Squats: 135x5
185x5
205x5
225x5
235x5 PR
245x2
245x3 PR
Rev. Band Squat (blues): 315x6
405x5
495x Stapled (felt good but bumped the weight too much)
455x 3 assisted
Pause Squat: 155x5 (3 sec)
185x5 (4 sec)
225x2 (3 sec)
Box Jump: 24" x 5
30" x 5 PR
Ab Wheel: 6, 10, 8
*Add .5 to all squat rep counts as I had a long way to unrack the bar. LOL
All in all a good session. Set some PR's and working on getting form down. I tend to not get any power out of the hole and pitch forward (I should have an awesome Good Morning). The pause squats felt almost normal lol.
And as for suits, I will be emailing Steve to see if he has a Inzer Hardcore size 34 or 36 in stock. I think I might need a singlet too? Not sure.
18 comments:
Haha...now you have to deal with the awesome squat unracking. Good times.
Also, get the 34 if he has it. And you can probably borrow a singlet, but you might want to get one for the long run.
just shot him an email. asked if he had a 34 and a singlet that would fit.
and my wrist wraps should arrive just in time for benching tomorrow. sweet.
No power out of the hole typically means that you're not engaging your hips (aka no hip drive). This is usually caused by having the back angle be too vertical (which shoves your hips down and forces the glutes to be the primary mover out of the hole). This is usually due to looking up while squatting.
Try looking forward/down at a point about 10 feet in front of you to force your ass higher/make your back angle closer to 45'. You'll start leading the movement out of the hole with your hips, which is optimal. This is pretty critical for shoulder-stance squatting, but much less so for wide-stance.
Pitching forward is usually a sign of some imbalance between your ab/oblique strength and your lower back strength. Work your entire core hard: standing ab pulls, standing overhead press, overhead squats, higher-rep good mornings, etc.
Mkay. So basically what I need to do is strengthen my hips & trunk and not look at the ceiling. My stance is fairly wide (toes almost touching the sides of the rack).
Dave suggested that we would include some ultra-wide pulls for me on thursday to strengthen my hips.
As for the suit, Steve said that he would order the 34 and singlet and that he would get them in about 3 days. I will end up saving about $30 going to him and getting a good suit to boot.
I still completely disagree with having anyone look down, or even forward when squatting or deadlifting.
Pitching forward out of the hole is a sure sign you're rounding your back at the bottom, taking BOTH your hamstrings and glutes out of the picture. Your glutes and hamstrings ARE your hip muscles. They are what push the hips forward and allow you to stay more upright, which is the opposite of falling forward. If your hips rise first it means you're NOT activating your glutes/hamstrings, you're just pushing with your quads to extend the knee. Fire your glutes to extend the hip out of the hole.
http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/default.asp?qid=41501&tid=102
Good squat description. When they say "Keep the back arched and abs pushed out while driving your knees out to the side.. To begin the ascent, push out on the belt, arch the back as much as possible, and drive the head, chest, and shoulders to the rear." It basically means fire your glutes. Also, look at her very nice back and ass. They are very arched at the bottom. Arching = good, rounding = bad. Get a little more flexible (not too much, but enough to hit depth with an arched back).
Kirk Karwoski looks forward while squatting
Ed Coan looks forward while squatting
Brad Gillingham & Brian Siders look slightly down
Jake, that's probably what I'm doing (I have noticed an occasional "butt wink" when squatting). Are there any specific stretches that I need to do or just general hamstring/glute/hip flexor stretches?
Also, read these:
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/62_07_Bad_Form.pdf
http://journal.crossfit.com/2006/11/a-new-rather-long-analysis-of.tpl
Jake:
Not what I mean. Intentionally lifting your hips without extending your legs will result in a good morning. One should focus on achieving a back angle that allows the hamstring "bounce" to occur and engage the glutes while driving with the hips. Most people try to get too vertical a back angle, which is great for front squats but terrible for back squats. And yes this means I'm not a fan of the high-bar squats.
Kyle:
Whatever position allows you to have the bar over the middle of your foot when viewed from the side is correct. Adjust as necessary. Experiment for yourself with your visual point of reference.
Note that the visual trick works well with benches too. Pick a point where the bar should go every time and don't look away throughout the entire bench press. The bar will end up there every time.
First of all, notice they both look forward, not down, however, they don't look down like Rippletoe says. It's not that I care where you look, but keeping your eyes forward isn't going to hurt you.
I agree with the much more bent over powerlifting style squat for powerlifting. The high bar squat is for weightlifting and an assistance exercise for powerlifting only.
The Crossfit article you referenced is very good.
I think Louie Simmon's advice of "pushing your shoulders back into the bar" out of the hole is really good advice and will help prevent your legs from extending before your back.
