridges (double and single leg), step ups, rfess and like unweighted box squats. Do them sometimes for warmup.

The trick for me was figuring how to activate my glutes when my hips are in a flexed position, Even just sitting in a chair and trying to flex your glutes helped me get it in my head.

That's interesting and you're probably right. I have no idea how to activate my glutes when in a flexed hip position. I just stood in the living room trying from a deadlift position probably looking rediculous.

I did some googling though and came across a bro talking about rotating the knees outward and pushing them into the arms when deadlifting and sort of trying to twist the ground apart. I tried that and felt a difference right away. Seems like a good cue.
Will be interesting to see if that makes a difference in trying to make my deadlift less quad dominant at the start.

Yep, that can be a useful cue. If that works for you, use it for your squat too. The glutes are involved in external rotation of the hip, and that's basically what the "push your knees out" and/or "twist the floor" cues try to achieve.

Practice just standing and squeezing the ever living Jesus out of your glutes.

That might be somewhat useful, but I think people will commonly find that squeezing the ever living Jesus out of your glutes when your hips are nearly fully extended is a different story to doing it when your hips are flexed.

^yep it's super easy to just squeeze when standing up but with flexed hips I just can't do it

Yea will do

Push

BP: warmups, 4x6x167
OHP: 4x5x107
Incline: 3x8x127
Fly; 1x10x27, 2x10x22
Lateral raise; 3x11x70
Lying tricep; 12x85, 11x85, 9x85
Overhead tricep: 3x12x27,5

Managed to find someone here who can ship me 2x2,5lbs plates but they don't sell smaller. End of next month some family will come over from the Netherlands so will ask them to bring me two 0,5kg plates. One of the things I miss since living here is not being able to just order anything you want online. It's much much easier and/or cheaper in Europe.

You may be able to find 1/2 kg wrist weights at sporting goods stores in BKK. Or just get 1kg ones and pour some of the filler out.

Good idea, worth having a look.