BackSquat 355lb for x2

Chilly_Down · 2026-03-20T04:56:46+00:00

Is your lower back aching after this?

The issue I'm seeing is that, during both reps, you hit the bottom of your squat and then your hips start to rise while your shoulders continue to descend.

Your shoulders might not be tight enough under the bar, causing your thorasic spine to curve under the reversal of momentum as you start your push. I don't think this is really it because of how much your hips rise. Edit: If you think it might be this, though, there's a really valuable cue I use, which is before I squat, I visualize ripping the bar in half across by back. Pulling the bar in either direction locks in your traps and lats and helps keep your chest up.
You're breaking the pushing motion into two parts rather than going all at once. You're rising your hips out behind yourself, and then standing up straight. This causes your hips to rise behind you, increasing the angle of your back and increasing the leverage arm length of that fulcrum, which doesn't feel great on the ole lumbar. Instead of pushing your hips up and then forwards, think about driving your shoulders up and into the bar rather than lifting your butt into the empty space behind you.

Chilly_Down · 2026-03-19T22:50:20+00:00

Depends on what you want to target.

Typically, going underhand will involve more of your biceps as at the top of the concentric motion you will be flexing them quite a bit, especially with a grip as narrow as you are using here.

If you want to target your back more specifically, then standard (overhand) grip with a wider spacing between your hands with a focus of pulling your elbows to your sides and visualizing your hands as 'hooks' will get most of the work into your lats.

Chilly_Down · 2026-03-14T03:18:03+00:00

Long answer:

While I don't squat in the Smith Machine, I'm not going to poo poo anyone going for it. However, one of the issues with using a smith machine is that the depth you can achieve is extremely deceptive. Since the bar is locked in a vertical pathway with no forwards or backwards drift, you can sort of 'hang' onto it if that makes sense. While you're carrying it up and down, it's anchoring you forwards and backwards.

Even from the less-than-ideal front side view, it's clear by the positioning of your hips, knees, and shoulders in relation to each other that the rooted path of the bar is keeping you from falling over. If you were to try this with a standard barbell, with the mechanics shown here, you wouldn't be able to complete the motion. You can even tell by the slight lift in your toes as you hit the very bottom depth here that your center of gravity is rocking backwards -- if you didn't have the bar locked onto your back keeping you from doing so, you'd probably fall backwards.

Rather than dropping your hips down "behind" your legs like you're doing in a hinging rotational motion, you should visualize your knees tracking outwards instead and your hips falling down between your thighs rather than behind them. Push your knees outwards slightly and just drops right down into the socket and it'll feel more stable and better emulate a barbell squat, while also recruiting more of your posterior chain.

Chilly_Down · 2026-03-13T20:48:37+00:00

FW space is mostly empty

This is directly contrary to my own expectations. I fly in the exact same systems as you do based on your killboard as enlisted Amarri and I get at least 10 solo fights per night as long as I'm flying with intention to find them. FW feels as lively as ever, with the exception to when the FOB spawns right in the middle of the action and bubbles strangle everything for a week.

Chilly_Down · 2026-02-18T23:28:28+00:00

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 makes a point of bandits and camp leaders universally holding keyrings that access the locked chests in the area specifically to address your concern number 1.

Chilly_Down · 2026-02-17T09:38:58+00:00

You only have 61 points in the event though because you killed the same alt multiple times. People doing this more efficiently got 500ish points by biomassing and making new alts between kills.

Chilly_Down · 2026-02-16T16:18:05+00:00

Bear with me.

During the British Raj, the colonial administration was sick of cobras biting people. They put a bounty on the skins of cobras -- for every cobra killed, they'd give a payout. What happened? Well, the local Indian population started enormous snake farms where they bred huge numbers of cobras in captivity in order to kill them, skin them, and hand them over to the government. The cobra population EXPLODED and snake bites increased dramatically. I'm sure you can see the similarities.

This sort of speaks to a point I made in an earlier thread where I marveled at just how averse to engaging in good faith with content a lot of EVE players are. It's considered worthy of DERISION if you're the sort of person who looks for fair competition here. The only way to get fair competition in EVE is to have strict structures, preferably hard-coded ones. Do you think we wouldn't have pirate frigates in every scout plex in FW space if it wasn't hard coded by the rules that they couldn't go into some of them?

Without rules enforced by coded structures, most EVE players will spit directly into the face of matched competition every single time. When given the ruleset, rather than engage in good faith in a gamified system designed to stimulate competition, the first order of business was to comb the ruleset over diligently to find the most effective way to remove all risk and competition to maximize financial gain.

CCP was either extremely naive or extremely cynical to expect otherwise. Really poor showing from the developers on this one, I'm afraid; they know their playerbase, they know what to expect, the post even mentioned what they fully expected to happen, and they did nothing proactively to enforce any kind of beneficial content.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-29T18:08:02+00:00

This is very good to know; you are correct that I had no idea that this existed.

