Form Check Rack Pull While Rehab Squat injury

[LarryLohkamp]

I am 69 and have been doing SS since last August. I finished last year squeezing what I could out of NLP and was trying to convert to HLM. My body decided to reward me for all my hard work by gifting me a grade 1 tear of the right vastus lateralis. I did the Star protocol and was doing great until I got greedy and re-injured myself. I am starting rehab again. I can only squat very light weights at this point. I can dead lift moderate weights, and I find that I can rack pull pretty heavy. It will be some time before I can squat heavy again and the rack pulls should help keep my loading up. I think the pull is decent, but I'm not at all sure how much knee extension I should be doing. My back feels good, but I'm probably not tight enough.

Video at -https://youtu.be/NgNettGkDHQ

Is there something else I should be doing with, or in place of the conservative squat LP and the additional pulls?

[Steve Hill]

I am 69 and have been doing SS since last August. I finished last year squeezing what I could out of NLP and was trying to convert to HLM. My body decided to reward me for all my hard work by gifting me a grade 1 tear of the right vastus lateralis. I did the Star protocol and was doing great until I got greedy and re-injured myself. I am starting rehab again. I can only squat very light weights at this point. I can dead lift moderate weights, and I find that I can rack pull pretty heavy. It will be some time before I can squat heavy again and the rack pulls should help keep my loading up. I think the pull is decent, but I'm not at all sure how much knee extension I should be doing. My back feels good, but I'm probably not tight enough.

Video at -https://youtu.be/NgNettGkDHQ

Is there something else I should be doing with, or in place of the conservative squat LP and the additional pulls?

First recommendation is to get deeper / longer pins - the hook on the end is defining where you have to set up, and it causes you to pull of your heels on several of these reps. So, move the bar a little closer to the rack, put your feet under the bar, bend over and grip, THEN move your shins to the bar. Make sure your weight in on your mid-foot the entire rep, *including when you set the bar down* - which is when you spend a lot of time on your heels. I'm assuming the pin height is set because you are working your way back down to the floor? Because this is a little low for a rack pull.

[LarryLohkamp]

Set up and pull it just like the dead lift. .. Got it

I will move the pins/hooks up a hole. That is the second time I tried pulling from the hooks. I had intended to pull from the safeties, but the holes in the rear uprights don’t go lower than the knee joint line. I bored the lower 3 holes on the front uprights a few months ago. I should have done the rear then, but hadn’t planned on doing rack pulls. I will take the rack apart Saturday and bore holes in the rear.

I messed with a light pull yesterday to try to work out the drop. It seemed OK, but it crapped out today. Light weight was OK, but once I got over 200#, I started leaning back on my heels again. I have to strap anything over about 220# because of the arthritis in my hands. I pulled 252 for 6 and they came up and went down like I wanted them. My guess is that my lock out and drop were crappy because the bar was slipping out of my hands, taking skin and calluses with it. I will start strapping at 200#. There is no way I will ever be able to grip heavy stuff like the youngsters can, anyway.

Thank you for your time. I feel much better about the pulls.

[Steve Hill]

You have the right idea. Leaning back on the heels is a way to change the back angle, making it more vertical. Remember that we *want* the DL to train the back, so we have to be conscious of trying to avoid doing so. Drop to a weight that you can maintain good form with, and titrate back up slowly, being cognizant of where the weight is on your feet. This will become more critical as you move back down to the floor.