Reply With QuoteCould beOriginally Posted by ColoWayno
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Elbows Up Cue
Isn't it kind of like the "crank the neck up" cue for keeping your upper back from rounding for Squats.
Are elbows up necessary for keeping your back and shoulders up and tight for squatting?
I've used the idea to get rid of some squat elbow before, of course I could've been doing something else wrong.
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Could be
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Well, Rip pretty clearly and logically discounts " head up " as a cue, though it is pretty common among gym bro's. It seems to me that the elbows up cue is not good either.
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"Elbows up" isn't about thoracic extension...it's intended to create a very firm shelf of "deltoid meat" on which the bar can rest.
There are plenty of great squatters who use elbows down....but those folks are knowingly supporting the bar with their wrists/arms & are taking appropriate precautions in the way of wrapped wrists.
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Shelf = good. But it seems to me the elbows have as much to do with making the shelf tight as cranking the head up does with maintaining thoracic extension. At least I think I can do just as well without "leading" with the elbows.
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"Elbows up" = shoulder extension. The rear delts extend the shoulder. A fully contracted rear delt yields a nice stable shelf.
There are no anatomical parallels to neck & thoracic spine extension.
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What John said. If you bring the elbows forwards the rear delts must relax, and then you've got no groove for the bar to rest in.
As far as thoracic extension goes, if you keep your chest up, how is your upper back going to round?
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Ok, I did some looking in the mirror (damn I look good!). I see the shelf that gets created and that the elbows necessarily move up when you make it. The "elbows up" cue obviously gets the back into the right position but I'm wondering if it also creates stress in the arms that leads to the ubiquitous squatters elbow. I'm starting to get a case of it now, and last time I the fix was to not crank the elbows up as a end in itself, but to focus more on what the actual muscles that create the shelf are doing... Because the elbows don't really do anything except move up. So, in that way, I think the analogy to the "look up" cue still holds. Chest up gets the right muscles, and only the right muscles to actuate. "Look up" might keep the back from rounding for some people but it also creates unnecessary stress in unnecessary places.
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Use whatever self-cue gets your rear delts maximally contracted. No need to overthink it.
If squatters elbow is ubiquitous, it's because a shitload of people are messing up the basics of grip, bar positioning, & bar stability. The elbow pain just doesn't happen if mechanics are sound. I'm comfortable saying that having seen many, many thousands of squats.
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I have a long standing case of elbow tendinitis. After finally figuring out how to rack the bar well, it's going away and squats don't irritate my elbows any more. Weird that.
The way a lot of powerlifters rack the bar puts a lot of pressure on the arm and elbows and the way Rip teaches is a more technical way of doing it that is easy to fuck up. I am not surprised that elbow pain is common.
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