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

[JoeF1]

Cheers mate. I honestly don't know why im doing that with my shoulders. I thought i read it somewhere to do this. Obviously wrong. Ill stop that and record some more tonight.

Will try out some RDL's tonight and get some footage of them.

All in all bring the ass up more, feel on my hammy's before the lift. Would this be why im catching my knee on the way down. They reason why the decline doesn't look so smooth at all?

 

[Delvis]

You're catching your knee on the way down because you're your bending your knees on the descent before the bar passes them. I presume.

Don't forget, you want your arse, bar, chest and everything else to move at the same time when you initiate the lift. You don't want your arse rising, then your chest.

 

[FrenchTart]

Managed to twinge my upper back/shoulders slightly last night whilst messing around with OHP. Checking up on the guides made me realise how terrible my OHP form actually is. Hopefully that's part of the reason I'm getting worse and worse at it (though more likely is that I'm 9 weeks into my cut...).

 

[icecold]

They're getting better.

Have you watched the videos in the OP?

 

[JoeF1]

Going to watch them on dinner. I have watched the How to already and do realise i was screwing myself over from the set up.

 

[FrenchTart]

Going to watch them on dinner. I have watched the How to already and do realise i was screwing myself over from the set up.

Personally I find that I'm constantly going back and refining. It's the problem with not having someone in person to critique my form (the guys I lift with are all pretty much the same as me - having learnt from online and each other).

 

[Delvis]

Videos help

 

[BennyC]

Cheers mate. I honestly don't know why im doing that with my shoulders. I thought i read it somewhere to do this. Obviously wrong. Ill stop that and record some more tonight.

Good man. The finish position is standing bolt upright, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders all in alignment. If I catch you leaning back in person I will push you over at the top of the rep

Will try out some RDL's tonight and get some footage of them.

• Keep your back tight & scapula retracted
• Brace your core properly
• feet shoulder width yada yada yada
• Break from the hips by pushing your ass back & at the same time focus on keeping your knees back too
• Head neutral
• The bar path wants to be as close to the body as possible

All in all bring the ass up more, feel on my hammy's before the lift.

Yes.

Would this be why im catching my knee on the way down. They reason why the decline doesn't look so smooth at all?

As Delvis says you're bending them as you begin the descent so they have no where to go but forward. The correct way to do the deadlift negative, or at least the easiest, is to RDL to the knees and then drop down.

 

[sports_brah]

Any advice for a couple of issues?

1- I'm doing goblet squats as I don't trust myself with the main bar yet (there is no safety catch thingy, just two upright stands for chest press). I'm doing a single 45lb weight. I'm keeping my shoulders back, arse pushed back and going below parallel. I'm sometimes noticing a twinge in my left knee after my 8th rep.

Any ideas? Cause for concern? I immediately stop that set if it happens as I don't want an injury.


2- I'm doing 3-6km on the rowing machine (resistance 10) depending on how much energy I have. I'm keeping strokes a min to 28-32, and try and get my watts above 300 at some intervals.

I'm also doing my weight lifting exercises.

I've been doing this a couple weeks now. 3 days a week (Mon, Wed, Frid) but I'm finding myself absolutely knackered. As in go to bed at midnight, but still find myself drained the next day. Is this normal or am I over exercising? I feel fine when exercising, but I was under the illusion I would get more energy exercising?


I'm also doing the following exercises to fix my poor posture. Any other tips?

 

[Delvis]

......I would go to bed before midnight for start....

 

[sports_brah]

......I would go to bed before midnight for start....

Can't really, I've got far too much to do. It's an improvement, usually it's 2am... Currently it's brush teeth, in bed by midnight, up at 7am, breakfast of 5 eggs (boiled whilst I'm in shower) and then out the door where I'm either at gym or into study room.

7 hours is plenty of sleep surely, seeing as it's usually 6 hours tops?

 

[Thumpsta]

nm

 

[JoeF1]

Right, done as you said and watched some of the videos which led me onto the stretching of the Hamstrings on the MWOD site.

Hows these looking?

RDL's

Back: Inb4muffin

Deadlifts:

Thanks <3

 

[AndrewNR]

On some lifts you back is almost parallel with the floor and it looks rounded. It looks like you're using a light weight and when you start lifting heavier weight I think you could hurt yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuBucAGzRBU 25 seconds in, doesn't look like your doing what he says (lower back arch) and his back is kinda 45 degrees where as yours is between 60-80. I guess this might be solved by adjusting dat ass and dat chest and not looking almost directly at the floor in front of you.

