Was feeling really distracted/angry when I went to the gym today and it showed in my lifting. Form looks pretty bad which I'm aware of but want to post anyway. Also did the first 3 reps hook grip and the last two mixed. Would like to improve my hookgrip such that I can do all reps that way.
Thank you, yeah. That's been an issue with the deadlift for most of this log, and it's especially egregious in that video. I'm deadlifting again tomorrow so hopefully I can improve it.
I don't know that I took the most efficient route to learning to pull with a flat back, but this is what I did.
1. Switched to block pulls as my main DL movement for several months.
2. Switched to sumo from floor as my main DL movement for several more months.
3. Hurt my back, then stopped lifting for several months.
4. Started pulling conventional from floor again with novice LP for several months, now my lower back doesn't round on RPE 10s.
I would suggest though that you fully lock out your reps for a beat. It is a good way of being sure your back is flat. Hook grip isn't great for that though because it hurts so bad you want to put the weight down ASAP.
Ok I’ll look into that, particularly the lockout suggestion as that’s something that bothered me as well when watching the videos. Thanks.
I attended a Starting Strength Squat camp in Hillsboro Oregon today. It was pretty good, I’ll write a more detailed report at some point but I’ll do some basics first.
These look not terrible but not good either to my eye. Still lose the bar forward a little on many reps. I watched the Barbell Medicine Podcast about injuries and asked about this at the squat camp, and I think if my form is at least a 'B-' then I'm ok in terms of acceptable (to me) injury risk. I know a decent chunk of the forum might disagree, but I think these squats are more or less there, in terms of not being dangerous, and I'm not experiencing any discomfort in my lower back or knees from doing these. To me, it's more a question of bad habits formed now will eventually hold back my squat and they will get harder to fix later. On the other hand, constant form resets are pretty demotivating and I think I'll comply better in the short term if I let myself put more weight on the bar each session. So that's where I'm at with that
Re: your squat, I think most of the problems stem from poor overall tightness:
-Getting bent over in the hole has, for me, been an indicator that my upper back isn't tight enough. Feeling like I'm bending the bar across my back and actively pushing back into it, especially while into/out of the hole, is a useful cue to combat this. This is also a good way to cue lat tightness.
-Your abdominal breathing and bracing could be improved; note that your lumbar is rounding into/out of the hole. Really fill up your belt circumferentially, especially by your obliques and lumbar.
-I'd suggest giving more deliberate reps a try; I try to make sure I'm actively feeling my quads, hamstrings, and glutes to lower myself into the hole, whereas it looks like you're just dropping down into the hole and try to engage everything once you're there. That's pretty hard to sync up.
-There are a few more minor form issues, but the biggest one that helped turn me from an H&F Bad Squatting Meme into just weak is getting my knees forward earlier (which coincidentally came from a BBM Q&A); getting them forward through the first third of the descent, and keeping them there, has the benefit of allowing you to push through your quads out of the hole, and keeps you more upright to boot.
+1 to montecore's advice, but you could also do pepper in some of the following assistance exercises in lieu of going HAM on good morningey squats all the time:
Tempo squat - slow eccentric helps you practice lowering the weight under tension, slow concentric helps you keep your knees from kicking back and doing a good morning.
Leg press - more quad volume without smoking your back
Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. In particular the slower descent is something I intend to work on. For alternate exercises specifically the people at the squat camp really like pause squats so I tried those today
Try to feel like you're using your lower body to pull yourself down into the hole as opposed to just dropping into it; I agree with Renton that paused squats would probably be helpful, with a 3-0-3 tempo minimally. Maybe doing all warm-up sets up to 185 as tempo squats would help prime you to help optimize your work sets?
Try to feel like you're using your lower body to pull yourself down into the hole as opposed to just dropping into it; I agree with Renton that paused squats would probably be helpful, with a 3-0-3 tempo minimally. Maybe doing all warm-up sets up to 185 as tempo squats would help prime you to help optimize your work sets?
You mean tempo squats, right? The 0 in 3-0-3 implies no pause, or am I misunderstanding this notation?
Thanks dudes. I've definitely tried to consciously slow down my descent, particularly on the warmups, although not all the way to 3 seconds. I want to stick with pause squats for a bit as my light day variant but after a while depending on how they're working (or not working) I'll try 3-0-3.
Rows seem to be my most skipped exercise, need to put together some consistency on those to increase them. Well really I need to be consistent with everything but you get the idea.
I think your descent is still too fast for your current ability to control the weight. I've been improving my squat a lot lately by doing a deliberate tempo down to the half squat position then allowing some acceleration into the hole to get the rebound.
I think you're right. I've noticed time seems to move slower (faster?) when I'm under the bar. A manifestation of my brain wanting to get the heavy weight off my back as fast as possible I suspect. Forgot to post this from last session
Just that it wasn't the gym I usually go to, and I feel self conscious filming in crowded/unfamiliar gyms because I think the other patrons will think I'm filming them. Perhaps it is not the gym but in fact I who is weird.