Yea I skimmed NNM before when you recommended it. Is it something that can be tacked on to SS? Or does it need to replace it?

Also, would doing deadlifts with hands gripped inside my stance be of help? How does it differ from standard grip?

I was asking if you read ss or the post by rip because if not there would be no point in helping. I was going to respond with what your mistakes were after I knew if you had an understanding of how to setup correctly No reason to get defensive

Your hips start too low
Back is never set in a good position
You yank the bar of the floor
You do not engage your lats
Feet and grip are too wide

And what do you mean by how do you add weight? Do you mean what do you do with the weight? Either a dumbbell between your knees or use a weight belt/backpack

I think NNM is classically recommended to be done in lieu of your normal lifting program (I was just asking Aidan about it a week or so ago), but there's no reason why you could just do a half an hour of selected **** from there at the end of your SS workouts as a pallative method. I'd PM Aidan for advice, though (seriously).

Hands inside your legs while deadlifting is known as sumo deadlifting, which I am not an expert on. It allows you to keep your torso more upright and is more quad dominant, and I think is easier for shorter armed/longer torso'd individuals.

I'd suggest just narrowing your stance and seeing how it feels to do conventional that way, but my overarching suggestion would be to post in the beginner thread and/or seek advice from the better lifters about that issue specifically.

Regardless of what you do, you need to work on upper back strength/tightness a fair bit, obviously.

sorry for getting defensive, just gets frustrating when I commit to keeping a log like this, not to mention the huge lifestyle change, and it seems like people are attacking me instead of trying to help.

that's what I wanted to know, silly question, I know. thanks

thanks. I think regarding my DL stance it has naturally widened over time as I've found that a wider stance helps my squatting. I'll try narrowing it.

I've also added somewhat of kyphosis-aiding workouts to my regime - with facepulls - but I'll look over NNM and maybe look to add more.

And yea I agree upper back workouts would be helpful too.

Just sucks when I finish SS each day and don't have much energy for much else but have a lot of accessories I want to do. i.e chin ups, facepulls, weighted situps etc. but maybe I'll just try and cycle some more in now and then

Most of the above from page 2 still applies.

Close your stance up, pull the bar closer to your shins (1"), lower your hips until the shins just touch the bar, and then squeeze your chest up HARD to set your back. Apply power like a dial, first taking the slack out of the bar while maintaining tension, then slightly more so the bar starts moving but your back stays in good position.

I woudnt necessarily do the whole NMM program, but I'd definitely look to include some of the upper back work , in particular chest supported row, cable row with medium wide grip, all held for a count of two at the top with a big squeeze of the scapulae, face pulls, rear delt flies and dip shrugs. Low weight snatch grip deadlifts with excellent upper back control will be your friend once you figure out the proprioception issues you're currently having.

man that DL would break my back, srs.

I think shifting some weight to your heels will help you start the lift right

According to what Cha advised me, it's ok if you feel like you are going to fall backwards, if you do it right, the weight on the bar will balance you.

Don't do weighted situps imo.

Instead, do something that requires keeping your lumbar spine rigid; anti-flexion, anti-extension, anti-rotation.

The reason being; carryover, stuff like that mimics what you're going through when you're doing a heavy squat or deadlift rep - fighting forces that try to keep you from maintaining a solid, neutral lumbar spine.

Learning to embrace your core is one of the key components to being able to safely progress with squats and deadlifts.

Take a big breath before a rep and hold it throughout the rep.
Breath into your belly and push the abs out. Sort of expand your entire waist.
It doesn't look like you're doing that.

ETA:
Did you ever read the SS and more specifically the valsalva maneuver -bit?

thanks everyone for the advice. I've taken a lot of what's been said here with me to the gym but I guess since I've been so focused on squats and benching, the list of things I kept my mind focused on during my dead lifts diminished. I'll try and keep all those things you guys mentioned in mind next time. I think when I DL recently I'm really just focused on 'getting the weight off the ground' and that's a bad way to go about it. So maybe I'll step down to 250 until I can get the form right

@pummi, I do weighted situps on non-DL days to help my core - it's really not a good idea? I mean it can't be hurting my other lifts right, it's the last thing I do.

