BFS Squat Shirt Transformation
Posted: July 14, 2019 Filed under: 99 - Miscellaneous/Fun Stuff Leave a comment »They say a BFS Squat Shirt will add 10% to your squat 1RM…
Well…I say it mostly.
It could be a bit of an exaggeration…
The Powerlifting 3-Step
Posted: July 11, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 01 - Squat Tips Leave a comment »Squat Walkouts
I’d like to pick apart my squats and talk about some key points in a good squat. A good walkout sets you up for a solid squat. When I get new lifters in, I probably annoy them early on with my ‘rerack!’ commands, making them redo the walkouts over and over to get it right.
I was spotting in a recent meet, and wanted to make many of those lifters rerack. Some of them took haphazard steps out of the rack, then shifted their feet for four minutes trying to get them ‘perfect’ (ok, to be fair, since you only have one minute to get the ‘squat command’ I’m sure it was something less than four minutes…)
A good walkout goes something like this:
- Start with your feet directly under your hips. This is a very stable and strong position, and you don’t have to shift the weight much to take a step.
- Bring your first foot straight back. It doesn’t have to be a big step, just enough to clear the rack – heel to toe.
- Bring your second foot back and out to the side into your squat stance.
- Shift your first foot straight out to the side into your squat stance.
You should be able to get into your stance with 3 short steps, and adjust your toes if needed. Even in this video, I counted 4 shuffles to adjust my feet…that is at least 2 too many.
A solid setup makes the bar feel much lighter, builds confidence, and preps you for a strong lift.
Deadlift Cues – Pull Yourself In
Posted: July 8, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 03 - Deadlift Tips Leave a comment »An important aspect to deadlifting (and any serious lift, really) is FULL BODY TIGHTNESS. There are a couple of things I look for when assessing a deadlift to tell whether a lifter is really tight as she starts the pull:
– Do the shoulders move: When she starts upward, do the shoulders move downward initially as the body rises, until she engages the weight?
– Is there an audible ‘clink’ as the bar engages with the weight before it breaks the floor?
Both of these things indicate the lifter’s body is not tight, and that the lifter is not tight against the bar.
Cue the cues.
My main cue used to be ‘hips down chest up’ as the lifter rocked back into the starting position. The problem with this cue is that there is no instruction to get tight. It leads a lifter to squat to the bar, which in the deadlift creates no tightness whatsoever in the body, nor tension against the bar.
Contrast that with ‘pull yourself in!’
Now you’re not thinking about squatting down to the bar, you’re thinking about gripping the bar and pulling yourself to it. It creates the mental image of tightness, and guides to a tight and powerful setup:
– Grab the bar and squeeze your shoulder blades downward, tightening your entire upper back
– Pull up on the bar, creating upward tension
– Maintain this upward tension and pull yourself in to the bar; if you do it right, you feel tension grow in your quads and your glutes, loading them like a spring.
Now you are tight and ready to explode off the floor!
Squats – Rear Hip Shift
Posted: July 5, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 01 - Squat Tips Leave a comment »One of the most common squat technique issues I see is an initial backward shift of the hips as the lifter starts up out of the hole. This hip shift creates several problems:
- It is an energy leak: Instead of using the squat’s rebound and knee extension to drive the bar upward, you lose that energy, allowing the hips shift backward. At that point instead of using good squat technique to come up out of the hole, you end up muscling the bar up, using largely posterior chain.
- You drop your chest: As your hips push back, your chest drops, flattening out your hip/back angle, and likely let the bar to drift forward ahead of your center of gravity. This puts you at a mechanical disadvantage – it makes the bar heavier.
To get to the root cause, there are a couple of issues to look for:
- Knee Valgus: If your knees collapse inward as you start back up, it often forces your hips backwards, causing your chest to drop.
- Early Knee Extension: If you extend/straighten your knees without driving the bar up, it will push your hips back without doing any of the lift’s work.
How do you address this technique issue? I usually attack it from a number of directions:
- Strengthen your Glutes: If your gluteus medius (abducts the hips) is less powerful than your adductor magnus (adducts and extends the hips), you will not be able to keep your knees tracking in the direction of your toes under load. One of my favorite tools to strengthen the gluteus medius is warming up all lower body sessions with banded side-walks.
- Strengthen your Quads: If your quads are underpowered, they will not be able to drive the load upwards as you extend your knees. To build quad strength I like to use heavy, high volume leg presses.