Kyle: I don't know what a "butt wink" is but it sounds kinda fun. I'd say the ideal flexibility program is Nathan's, but general groin/hamstring stretches should be enough provided you do them progressively to get more flexible instead of just as a "warm up" or for like 5 minutes after your workout. Once you can effectively hit depth with an arched back continue to do flexibility stuff but you can just maintain. No need to be too flexible.
Kyle you need to find what muscles are tight. This takes a lot of experimentation with different stretches to figure it out. There are a lot of ways to start though...
Check these out:
http://www.exrx.net/Kinesiology/Inflexibilities.html#anchor13258452
This is good as well:
http://www.exrx.net/Questions/FullSquatHipFlex.html
I'd suggest this is the first thing to do:
http://www.exrx.net/Testing/FlexFunction/DeepSquat.html
If you fail at that, which is likely, then try it again with 5# plates under your heels. If that works, you might consider investing in some squat shoes. I like mine a lot.
Also explore exrx.net if you see things that sound likely weak points. It is an amazing site.
I think the best exercises for training squat-specific flexibility are overhead squat movements. The snatch squat press and overhead squat are both great. Keep in mind that this is *not* a strength movement, it is for flexibility. Doing them with just the bar is a good start and you can move up the weight from there to force better posture, as needed.
I'd recommend you determine which muscles are tight on you and then experiment with stretches for those muscles until you have a flexibility routine that you are happy with. If you're interested, you could look at my flexibility stuff over the last couple months and it might give you some ideas of things to try.
Don't waste time on muscles that are flexible. For example, I don't stretch my quads.
Also, playing with your stance might help things a lot. I found that I squat most comfortably in a slightly-greater-than-shoulder-width stance. Dean goes more narrow, and Phil goes quite wide. It all depends on your proportions.
Jake:
Agreed. I don't really care if I look forward or down for squats, as long as its not up.
For deadlifts, I find looking down to be the best position to set myself for the conventional deadlift. For sumo, I would look forward since your ass is much lower.
Nathan, I just did some flexibility tests and stretching. I can get down into the full squat (just below parallel) position pretty easily, but any further than that, my back hunches over into a "C". If my heels are elevated and my knees are allowed to go forward, sitting my ass on my heels with a straight back is no problem.
With stretching, my glutes, hamstrings, and hips (all around) all felt pretty tight. I will stretch and foam roll these areas more agressively.
As for the stance, I feel more comfortable and stronger with a wider stance (not super wide, but still quite a bit wider than shoulders). We should probably run some video in the future.
Jake, the "butt wink" isn't something super fun lol. It's just the pelvic tuck that sometimes happens at the bottom of the squat.
Thanks for all of the responses guys.
Ok. I would suggest you at least try snatch-squat-press and overhead squat at some point. They might point out thinks to you you never would have noticed about squat flexibility.
Finally, if your pelvis is rotating under then you are by definition losing lower back arch. Is this happening on the deep squat test? It is usually best to have someone else judge...
Can you get to just below parallel with a shoulder width stance like the exrx site says? If so then you definitely will need more flexibility to get that deep with a wide stance.
Also, Kyle, you said you can get deeper if your knees are allowed to come forward. This is fine for an Olympic squat but for powerlifting your shins should be nearly vertical the entire time. Dave Tate wrote once that you should "be able to squat in ski boots." You can't go as deep that way, it's not anatomically possible, but you can hit depth and that's good enough. That ideal may not be practical for everyone, but your knees should be visibly behind your toes in powerlifting. In weightlifting your knees should actually be beyond your toes. It's much more demanding on ankle flexiblity.
Technique in powerlifting squats is important because of the forward lean that you are forced to generate squatting this way. You really have to think and make sure you send the bar straight up and don't allow your hips to rise without a corresponding rise in the shoulders. That's where driving your head and shoulders into the bar FIRST on the way up comes in. It forces you to straighten the back and the legs together. Everything needs to happen at the same time or you'll lose the groove and the weight will crush you.
Jake, I can get to depth with an arch using a shoulder width oly-style squat. With the wider stance I can get about 2-4" above parallel with an arch (without weight). I think just getting more hip flexibility and focusing on pushing out of the hole right are the things that I need to work on.
Just to nitpick... Kyle, since you squat wide this won't really apply.
But if you aren't squatting ulta-wide, multiply-style, then your squats will be somewhere in between oly and IPA-type. This is how most raw and single-ply lifters squat. Your knees will come forward a bit but usually not beyond the toes. You will be more upright but still quite bent over. You will start the squat with the hips, but at some point squat down like an oly squat. Etc.. So I always keep this in mind when reading technique advice online (or from Danny).
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