I do employ deep breaths and holding for my squats and bench during the negative lifts. I guess again I'm just not focused on it during my DLs but will be aware about that too

Stuck,

You can be focused on it and still **** it up. We have seasoned lifters in H&F who still discover seemingly basic form corrections. It takes time to go from terrible to competent, from competent to good, etc. You'll get there.

The good news is that you didn't go into snap city And you have a better starting point than I did. Here's to making you feel better. I know the feeling when you are trying your hardest to correct mistakes and you feel confident you are doing it right so post it. Everyone's response gets you a bit discouraged when you realize you are doing it wrong. The point I'm making is that everyone is here to help you. People could easily not post and not care. Once I got my form down somewhat, to this day I thank h&f for having a low back still. The mistakes I were making were BRUTAL. take a look for yourself.





Just posting to give you some encouragement. We all have a starting point and build upon it. When I was learning I would film every set of every DL session I had until I perfected my form. I had major hip flexor problems so once I gained some flexibility it helped me out a ton. I still have to do a redic amount of stretches be4 doing DL/squats and that will never change. Others have already covered what you are doing wrong who are much more knowledgable than me in this area. Keep filming and posting.

Stuck,

Just in case you're wondering, the sides of your shirt don't completely rip in two when you correctly perform a deadlift.

I think(?) EV performs a modified sumo DL, so chatting with him about his experiences with that (in the context of, as he says, the advice from the more experienced lifters) may prove useful.

hah, thanks
but I'll work on these things. one step at a time I think. I think I'll work on the narrower grip, and really tightening up my core and thrusting my chest forward, and will report back after Wednesday's or Friday's session

Yeah, anyone suggesting sumo in this thread can gtfo.

anyway, Weasel posted this link in the PL thread. You can ignore the programming, but some of the technique points might be interesting, or at least framed differently from what you're previously read.

re:Situps.

What I meant is there are better things to do to improve your core strength and stability. Planks, side-planks, ab-wheel rollouts, pallof-presses...and the list goes on. These things might be better wrt ab hypertrophy too since when you do traditional situps, a lot of the work that gets done is by your hip flexors.

But that's not all. According to Stuart McGill, who is a respected expert in his field of researching and teaching how the low back functions, and how it can become injured: "Traditional sit-ups place a lot of compressive force on the spine when bent in flexion. These forces can squeeze a bent disc’s nucleus to the point that it bulges – pressing on nerves and causing back pain, and potentially leading to a herniated disc."

An anecdote:
I've been religiously doing (weighted) planks, side-planks and ab-wheel-rollouts for a while now and I think they have resulted in pretty good ab hypertrophy and even more importantly in core strength&stability that allows me to keep my lowback rigid and solid when deadlifting as much weight as my poor legs allow me to break off the floor.
In a sense, I think my core strength actually exceeds my leg strength by now when it comes to how much I can squat or deadlift.

I believe the forum consensus is that lots of short, perfect form and maximal extertion reps with short rest time between reps is the best way to go with planks and side-planks. That sort of mimics a deadlift or squat set, too.
I usually do 2 sets of 5 reps, a rep being a 10 second hold and a 10 second rest between reps.

Pummi,

I believe this schema is most accurately referred to as a group of "Yugosets".

Thursday

Squat 245lb 3x5
Bench 270lb 1x3, 265lb 2x5
DL 225lb 2x5
Facepull 3x15

Bench was a struggle today for some reason. All conditions stayed the same (have been eating enough, no changes in workout regime) so I'm not sure what was going on there - hopefully just a meh day.

Reduced DL weight, worked on narrower grip, breathing, tightening chest/core

Set 1


Set 2


Looks a bit better to me, but that could just be not as much weight draggin my back down. What do you guys think?

Maybe it was the extra 100pounds you added to the bar that made bench feel heavy.

lol haha

typo is typo

powder coated my micro plates for free

i'm awesome

how much do these weigh?

~3.50 lbs

it's micro plates dude, more like .350 lbs

Wow, that really is awesome. They are probably the .625lbs ea microplates? Powder coating maybe adds .001 so we'll call it .626.

yea they're the mcmaster-carr washers. 0.625lb each

any comments about most recent DL vid? ^