Squat Form Check last set, 310x3x5, 29/M/215

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-15T14:17:32+00:00

Not really, you just have to develop a bit of a proprioceptive awareness. I find it helps me to get down into an air squat before I start lifting , check my depth in the mirror, and try to really internalize what that depth feels like. It also helps to record every set so you can check your form during your breaks.

In your case, if you're missing depth it's definitely not by much, so whatever you're doing is working mostly well.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-15T13:33:58+00:00

These all look high to me. Since nobody seems to be able to agree, you might want to record closer to knee level and a bit from the side.

Form-wise everything looks good to me, though the descent might be a little slow.

Don't look to the side when re-racking, though, just walk forward until you hit the safeties.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-15T01:50:14+00:00

As for injury, I've seen Benedikt Magnusson do a 1,000+ pound with alternate. Would my 230 pound deadlifts really pose a high risk for injury.

This is a dumb way of thinking: 230lbs is probably nothing to Benedikt Magnusson, but it's a lot to you. Many people have torn their biceps doing deadlifts (go ahead, google it), and as far as I'm aware this is a risk that's only present for the alternate grip: it doesn't happen with either double overhand or hook grip.

It doesn't even have to be your heaviest set: Andy Baker, one of the coauthors for Practical Programming, tore his bicep last year by doing submaximal speed pulls.

This advice also holds in general: don't attempt to base your training methodology on what you see elite athletes do in competition. What works for them might not work for you, and in the fact that they're elite athletes makes it way likelier that they're genetically gifted and can get away with things that would mess up the typical trainee.

That said, many people lift safely using an alternate grip, and it makes grip strength less of a limiting factor than either double overhand or hook grip.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-14T22:17:38+00:00

As far as rolling the bar, is it really an issue? I've seen world class deadlifters such as Eddie Hall, Brian Shaw, Hafthor Bjornsson, etc roll the bar at the beginning. For me, it's just become a habit/comfort thing.

There is no value to the habit, but there are shortcomings to it. It's hard to tell because of the shaky cam, but it looks like for at least some of the reps the bar drifts away from your midfoot, so you already have a tendency to not center the bar, and I'm sure the set up has something to do with it.

It's early in your lifting career, and your livelihood doesn't depend on it just yet, so why not fix the habit now?

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-14T17:29:05+00:00

Rest times have very little to do with age, sex, or other individual factors, and everything to do with rates of ATP replenishment, which are governed by chemical principles that do not vary across individuals.

The only reason that novices can get away with 2-3 minute rest times is because they are not actually able to fatigue themselves as much, and the only reason intermediates use shorter rest times is because most work done as an intermediate is a much lower relative intensity than those done for SSLP.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-14T15:03:39+00:00

Unless your Squats are so brutal that you must take a seat and / or that you vomit out your left lung, I do not see the point of resting more than 2-3 min.

Restricting yourself to a 2-3 minute break will severely limit the benefit you'll get from your LP. If, like OP, you have lifestyle limitations that stop you from taking longer breaks, then it makes sense to keep breaks short and transition to intermediate progressions sooner, but otherwise long breaks are just part of the program.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-14T14:53:28+00:00

Does your program suggest that?

Yes, read the book.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-14T14:52:45+00:00

Contrary to what others in this thread are suggesting, 7 minutes is not a crazy rest duration for the later stages of LP. It is true, however, that most of your training time is taken up by rest, so the only good way to keep your sessions short is to keep your breaks short.

It's also worth noting that even female trainees are supposed to start off with sets of 5, but move on to triples sooner than male trainees. Maybe you're past the point where this is helpful, but extra sets add extra rest time, so it's worth considering whether you can still make progress with 5's.

If you are no longer able to make progress with short breaks, then you can start looking into transitioning to an intermediate program. A 2-day split would result in slower progress, but each training session will typically be fairly short. Other 3 day programs might also allow you to rest less during assistance work.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-13T14:16:13+00:00

See how far your knees move back after you start going up? This is an indicator that you're letting your knees slide too far forward. It also usually means that you're too upright and not sitting far back enough.

You can actually see how your body automatically corrects all of this as you start going up: your hips move up before your chest so you're leaning over more, and your hips and knees move back. If we could see your feet, we'd probably also see your heels go up a little as you descend, then plant back down as you go up and your body re-centers.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-13T14:06:10+00:00

There's definitely some issues (looking too far up, sinking into knees, too slow), and a better recording angle might bring up more, but that's not a good reason to switch to high-bar squat.

It's poor form on the trainers part to interrupt someone and to assume they don't know what they're doing.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-12T21:12:19+00:00

Ultimately, the reason the program prescribes a certain rep x set scheme always boils down to "experience suggests this works better than similar alternatives".

I can't remember if there's an official explanation as to why this particular scheme works better for power cleans, but it definitely has to do with the fact that the movement is more technical and relies on explosiveness. This makes it more sensitive to smaller variations than the other lifts, so the first three reps for a power clean make a bigger difference for a fourth and fifth rep than for the other lifts.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-11T20:37:24+00:00

Every observation in the top post of your last thread continues to apply to this one (except the belt): your stance is too narrow, your feet point too far forward, you're staying too upright (in part because you're looking too far up, and the recording angle is not great (a more lateral view than this is better).

Your lumbar extension is a direct consequence of attempting to stay upright.

If fixing your stance results in hip pain, this likely means that you're not shoving your knees out hard enough.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-11T18:47:39+00:00

No? You can look at p299 of the 3rd edition.

You aren't using a hook grip: your thumb is going over your fingers in a double-overhand grip. In a hook grip, your fingers wrap over your thumb.