- Hip Thrusts: Thrust your hips forward hard as you come out of the hole. Use the thrust to maintain the hip/back angle out of the hole, then drive them forward hard as you pass parallel. I’ve added ‘hip thrust squats’ as the warmup sequence for squat working sets to build this pattern.
Taking the time to address this little technique issue can have a significant impact on your squat’s power!
Bench Press – The Big Man Arch
Posted: June 18, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 02 - Bench Press Tips Leave a comment »A lot of novices and uneducated social media lifters bemoan the bench press arch. There are times a flat back arch is appropriate, that is for a separate discussion. I submit that you should use some level of arch whenever you bench…unless it is one of those times. This discussion also is not about the ‘high arch’ you see in competition. That, again, is a separate discussion.
A strong arch creates a number of benefits to your overall bench press strength:
- It reduces the range of motion (ROM) of the lift allowing you to move more weight, but that is not the primary purpose of this approach.
- It creates tremendous full body tightness. With a good arch and leg drive, you should see very little body movement during the bench. As a coach, I watch for body movement as a sign of poor leg drive.
Note: Sudden leg drive, and heaving to create momentum is a technique for a separate discussion
- Strong leg drive helps you keep your chest up throughout the lift’s ROM which:
- Gives you a very stable and strong platform to push from
- Expands the surface area your pecs stretch across, giving you a stronger initial contraction (note: my personal theory).
How do you create a good Big Man Arch (aka leg drive arch)? I like to start at the bar and work my way down:
- Once you grip the bar, squeeze your shoulder blades tightly together and pull them downward, tucking them into your back pockets. Keep them firmly planted this way throughout the full ROM.
- Pull your feet back up under your hips. Drive through the balls of your feet and push your hips toward your shoulder blades.
- Your actual foot position will vary based on your body mechanics and hip mobility. Start with a position on the edge of discomfort and adjust from there.
- Loosen your core as you push your hips then retighten it once you’ve positioned them; this helps you get to a more stable, tight position.
- Finally, take a deep breath of air, filling your lungs completely and hold it as you lower the bar to your chest. Don’t begin exhaling until the bar has upward momentum, then snake the air out through your teeth through lockout.
You can find a full discussion on the bench press in my bench press technique article
Best Case Scenario – Barbells
Posted: June 13, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips Leave a comment »You don’t train for the best case scenario…
If you know me, you may have heard me say that before. Failing to prepare for the worst case scenario leads to the comment you hear so many times after bombing out in competition: ‘But I just lifted that weight in training!’. Even assuming you’re training to your federations lift requirements, try to create conditions that match what you’ll encounter on the platform as closely as possible.
The bar, for example. The stiffness, the thickness, the brutal knurling on a good competition bar can be intimidating right off the bat (we’re talking about the bar! the bar you sickos!). If you train with a bar that’s smaller diameter, it may have more whip and be easier to grip than a comp bar. It may have knurling or rings in different positions than a comp bar, throwing your setup off.
If your gym has bars that meet comp specs, it’s of course beneficial to do the bulk of your big three training with them. If not, at least educate yourself on what those specs are so you can prepare correctly for comp.
Your Back is a Lever
Posted: June 10, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 01 - Squat Tips, 03 - Deadlift Tips Leave a comment »When you perform a lower body lift (squats, deadlifts, etc.) your legs perform the work against a weight that is supported in some way by your shoulders – either by a bar resting on them or hanging from your arms. Since your back lies between the load and the force, the more efficiently it transfers the power from your legs to the load supported through your shoulders, the more effective and stronger your lift will be.
A comparison I like to make is a brick and a sponge.
- If your back is rigid, solid like a brick, the power from your legs is transferred directly to the load, driving the load in the desired direction (up) with as much acceleration as your legs can generate.
- If your back is soft and malleable like a sponge, power will be inefficiently transferred from your legs to the load. Before the bar moves, the slack in your back needs to be taken up as sponge compresses and your back flexes. Only then will the bar begin to move. In addition to inefficiently transferring power, a loose back also increases your injury risk and gives you less control over the load.
To tighten your back up, think of it in two segments
- Upper/thoracic region: The upper back can be tightened by creating a strong upper back contraction to pull your shoulder blades downward, ‘tucking them into your back pockets’.
