I think the squat looks great
I think the squat looks great
I agree 100% with Force Production about your deadlift. Hips are too high, which is why you find that the bar is swinging out. That's probably also why you're having trouble setting your back.
Squats look real good, depth looked fine to me - just barely past parallel, which is fine because you did it consistently. The positioning of everything looks textbook, but I think you're not using as much hip drive as you need to be? I might be wrong. It just doesn't look like you're specifically driving the hips up. Someone please correct me on this if I'm mistaken.
Please disregard dwayne, people with the name "dwayne" can't possibly know what they're talking about. Only listen to me, because I TYPE LOUDER THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THIS BOARD and therefore I must know what I'm talking about. My view from the internet is better than everyone else's. Okay, confuzzled?
Last edited by nisora33; 12-18-2009 at 02:03 PM. Reason: to be an even bigger dick
Thanks all guys for the very useful advice. So i guess things i need to definitely need to work on is elbow position for the bench and deadlift setup. I'll try and get some new vids up when i try it next time. Once again awesome help
Btw uploaded the 2nd set of squats. They better (more depth) than the 1st?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdMiKUEPKvs
Last edited by confuzzl3don3; 12-18-2009 at 05:42 PM.
Just saw your second set and now I can see your head....
There are two reasons you aren't going up faster out of the hole:
1: You need to take bigger air at the top. I know you think your air is big now but you have to take bigger air and hold it tighter...it will get better with practice.
2: You change your head position from looking down to overextended trying to look up. STOP that now! You are killing your hip drive. Get into the groove now of keeping a steady neck.
If you fix those two things, (and start squatting on a hard floor instead of on carpet), you will be bouncing out of the hole with more power and speed.
Also, look into getting some lifting shoes.
Again stop looking up!!!!!!!!!! (is that loud enough nisora : ) )
I find that looking up a bit as I pass the sticking point helps me keep a proper back angle and seems to help me fire up the quads which take over the lift after the sticking point.
Looking down helps facilitate hip drive. This you need for the bounce and the bottom half of the lift. Looking up seems to facilitate the knee extension needed to complete the lift. When the weight gets really effing heavy, keeping the head down the entire time will invite a loss of back angle, as will not thinking of "driving the traps into the bar."
Of course many powerlifters look UP to varying--and sometimes scary--degrees throughout the entire lift. They still manage to lift a lot of weight with this less than ideal setup. I've seen a couple guys do something like what I do: keep the head neutral and look down at the bottom of the squat or deadlift, but move the gaze up during the top half of the movement.
I know, I know; confuzzle is a novice and should focus on doing things the way prescribed in the book for which this site is named. Just tossing in this bit of nuance because I think it's relevant.
The Lord of Hosts bless you and keep you.
Hey so for next time when taping the bench, what angle should it be? The thing is i don't really have anyone filming me so i got to do it myself, so i can't really have someone hold it for me at any angle. I have to find somewhere to place it down.
I know i'm still a novice, but like Gary said when the weight gets heavy (for me) and it feels like burying me I can't get the weight up either than just thinking "UP!!" and evey part of me including my head shoots up. If i keep my head down, like Gary said, i can't seem to hold my back angle under the weight and i get major back rounding. That's why i'm not sure what to do
If you look down like Rip and everyone here advocates, you'll get ragged on by pretty much everyone else because the mainstream opinion on the matter is "look up."
If you look up, then people here will shake their heads in disbelief and wonder if you've read the damned book.
Damned if you do...and if you don't!
You could experiment and ask questions and occasionally a more experienced lifter will corroborate your conclusions. Then do as you will. Somebody somewhere will still call you a fool. As long as you know why you're doing what you're doing, then you're fine.
Although I can't speak for Rip, I think the reason he advocates looking down is to counteract the already rampant tendency to "leg press" the weight by most. Looking up will kill hip drive, a result of bringing the hamstring origin closer to its insertion point. Obviously, Gary is lifting heavier weights than most noobs, and it's clear from his vids that hip drive is not a problem for him. Looking up works for him by "averaging out" the tendency to shoot the hips at heavier weights.
Cues that are appropriate for a more experienced lifter aren't necessarily appropriate for noobs, and so forth.
Another way to counteract hips shooting, which I haven't thought to bring up yet, doesn't involve looking up at all, but works for exactly the same reasons that looking up does: I've had my trainees try to think of performing a pelvic thrust once the tendency to "shoot" the his presents itself. The hips are driven up and forward at the same time--at least that's what you should be thinking of doing.
This pelvic thrust is different from that little gay and potentially hazardous-to-your-intervertebral-discs hip-tuck guys do at the lockout of their squat. Its just a cue, not a literal thing that you should be doing. But it counteracts, or averages out, the shooting of the hips so that what you actually end up doing is what you were supposed to be doing.
-Stacey