Deadlift Form Check - pre and post set up tweak

[Ryan Simpson]

Thanks Tingl!

I tried to narrow my squat stance (and I'm un-racking backwards now). I can see that particularly on my last rep my knees want to cave in, is this an indication of the stance still being too wide?

Squat: YouTube

As for deadlifts, I did 60kg 3x5 figured this gives me more time with the bar to work this stuff out.

The first set was pretty much as per my usual set up, I stop the 1st rep because I feel myself not push the floor away and I just lift it by opening my hip angle. It still looked pretty much the same as my usual, not much back extension. On the negative portion I made sure to set my lumbar in extension and try to hold that all the way to the bottom. I can see my butt curl underneath me when I'm about 3-4" from the ground.

1st Set - YouTube

The 2nd set I narrow my feet more than I ever have I figured that would help with getting my knees out and open up some more space for my gut. I think on the 4th rep I found that if move my hips around a little it feels like I can get a bit more rotation in my hips and get tighter in my lower back. The tightness I felt and the extra force I was able to put into holding that made me feel like I was nearly passing out as I was setting the bar back down so I reset for the 5th.

2nd Set - YouTube

The 3rd set focused on more the same as the 4th and 5th rep. Felt like I was going to pass out after each rep so it took a while and I reset a few times.

3rd set - YouTube

Despite the fact I'm clearly not used to being that tight, and it being light weight its possibly the best a deadlift has felt for me. But I could be wrong and I recognise I still need more extension. But let me know what you think?

[tinglstrength]

Hey,

Squats:

I would brind in your stance just a little bit more. The video angle makes it hard to see other stuff like depth, hip drive...

Deadlifts:

Still not quite enough, but it could be worse. Think about shouwind your butthole to the ceiling and your chest to the wall infront of you.

Try usind these angles for video: YouTube

[Ryan Simpson]

Copy that.

I think its starting to make sense, kinda feel like I've not had a mental connection to my lower back. Focussing on knees out and opening up the internal hip angle helps get some more hip rotation too.

I guess I'll keep on with this until everything is working. But I'm also thinking of making some blocks so I can still pull something heavy but with the right form. I'll see how I get on.

Cheers.

[Ryan Simpson]

I think things are getting better, I can see a slight curve to my back now. Feels like a big factor right now is getting my gut out of the way. That's getting worked on right now but feels like I'm on the right track.

Deadlifts
1st set YouTube

2nd set YouTube

3rd set YouTube

Squats
1st set YouTube

2nd set YouTube

3rd set https://youtu.be/Dy70HZ7KbBw

I'm not sure if it's the camera angle but looks like I might be an inch or so short on depth. And I noticed I might not quite be central under the bar judging by the silver tape.

[Dave elle]

Hi Ryan,
I am also on the novice phase, just finished week 7, so you can take heed of my comments as you see fit. Have a belt but don’t use for any lifts yet, maybe at 3 plate squat and 4 plate deadlift I will.
I’m 180cm and weight 190lbs
Squat is 250lbsx5x3
Bench is 165lbsx5x3 (got some nerve issue so this has stalled)
Deadlift is 335lbs

First thing I’d say is do a session with a trainer in a local gym, one that actually deadlifts and squats heavy, trainer in my gym is Canadian ranked powerlifter. I did a session when I was starting and again when I got to a 2 plate squat and 3 plate deadlift, its worth 70 bucks a session instead of wrecking your back.

I had similar issues with lower back for deadlift so here some comments:
1. You form looks way better now than your first lifts, back is a lot straighter
2. Try focus on a spot 12-15ft ahead throughout lift (as per RIP)
3. When you are sticking your chest out at the start of the lift, I visualise having an orange in each armpit and trying to squeeze it, this keeps my lats tight throughout the lift. I narrowed my grip slightly to feel this squeeze better.
4. Have somebody poke you in obliques to make sure you are tight before you lift.
5. You put the weight down so lightly (slowly), you are trying to stop the weight plus momentum at the point where you have the maximum lever arm. Now I’m not saying drop the weight but I come down way faster with the weight, you may need to get a rubber mat to do this.
For squats:
1. Maybe it’s the camera angle but your wrists don’t look straight, you should try straighten them plus put your thumbs over the bar per the starting strength book.
2. Again speed may be an issue. Do you feel the stretch reflex to help you pop out of the bottom of the squat, try experiment with the speed at a lighter weight to see what works best for you.
3. Can really see if the backs straight or not.
Again I’m no expert but these are somethings I was doing wrong myself until I had a trainer check my form.

[renzhenghe]

Hi ryan
first I got some questions reading your entire post: 1. how far along have you been running SSLP? you have been uploading DL videos pretty frequently, are you doing them every workout? I dont know if that's a volume you can recover from. ditch a dl session, and come back later, see what happens form wise. 2. you were doing 140kg prior to reset, right? even with bad form, that means you are "strong enough" to do, i'd say, 100kg with reasonable form for reasonable tonnage. so how are you so gased in the video lifting 60kg? maybe you need some general conditoning 1 or 2/week?
Some suggestions for DL: 1. try to widen your stance. it's not optimal as it increases ROM, but it gives room to your gut for your back to get set(contrary to what you thought), so pick your poison.
2. knee out toe out, meaning, femur should be parallel with feet, in you last "set 2" video, you actively try to push knee sideways doing a Dimitri Klokov impersonation, but that would result bow leg, the right way is to open knee and toe up at the same time.
3. get WL shoes. your foot is pushing though those chucks.

