***Gym Exercise Guide, and Form Discussion/Feedback***

mrthingyx said:
Jon33:

Chest up.
Shoulders back.
Double overhand you big baby... You are not keeping your underhand arm straight.
More hip drive (imagine pushing the bar up with your glutes).

Good work, however!
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Cheers for that mate, I'll stay at 110 next week (or maybe lighter) to make sure the form is spot on before going any higher. Lots of things to think about on deadlifts!

I've got a baby grip it starts to slip after a few reps, more grip/wrist exercise needed.... :cool:
 
You need to really drill your "hip hinge". The movement you're doing looks like a lazy leg press, then you stand up as an after thought.

What Som said is bang on. You need to keep your knees back. Not only will this stop you banging them, but it will mean that you are prioritising your spine neutrality and hamstring loading.

Watch Kelly Starrett's video on deadlift load ordering (I think it's in the OP).

BennyC said:
Ofc if you're Icecold and warming up to 'turn to dust' some sl00tz pelvis then collars might be useful.
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Collars on everything.
 
As per chat in mobility thread here are some vids (talking about issue I get with rounding at bottom of squat and just generally bad form), I just filmed this today before chest to get vids up quickly, my typical weight for squats is around 95kg 5 sets of around 4-6. After filming myself over the weekend and seeing the playback I want to correct my form before upping weight/squating again.

I know my mobility is poor and I plan on starting to work on that, I spent 4 or so years in the flooring trade lifting very heavy on one shoulder, which I know has thrown me out a little as last Christmas I went to the chiropractor 5 times due to lower left back pain and a muscle strain in my left butt cheek, the pain retuned within a month of my last visit there and I still have it now but very minor and can mainly feel it on cold mornings.

I am at about to start cutting, before anyone says it :D




Be gentle :o
 
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Looks like you're using high bar form and doing a low bar squat? Although going past parallel, which is high bar again and this is adding to the rounding. I could be wrong, just what I see :)

Try putting the bar further down on traps and only go to parallel see how that looks too.
 
Ash - I'm glad you put those up because the side-profile view is identical to what I do and it would be interesting to see what people on here say.

It's easier to see what's going on with your top off although I'm a little reluctant to do this in the gym. At the bottom your bum sort of curves down and I've noticed the same thing with mine, is this normal?

I still despite reading loads of material online and in these threads don't really understand what lower back rounding actually is. Maybe I'm being paranoid.
 
scott212 said:
Ash - I'm glad you put those up because the side-profile view is identical to what I do and it would be interesting to see what people on here say.

It's easier to see what's going on with your top off although I'm a little reluctant to do this in the gym. At the bottom your bum sort of curves down and I've noticed the same thing with mine, is this normal?

I still despite reading loads of material online and in these threads don't really understand what lower back rounding actually is. Maybe I'm being paranoid.
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Basically it's completely wrong and quite dangerous. As above, you need to read up on how the squat movement works then start working on this in the mirror and filming everything.
 
I seemed to have fixed it by tensing my glutes as hard as I can at the bottom of each squat and almost imagining I'm trying to push outwards with my glutes.

I'm going to get some videos in the gym tomorrow and do a bit more reading before my session.
 
Morba said:
No swearing - Davey! Shows what I know about squat form there then as other than bar placement I'd have said they look ok!
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Can you not see his back turn in to a banana? He doesn't want to do a delvis. :p

scott212 said:
The thing is I'm following all the instructions here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=21560529&postcount=248

and on everything else I can read but I can't keep my *****y lower back straight. How hard can it be? :D
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Probably many things going on, have a read of this article as well though: http://www.tonygentilcore.com/blog/q-a-fixing-the-tuck-under-when-squatting-part-ii/

Probably a mixture of tight everything (hell, everyone's tight) and lack of core control or something. We need the resident guru's to descend upon us.

Try what the article says with the BW squat vs with a plate and see how it goes. Basically, fix it now before something snaps. :)
 
It's also a little lack of understanding of how the squat movement works. For example a low bar squat you sit back and push knees out as you descend, spreading the floor to create torque. You will hit a point where your arse will be back, knees out and not too far forward and back flat, at an angle where the bar is over your feet. The issue comes when people continue past this point by moving in a way which is bad, like going too far past parallel on a low bar squat, which requires your body to get the range from somewhere.

The aim of a squat is to go as low as the movement/your flexibility allows, while keeping the form.

It really helps to think about the physics and mechanics of your body, and question what happens at certain points of the movement. Look in the mirror side on and play with the squat, understand how everything comes together.
 
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I've just got back from the gym, I took a couple of videos and I think it's an improvement on last week but there's still a few things which don't look right. I tried one set to get as low as my flexibility would allow with little weight on the bar and that's where my arse really rounds inwards as we were talking above.

I'll try and get these up later but I've got to rush out for now. Thanks guys.

Good advice Lie, I was in fact doing this last night to try and stop my arse curving in at the bottom but back in the gym today and with the bar on my back I still haven't sorted it.
 
It's a case of practising the movement and knowing how you're supposed to move. Most people just go up and down and let their body do whatever. What helped me with low bar squat is to think about my hips going back rather than dropping down. If you keep pushing the hips back you'll hit a point where they can't go back any more (about parallel), at this point don't try to drop down further.
 
Here we go. This is actually the last set. I stuck with a low weight and tried to get as low as I could.

p.s. try not to laugh at the step back/step forward thing... not too sure!

http://youtu.be/MHfSFQbcYSM

And the next two are of me lifting my heaviest set. This is the most I can lift where I feel comfortably in control but still find it damn hard work.

rear view: http://youtu.be/MLSoFlgtC9Q
side view: http://youtu.be/tQ_K9vjcqOA

I'm most grateful to you guys for taking the time to look at these and give me feedback. I'm really determined to nail my form whether it requires a few tweaks or some major sorting out :)
Although I don't have any injuries etc today and feel great bear in mind that a few weeks ago I majorly hurt my lower back by trying to squat 110kg on the 3rd rep. Was it too much for me or was it my technique?
 
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You're doing high bar, in which case you can ignore a lot of the above because I was talking about low bar. If you want to do high bar you're best speaking to mrthingyx. The main thing to focus on with high bar is knees out hard, stay more upright and drop between your hips. Right now you're doing low bar movement with the bar in a high position. 2 completely different movements.
 
I wasn't even aware there was a difference, shows what I know. I just assumed the bar went in that position.

I'm assuming there's much debate as to which is the better of the two but surely if I am doing the low-bar movement, I should just move the bar into the low-bar position and work with that?
 
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