- Lower/lumbar region: Strong bracing to create intra-abdominal pressure braces the lower back creating good stability. You do this by taking in a deep breath of air, allowing it to expand into your abdomen, then tightening your core and pushing down (hard) with your diaphragm like you’re trying to push out a turd.
Building a strong back, and learning to leverage it, can have a direct, significant impact on your lower body lifts.
Knee Pain and Squat Warm-ups
Posted: June 9, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »If you’ve lifted for any length of time, you’ve likely dealt with bouts of knee pain, it’s part of the game. Having spent a few decades under a heavy bar, I’ve learned the hard way that if you are not addressing mobility and performing regular maintenance activities (massages/myofascial release, chiro treatments, etc.) you are going to become closely acquainted with pain.
A relatively common cause of knee pain is excessively tight quads. As the quad becomes tight it creates an imbalance in muscle tension on the patella which results in knee pain. I’ve found that simply adding Bulgarian Split Squats to your warm-ups/dynamic stretching for a squat session can have a tremendously positive effect on knee pain.
Disclaimer: This discussion assumes you don’t have physical damage to your knees; if you do have a physical problem/weakness with your knee structure, get medical clearance before performing intensive kneel/unilateral lifts like split squats.
When used as a warmup, you don’t need to turn split squats into a mini-workout. A few guidelines I use:
- 3-4 sets of 5 reps
- Bodyweight only, no added weight
- Take a large step forward to set up, so you can get a good stretch in the quads and hips
- Use a bench high enough to stretch the rear leg until your knee points straight down
- Pause and really push the rear leg down to fully stretch your quad and hips
- Focus on keeping your core really tight to maintain balance
After split squats I go right into squat warm-ups with the bar.
Dumb Questions
Posted: June 8, 2019 Filed under: 99 - Miscellaneous/Fun Stuff Leave a comment »
I came across a recent post by @scienceforsport that shared an interesting quote: “A coach should never be afraid to ask questions of anyone he could learn from” (Bobby Knight).
Despite popular opinion, there is such a thing as a dumb question. I should know. I was once told “That is a ridiculously stupid question. It is so ignorant, in fact, that I am now dumber for having heard you ask it, and I am not going to even acknowledge its utterance.
Guess what? I have never forgotten the answer to that question.
As a coach, a high level athlete, or any subject matter expert for that matter, there may be hesitation to ask a question about a topic in which you are expected to be an authority. Will asking questions reveal that you don’t, in fact, know it all? Will it chip away at your expert status?
Well, which is better…a perception of knowledge, or actual knowledge?
Sometimes with lifting you find you have to set your ego aside, admit you have a weakness and do the grunt work to fix it. The same thing goes as a coach, or ‘expert’. Set your ego aside, admit to yourself you don’t know everything, and ask the dumb questions when you have to (unless it’s 5PM and your dumb question is all that stands between a room full of people and the bar. Pick your battles!). You’ll be less dumber for having asked.
Lift Setup – Be Methodical
Posted: May 31, 2019 Filed under: 00 - Lifting Tips, 01 - Squat Tips Leave a comment »Have you ever watched a lift video that wasn’t clipped and thought ‘get to the fucking lift already’. Take this video, for example. From the time I get my hands on the bar to the time I’ve walked out and am ready to squat 45 seconds have expired. In comp this much pissing around before lifting can result in timing out! You’ve got 1 minute from the bar loaded to get on the platform, walk it out, and get the squat command. I’ve literally gotten to the platform before with 10 seconds left on the one minute clock. It happens. You need to be able to get it done.
All that wasted time getting ready to lift does more than simply delay you. It distracts you from the lift, gives your mind time to talk you out of the lift, and drains energy if the bar is on your back.
On your next squat day, audit your lift – find your energy wasters and eliminate them:
– How long does it take to get to the bar, fixing your belt, wrapping your wrists, thinking about the lift. Stop stalling, when it’s time for your set, get up, wrap up, get under the bar.
– When you get to the bar, how much time do you spend shifting your hand and foot position? You’ve done it a thousand times. You know where your hands and feet go, practice put them there right the first time every time.
– When you get under the bar, how long do you take shifting the bar, shuffling before unracking?
– When you walk the bar out, how many steps do you take? How much do you shuffle before locking out and getting to work? Work on hitting your stance with no more than three steps and little or no shuffling.
Your setup should be by the numbers, mechanical, and consistent every time. Don’t give your demons time to whisper how fucking heavy the bar is, and suck up your precious energy!