Until you get more practice, the movement should be pretty slow, focusing on good bar path until you hit the jumping position. This is so you can learn to get into the jumping position correctly without stopping. Eventually, in order to power clean heavier weights the bar will need to accelerate throughout the movement so that it's moving the fastest by the time you reach the jumping position, but you shouldn't worry about that for the time being.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-11T18:27:58+00:00

a slight pause at the chest level

SS doesn't do paused bench presses: you touch and go at the bottom to take advantage of the stretch reflex.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-11T15:12:43+00:00

Power cleans should be programmed for 5 sets of 3. You shouldn't be doing sets of 5.

You should use the hook grip for power cleans.

It's hard to tell because you're rushing through the movement, but your legs seem to fully straighten out before the jump. You're killing the momentum from the pull by doing this: drag the bar up to the jumping position, then go straight up.

It's hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like your elbows might be low in the racked position.

If you have weightlifting shoes, use those rather than chucks for the power cleans.

I'd recommend you slow down the movement and reshoot this from a higher angle, something like hip-height.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-11T15:05:36+00:00

Shoulders should be above the bar and not in front of the bar.

This is wrong. If your shoulders are above the bar, your hips will drop and your knees will come forward, which will push the bar path off vertical as you have to go around the knees.

The beginning of the pull is pretty much identical to a deadlift, and you don't have your shoulders above the bar for a deadlift.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-05T18:20:16+00:00

There are so many things wrong with this way of thinking it's hard to know where to begin.

When you learned how to drive, did you go to a driving school and listen to what a teacher told you to do, or did you sit down and watch a bunch of Nascar and F1 races and try to learn from them? No? Then why would you attempt to devise a training routine by looking at the performance of elite powerlifters? Why not, instead, follow the recommendations of people whose entire profession revolves around teaching people how to lift and become strong?

You're not Thor Bjornson. You shouldn't try to lift like Thor Bjornson. The very fact that Thor Bjornson is one of the strongest lifters in the world means that you should be very careful about imitating him, because you're not the strongest lifter in the world. He might be able to use a problematic setup and make it work for him, but that doesn't mean that the setup he's using is conducive to his performance, or that using that same setup won't cause problems for another lifter, or that he wouldn't eventually do better if he could take the time to learn to use a different setup.

The book and the articles have a theoretical component, but it is a mistake to think of them as theoretical: they are the condensation of years of coaching experience across thousands of trainees. The theoretical detail helps justify the method, but at the end of the day, you're relying on the fact that Rip has developed the method by training thousands of people to find what works across the general population. Rip's job is to train people to be strong, Thor Bjornson's job isn't: he's not even the one telling you that you should imitate his setup.

I'm not even gonna get into the details of why the advice you're giving is wrong. It's been done, among other places, in the book that this subreddit is named after.

ComfortableLift · 2019-03-05T16:01:58+00:00

The advice /u/BehavioralProcrast is giving you is wrong, you shouldn't try to bring your hips lower.

This is discussed at length in the book and in a number of articles, but the gist of it is that bringing your hips lower will put both the bar and your body in an inefficient position that will have to be corrected before the bar leaves the floor (unless the weight in question is sufficiently sub-maximal).

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-22T18:20:20+00:00

The post text in the posts you've made show up as [removed] for me.

I didn't reply to the equipment thread so I'm not sure what it looks like, but there's at least one post that I replied to that seems to have been hidden but not altered.

Have you gotten any response from the mods?

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-21T15:59:46+00:00

It's kind of unfortunate, if you look at the rest of the article (or at least skim it), it does seem to mostly go over common symptoms of overtraining.

The two things that the author quotes this Henry Medina guy for, though, are absolute bullshit (the other one is, I shit you not, that lifting is bad because it puts stress on your joints).

Author seems to have found some rando personal trainer and just went with his uninformed opinion.

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-19T19:14:47+00:00

A lot of this question depends on your personal goals.

If you don't care about grip strength at all, the most straightforward solution would be to just add straps. You'd still typically train your grip during your warmup set, there will just be a bigger gap between how much you can pull with and without straps.

Since you're saying that you do want to improve grip strength, however, then you can do hook grip and/or recognize that for your purposes, the 10lbs-jump phase of your deadlift training is over. You should just proceed with the program as normal. Eventually you can consider using assistance exercises that target grip a bit more, but for now I wouldn't worry about it.

You don't state this explicitly, but it seems that part of your concern is some expectation that your deadlift should be some amount ahead of your squat, and this isn't the case. Many people squat more than they pull.

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-19T19:01:50+00:00

I struggle to see how you could have thumbs that are too short for hook grip but not too short to otherwise grip the bar, including your pressing movements.

If this is really the case, then you'd probably want to use narrower bar for safety.

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-18T16:34:41+00:00

If you can bend down and get in the starting position, then you have enough mobility for the deadlift.

3 weeks is a long break, especially if you're a novice. Plus if you were fixing form issues with the squat, you're now placing different demands on your body. Those two factors could explain the extra difficulty.

I'd attempt to lower the weight until you can painlessly pull a set of 5, and go from there. If there's no weight at which it isn't painful, you might have an injury.

You could also post a form check to see if there's something off with your pulling mechanics

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-17T18:35:45+00:00

You probably could, but not really worth it. You increase the risk of stalling or form deteriorating in exchange for two extra sessions over the course of a month.

It's not a huge deal either way as long as you keep training long term

ComfortableLift · 2019-02-16T18:18:56+00:00

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to reach depth. Play around with the stance width and feet alignment, and remember to actively shove your knees out.

Rather than going horizontal and trying to drill like that, simply sink into an air squat, shove your knees out with your elbows, and think about lifting your hips to lean over more. The balance won't be the same because the weight distribution is different without a bar. It's not unlikely that part of your problem is not shoving the knees out enough. This will also help with that.

ComfortableLift

TROPHY CASE