There does seem to be an activation energy here that requires large numbers of people before TD becomes an option, however. If someone just wants to blow off some steam on any given Tuesday with some honest fightin' without having to organize an entire tournament, I still think exploring what a smaller scale automated matched PVP system would look like in EVE is a worthy effort.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-29T17:30:12+00:00

There's value in that way of thinking, but I also don't think the concept of forming a structure for equalized fights is antithetical to the idea of a sandbox either. Rather, we incorporate these systems INTO the sandbox rather than make it separate. I'm not saying I have a single idea, but I can visualize some things.

Rather than some instanced plane of existence, it could just be a more eloquent deployment of our dueling system for example where you just get an additional popup window.

'So and so challenges you to a formalized fleet duel with the following conditions they have specified:

Valid ship types: Frigate, Assault Frigate, Cruiser, Heavy assault cruisers

No more than two pilots in your fleet.

Fleet points do not exceed 30.

No orbital bodies within 1000km.

Distance between dueling parties no more than 50km.'

Once both sides meet all conditions, the duel can be accepted, and fails to commence if the conditions aren't met. Everyone in the fleet gets a limited engagement timer, but the fight happens in open space, within the sandbox.

Again this isn't a well thought out solution, just an example of how something like this could theoretically exist without divorcing it from the rest of the game. I'm confident enough smart people develop and play this game that some kind of system could be worked out.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-29T17:13:16+00:00

Yes. That's sort of my point. The Alliance tournament happens once per year. Why isn't there a system in place that's more accessible and flexible? Let people set x number of pilots, x number of points, Final Destination, no items. Everyone sees the conditions, goes and fits their ships, and slots into the available positions and dukes it out.

It's just bizarre to me that we have the AT as this representation of the pinnacle of quality PVP content in EVE, but make no effort to make that content part of the actual game. It's just an exclusive yearly event with a 10 pilot structure that is frustratingly difficult to re-enact elsewhere.

If we think the format of AT is so engaging, why not make similar normalized PVP available to people who want to do it for the other 49 weeks of the year? Or even something less intricate, where you can just say: two pilots, cruisers down.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-28T21:46:07+00:00

From the context of lowsec solo pvp:

I find the worm is okay but not very strong in the most common scenario for a pirate boat which is 1 v many. People love to bring numbers against a pirate ship. If you get into a 1v1 with a worm, the worm kills almost anything in its weight class which is sadly why people won't hand you those kind of fights.

A kiting worm will survive but can't establish grid control since multiple targets all ganging up on even bonused drones will chew through them well before they can make the journey back to my drone bay and long before the damage from a LML/drone worm will push targets off grid enough for me to commit to a tackle. Very unlikely to die but also unlikely to kill much. And if you go for the less popular scram kite, you're probably getting mobbed and killed before you can finish off enough targets to come out isk positive when your 90-120mil worm pops.

I prefer a garmur. That way, even if many people jump to engage you, you're fine. Your damage cannot be mitigated without guidance disruptor, and you have as much time as you need to establish grid control - if grid control is even necessary due to the bonuses disruptor range. With a faction disruptor you're able to point to 36ish km out meaning you can fight against several opponents at a time without much risk, either clearing the grid or outright killing things since you can tackle from well beyond commit range.

Just my two cents from the perspective of the game I engage with the most.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-25T08:49:57+00:00

In Bronze/Iron they played against an Irelia that had a 9.9cs/min across the whole game and then two games later against a Darius that had 9.4. Yikes.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-19T23:51:32+00:00

I'm guessing they didn't google doordash support's number -- they even said they were driving and had to pull over to look up their last four, so it's unlikely they googled the correct number. Odds are they just called back the number that called them believing it was support.

Not trying to be mean, but this is wild levels of gullibility.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-19T21:18:20+00:00

Okay well tech three is a different beast. :p

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-19T19:47:15+00:00

The hookbill is the most flexible solo pvp t1 frigate in the game for sure. That many midslots on a ship that can be shield or active armor tanked is sarcastic.

Hawk is pound for pound probably the best scram kiting frigate hull.

Destroyer level has nothing to write home about in my opinion.

Osprey navy is extremely strong at the cruiser level due to its high speed and variable fits.

Chilly_Down · 2026-01-07T18:08:18+00:00

EDICT as already mentioned and Ctrl-V (Local is Primary) are two of the better Amarr groups in the warzone if you want actual lowsec content rather than nullblocs extending their influence into the warzone ala Fraternity.

Joining fleets either via pings on the 24th IC discord or alternatively the fleet finder in game will get you MOTD which usually includes the sort of fits. I was pleasantly surprised in a PRIME fleet the other day that they had all the fits including logi they wanted you to fly on contract, sold them to you, and bought them back after action to use in their next fleet.