In video "deadlift 2" the 1st lift looks spot on (although ass could be down more and chest up (I think) ) but come the 2nd lift you don't sort your posture out and just kinda yank it up which will be hard to do at heavier weights.

Quite a useful reference I stumbled across: http://www.schwarzenegger.com/fitness/post/deadlift-101

 

[icecold]

Joe,

You RDL pattern is actually pretty poor, so much so that you aren't really even hip hinging. This is due to the way you move around in day to day life. When reaching down to pick something up, you are primarily loading your lower back and not utilising your hips and hamstrings. The same is true of your hip hinge. You're just trying to reach down with a flat back, which is not what a hip hinge is about.

A hip hinge is about hinging at the hip (duh?), while maintaining a fixed relationship between your hips and torso with a braced core and neutral spine, and loading the hamstrings and glutes. Your shoulders should stay roughly over your feet, meaning the most obvious movement should be your hips reaching backwards until you reach your hamstring range. During this movement, your knees should be "soft", meaning that they shouldn't be locked but you shouldn't try to actively bend them. Your knees should not travel forwards at all.

Fix that stuff and you'll be well on your way. This should translate into your deadlift and things should start making more sense.

However, I will repeat a point I made in my previous post. Do NOT try and rush your reps. You goal here is not to move quickly, your goal is move in the right way. If you try to move quickly, you will not be able to control and coordinate the movement.


Andrew,

There are a few problems with that video. I've said it many times in this thread, it is a terrible idea to pick random videos from the internet as an exercise reference.

Edit: I hope you don't take that the wrong way, your points were good! It's just that it's very difficult for people to identify good resources, and there is a lot of bad information out there masquerading in nicely produced videos.

 

[AndrewNR]

Andrew,

Edit: I hope you don't take that the wrong way, your points were good!

Nope, point taken about the videos. Probably best just to point him to the opening page.

 

[BennyC]

What Icecold said,

Before I'd read his post I was going to say that you are bending your knees and then reaching down.

Focus on pushing your hips back. Start standing upright. Do not try to reach down. The only thing you should focus on is sticking your ass out by pushing your hips back, just try and forget about your knees for now as bending them is probably making it more difficult. Curl your toes up if you need to/if it helps so that your weight is on your heels and emphasis is on hamstrings.

I echo Ice's comment to move slowly and think about the muscles you want to be activating on the concentric phase of the lift. Have a little play at particular points in the lift, move back and forward and try to achieve decent activation.

 

[JoeF1]

Joe,

You RDL pattern is actually pretty poor, so much so that you aren't really even hip hinging. This is due to the way you move around in day to day life. When reaching down to pick something up, you are primarily loading your lower back and not utilising your hips and hamstrings. The same is true of your hip hinge. You're just trying to reach down with a flat back, which is not what a hip hinge is about.

A hip hinge is about hinging at the hip (duh?), while maintaining a fixed relationship between your hips and torso with a braced core and neutral spine, and loading the hamstrings and glutes. Your shoulders should stay roughly over your feet, meaning the most obvious movement should be your hips reaching backwards until you reach your hamstring range. During this movement, your knees should be "soft", meaning that they shouldn't be locked but you shouldn't try to actively bend them. Your knees should not travel forwards at all.

Cheers Scott. Yeah i was putting so much focus on trying to keep my ass up and banana back flat i guess the hip hinge has flown straight out of the window. Is the positioning any better in the new videos than before? I do see what you mean rewatching RE the knees moving.

So at the moment i kept ass up and just bent back forwards. Instead i should be dropping the ass back more to get straighten and not just bend?

Fix that stuff and you'll be well on your way. This should translate into your deadlift and things should start making more sense.

However, I will repeat a point I made in my previous post. Do NOT try and rush your reps. You goal here is not to move quickly, your goal is move in the right way. If you try to move quickly, you will not be able to control and coordinate the movement.

I thought i was going slow although some reps i did try to do normal to see if i cracked it. Will do some more recordings tomorrow. Hopefully getting there though.

What Icecold said,

Focus on pushing your hips back. Start standing upright. Do not try to reach down. The only thing you should focus on is sticking your ass out by pushing your hips back, just try and forget about your knees for now as bending them is probably making it more difficult. Curl your toes up if you need to/if it helps so that your weight is on your heels and emphasis is on hamstrings.

Edit: Sorry Ben, your comment didn't post when i first clicked reply <3

Had a little go just now and my hammies pulled near enough straight away with my legs locked straight. Will stretch out and re-watch vids and do a recording with this as well tomorrow.

 

[icecold]

No, do not lock out knees! Benny isn't saying that, just to not deliberately bend them.

 

[JoeF1]

Argh, mis-read. Cheers mate.