[renzhenghe]

Hi ryan
first I got some questions reading your entire post: 1. how far along have you been running SSLP? you have been uploading DL videos pretty frequently, are you doing them every workout? I dont know if that's a volume you can recover from. ditch a dl session, and come back later, see what happens form wise. 2. you were doing 140kg prior to reset, right? even with bad form, that means you are "strong enough" to do, i'd say, 100kg with reasonable form for reasonable tonnage. so how are you so gased in the video lifting 60kg? maybe you need some general conditoning 1 or 2/week?
Some suggestions for DL: 1. try to widen your stance. it's not optimal as it increases ROM, but it gives room to your gut for your back to get set(contrary to what you thought), so pick your poison.
2. knee out toe out, meaning, femur should be parallel with feet, in you last "set 2" video, you actively try to push knee sideways doing a Dimitri Klokov impersonation, but that would result bow leg, the right way is to open knee and toe up at the same time.
3. get WL shoes. your foot is pushing though those chucks.

[Ryan Simpson]

Hi Dave, thanks for your pointers. I like the orange in the arm pit cue, I'll be trying that one. Yeah putting the bar down lightly is a problem, I start working out at 4:30am in my garage under my apartment block so I'm pretty conscious of noise, the plan is to get some rubber mats but waiting for £££.

And the squats, yeah I decided to go thumb under after getting quite a bit of elbow pain. But I probably should make more of an effort to keep my wrists straighter. I definitely do feel the stretch reflex but for what ever reason there were one or two of those reps that I accidently did a sort of pause squat. In the past I got into a bad habit of just dropping down so this is probably an over correction on my part.

I'm looking into getting a session with a SS coach but again its just a question of money, but I can see the benefit of getting one in.

........

Hi renzhenghe. So I'd need to check but I think this is my 5th week now, I've ran it a few times in the past never making it to post-novice but seems to have retained some of the strength each time. Right at the point of reset I said I would drop a DL session but having reset now and working on form I figures time with the bar in my hand would be important.

Why am I so gassed? I dunno but it feels like its when I'm putting the weight down. Like I said above I'm being careful with noise because its early and that slow decent feels like it builds significant internal pressure and that's what fucks me. But in saying that you aren't wrong some conditioning would help me probably.

I might experiment a bit with stance width but I was feeling like now I've narrowed I can actually get my knees out more yeah I dunno if this is taking it too far. I definitely am aiming to get the femur parallel and the pushing the knees out lets my gut drop. I do bring my knees back inside my arms and there they are inline with my toes.

100% going to get some.

[Ryan Simpson]

No more multiple vids just the last set of deadlifts from this morning.

YouTube

Upped the weight on the last 2 sets things didn't change much. Maybe my hips are getting up a little before my chest? But I'm not 100% on that. Setting the weight down lightly is visibly sapping energy from me.

Lifting shoes and horse stall mats!!

[renzhenghe]

Ryan
I see quite some improvement!
1) the chest up HIP UP cue, other way to think about it is, rotate your pelvis clockwise on your video. I dunno, some relates to hip more, some relates to pelvis more, I do pelvis more because I can touch those bones.
2) in order to do that you probably need to get a wider stance to give room. like you said, experiment and fuck around a bit.
3) you can probably be more aggresive about your reload period. when you pull the slack out of the bar, the bar actually leave the ground. that should be proof that you are too strong for this weight. perfecting technique at this weight won't likely do you much good: heavy weight hits again, form breaks again. I'd take 10-15kg jump until you hit 115-120. adjust the jump according to your age, real life stress, etc, but be more aggressive than you think. and next time you reset, 10%should be good enough.
4) you should change deadlift to powerclean when DL 3/week is too taxing/ stressful to recover from. In general, that's about 2 weeks. 5 is certainly too long for a person past his physical prime( sorry for being blunt). use this period to learn the powerclean technique and do some sets with bar. it will come in handy when you finish DL reload.
5) didin't know it's 4:30 a.m. So i asumme it's first thing in the moring? Do you feel black out, ear ringing, seeing star, all the fun stuff? if so, change your breakfast to high carb, and fast carb, things like sugar. it's not that healthy per se, so don't overeat. it may be related to your blood sugar being too low during training. I had blackout in DL before(no breakfast lol), and it didn't have much to do with slow descent, at least for me. also, after I set it down, I would grab the bar, squat down behind the bar to let it pass away, reason being if I stand up to reset the blackout gets worse. So, how do I reset midfoot? use a shoelace hole on your chuck or the strap on your eventual wl shoes as benchmark for midfoot and you know the rest.
I admire the 4:30 workethic. keep on lifting!