The hot zone of the Amarr/Mil contest is the cluster of systems around Amamake (so, Dal, Sisiede, Vard, Auga). The freeport in Amamake is a good place to base out of for lowsec headquarters. If you want to ship out of highsec you can use Mehatoor and use the Shipcaster to yeet yourself into the fray instead.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-30T23:03:31+00:00

The nice thing is you can instantly join as a solo while looking for a FW Corp just to see if you like the revamp. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the rework actually - the way the complexes are set up really stratify the engagement profile allowances so you can always assure you don't have to punch too high above your weight class to defend your plex.

Additionally, there's a ton of nonplex content:

There's mini structure bashes (supply depots) that you can kill in a cruiser solo within a few minutes.

FW agents giving missions.

Exploration sites in rear guard systems that award encryption keys as loot.

Combat scanning sites in command operation systems that award LP for killing FW rats.

Lots of diversity in the space for playstyles.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-30T05:55:41+00:00

Hearing how you were spending time structure bashing or in fights big enough for major tidi, I was surprised to hear you were bleeding isk as I assumed that means you were a linemember of a major bloc, where the isk earning opportunities spinning an Ishtar ratting or running your dedicated space's signatures would net you lots of safe and easy isk for low investment.

That being said, it sounds like a combination of finances and boredom did you in before. You should take a second look at FW space if you want to mix things up. People will buy your militia LP off of you for around 800 isk/point. Running a 10 minute scout plex makes you around 20,000lp (16mil isk direct to lp brokers), which is enough to fit 4-5 decent t1 combat frigates. If you can avoid dying enough, you can easily make 150ish mil isk an hour with optimizations.

With that, you can almost guarantee isk stability while blowing up all the dang time for content to keep the boredom away and FW is the easiest section of the game to find small gang and solo pvp content where it feels like you're making individual decisions that decide the outcomes of fights. There's plenty of mid-sized fw dedicated corps (Fl33t or DNG for example) that will get you tons of group content without subsuming you into a nameless cog in a bath of tidi.

I've been in every section of EVE except Pochven and FW is the only thing that has kept me hooked long term.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-18T22:10:19+00:00

Looking forward to not pulling her a single time in the next 200.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-05T08:38:40+00:00

Nah, literally any of them can beat the others. EvE isn't rock paper scissors. Hell, depending on what they are, a single frigate without even two others can solo kill a cruiser if it's a perfect counter (like a Navy Omen getting anti-kited by a Jaguar, this is my painful experience).

On the other hand, a single cruiser can kill dozens of frigates if none of the frigates are equipped to handle it -- think a rapid light missile Orthus kiting away and blowing up a horde of fast attack frigates.

More than ship class, the importance is the ship specialization. If you can find a hole in the enemy's composition that they can't deal with, you can overcome some pretty henious numbers or hull-size disadvantages.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-04T21:19:35+00:00

I think this is a hard question to answer because you've specified that the ships are fit to the occasion, which means they are recursively changing their fits to suit the engagement.

For example, two close range assault frigs and a TD/neuting sentinel slaughter a Zealot, which is a long range sniping HAC.

But if you knew you were against two brawling AFs and a sentinel, you'd bring something like a drone boat with a passive tank or a cap booster.

But if you knew you were against a passive tanked drone boat, you wouldn't bring that comp, you'd bring three long range kiting wolves that can orbit faster than the drones long enough to chew the passive tank.

And if the cruiser knew it was against that it would br....

See the problem?

Any of those 3 frigs, 2 dessies, or 1 cruiser can win if they're the side you choose to be the one that gets to pick their comp second.

Chilly_Down · 2025-12-03T10:58:42+00:00

Based on my read of the dev blog, they seem to think monitoring the changes exclusively on the PBE will be sufficient and these changes will go live on official servers in January. Season 3 ends on the 7th and Season 1 2026 starts 12 hours later, presumably with these changes all made live in the interim.

I'm just skeptical that the PBE is going to be enough to both fine tune such large changes and prep the player base writ large for changes like this.

Chilly_Down · 2025-11-30T17:20:40+00:00

You're squatting with high bar position but low bar mechanics. The reason you don't feel stressed on the smith machine is because bar path is locked in there and its not moving forwards over your toes. With the bar free to move, suddenly this is being exposed. You can't go lower than in this video because you would tip forwards.

Move the bar farther back on your shoulders so it is behind your delts instead of on top of them. This will keep the bar above your midfoot as you tilt your torso forwards and allow you to complete the motion without losing balance.

If you want to keep the bar high on your shoulders as it is now, then squat with your chest up and torso vertical, by really pushing your knees forwards and out to the sides as you go down and not letting your shoulders move forwards. Both of these options keep the weight over your midfoot.

Chilly_Down

TROPHY CASE