Form check - passing old 5RMs

[Adam Wood]

Hi Rip,

I know how much you love watching squat videos, but this one has some variety - one set of each exercise from Onus Wunsler:

[youtube]QPSpB_DYQoM[/youtube]

I was at your Milwaukee cert last October and learned a ton, so I'll take a stab at coaching myself:

Squat - look down more, knees should come forward a bit more, slight butt wink. I've been doing the back drills from pages 34-37 of BBT to address this.

Press - First time not using stretch reflex (too heavy to go that fast), slight thoracic-lumbar hinge?

Bench - chest could be a bit bigger, but otherwise looks ok

Deadlift - scapulas too far forward on reps 1 and 3, didn't squeeze the back flat enough on rep 5.

Power clean - jumping backwards (how do I fix this?), not recovering fully at the top

Good mornings - subbing these for BE/GHR, looks fine to me but the movement is new so I'm probably missing something

Chins/Pull-ups - go down a pube deeper at the bottom

31, 6', doing GOMAD, weight 189 -> 216
Squat: 135 -> 230, 5lb jumps
Press: 85 -> 120, 5lb jumps
Bench: 135 -> 170, 5lb jumps
Deadlift: 185 -> 245, 20lb jumps for one or two more workouts, then 10lb
Power Clean: 115 -> 135, 5lb jumps
Chins/Pull-ups: bodyweight until 15 reps on first set

I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks!

[Mark Rippetoe]

Your squats are in dire need of a tune-up. Keep your chest up, dammit. You can't sacrifice your back angle for hip drive, because when you do this it throws the bar forward of mid-foot and levers against your hips. KEEP CHEST UP.

Both deadlifts and cleans are being done without step 4: squeeze your chest up, so that your back angle puts the scapulas over the bar. You are too horizontal/too far out over the bar on both pulls. The jumping back on the clean is fine, actually.

The chins are fine. The goodmornings are fine. Presses are fine, benches are fine.

[dirkh]

Rip,
I?ve got a question regarding chin-ups. In the above video, I noticed the tendency to raise the legs up towards the belly when the chins get heavy.
As I tend to do the same thing, I wonder what is accomplished by that? Does this somehow make the reps easier? Should this be avoided?

[Mark Rippetoe]

People do this to generate a little upward momentum with their legs. At the deliberate extreme it is a kipping pullup. This time it's just a tightening of the abs, an involuntary cheat of little consequence.