If You Physically Can't Squat...

...then your mobility probably sucks. What this means is, your body is not flexible enough to perform the squat correctly, so you physically cannot perform the squat with proper form. The reason for this is most likely due to your lifestyle, if you spend a majority of your time sitting down for instance.

For the low bar squat, the three most common areas (from what I have seen) where people have mobility issues are in:

• the hips
• the shoulders
• the ankles

If you are teaching someone to squat correctly, the first thing you should do is use coaching cues to try to get the lifter to use proper form; e.g. "knees out", "chest up", etc. If this does not work, the following sections may be of use.

Mobility issues don't only apply to new lifters. For instance in my case, my knees only buckled in during heavier weights, so I didn't know for a long time that I needed to work on my hip mobility.

Hip Mobility

A person with tight hips will have trouble keeping their knees shoved out on the squat (demonstrated on the left in the figure below):

An example of knees buckled inwards vs. knees shoved out on the squat

 Having the knees shoved out in the squat (shown right in the above image) is important because:

1. It pushes your legs out of the way and gives space for your body, making it easier to hit depth.
2. It ensures optimal distribution of forces through your knee. If your knees are inside of your feet instead of pointed directly over your feet, there is more torque on the knee.
3. It's prettier to look at

Seriously though, squatting with the knees shoved out is important in keeping the movement as safe as possible. So what if you absolutely cannot shove the knees out?

There is a great drill you can perform daily in order to improve your hip mobility shown below:

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/01/episode-363-pre-squat-hip-opener-mob-rx.html

The above drill should be performed after all your training sessions, as well as every night before you go to bed. You will notice an improvement in your hips (and subsequently your squatting) after about two weeks or so.

The below stretch is also worth doing before you start doing squats in your training session. Hold the stretch for about 30 seconds, and take the same foot stance that you squat with. Also keep your chest up.

 

Squat stretch

Shoulder Mobility

Basically, your shoulder mobility needs improving  if you are unable to put the bar in this low bar position:

The low bar position

The low bar position will initially feel quite uncomfortable. Your wrists may also not be as straight as in the above figure (that is, they will be very bent). Your body will get used to this position over time, you may also want to try shoulder dislocations to help open up the shoulders. 

Also when getting into the low bar position, you may need to jam your body into place, and it may take a few pushes with your body until you can get the bar low enough. You can see me doing this here.

Ankle Mobility

Poor ankle mobility can be in different forms. One case is shown in the left in the below figure, where you can see the feet caving inwards in the bottom of the squat position:

  A comparison of poor vs. adequate ankle mobility. Yes I edited this in Paint.

 

The second case is harder to identify, and is basically when your ankles are so stiff, you literally cannot hit depth without rounding your lower back. This is sort of shown on the right in the figure below:

Just imagine that the lower the man squats, the more his lower back rounds, because his stiff ankles do not permit his knees to track forward (the ability for his knees to track forward is shown on the left figure).

In order to identify this ankle issue, stand with the balls of your feet on the edge of a box, and basically perform the negative portion of a standing calf raise. In other words, you want to place your ankles into dorsiflexion. If you cannot get much dorsiflexion in your ankles, you will need to stretch them out. 

A good ankle stretch you can do will involve you getting into this position, and try to get your knee as close to the wall as possible (don't go too overboard with this). You can do this stretch for both ankles in between all your squat sets. You may also wish to try out this ankle stretch too.

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Hopefully you squatters out there will find this post useful. Individuals will have varying levels of mobility in their hips, shoulders and ankles based on their lifestyle and how long they have been living this way. If your mobility is absolutely shocking, you may need to do further research into how to further improve on your mobility outside of the drills that are shown in this post, and it may take longer to be able to squat properly. Don't give up however, it'll be worth it in the end.

GPC Push Pull Meet

I recently competed at the GPC Push Pull Meet on the 18th of November. It was a great experience and I got to see a lot of big lifts. I came fifth overall.

My attempts:

• Bench 1st attempt: 107.5kg
• Bench 2nd attempt: 115kg
• Deadlift 1st attempt: 220kg
• Deadlift 2nd attempt: 242.5kg
• Deadlift 3rd attempt: 250kg (failed)

Here's the video of my attempts:



Meet Prep:

Even though the squat wasn't a contested lift in this meet, I still trained it, wouldn't want it to fall behind :P

So I planned ahead what numbers I wanted to hit. Everything pretty much went according to plan, I ended up squatting 185kg x 4, deadlifting 225 for 3,2. I was doing Texas Method for the bench press but it stalled earlier than I expected so I did Smolov jr just to make a bit more progress. I'll be continuing with the Texas Method for the bench in the future but adding more sets on intensity day to get in more volume because I feel that's what was lacking the first time.

In Week 8 I hit what I expected to get for my 2nd attempts. For the squat I did 205kg, and for the deadlift I did 240kg. I decided to do doubles for the bench that week and did 110kg x 2. You can see the video here.

At this stage I don't feel like it was worth it doing the '2nd attempts' in training, because the fatigue built up over the weeks made these attempts feel pretty tough. I didn't end up deadlifting much more than 240kg in competition anyway.

Week 10 (the week of the meet) was a deload week, so I was just lifting light weights to reinforce technique.

Weigh-In:

For this meet there was a 24 hour weigh-in. I wanted to lift in the 82.5kg weight class but weighed about 84kg. It wasn't hard to make weight because during my deload week I lost 1kg of water weight because I wasn't drinking as much water (because I wasn't lifting heavy). So all I had to do was not eat as much on Friday night and I weighted 82.3kg on Saturday morning. After weigh-in I drank and ate a lot and was 85.5kg that night.

Thoughts about the day:

Based on how I went, I think I overestimated what I could do. I was hoping for a 120kg bench and at least a 250kg deadlift. I based these numbers off what I hit for triples in training. At least now I have a better idea of what maxes I can hit, based on what I can lift for reps in training. My paused bench and deadlift improved by 7.5kg since the last meet, so I'm happy that I got stronger.

There was a lot of big lifting at the competition which was amazing to watch, 200+kg benches, 300+kg deadlifts. Check out PTC Sydney's YouTube channel over the next few days to see videos of these lifts.

Intermediate Programming: The Texas Method

Linear progression does not work forever. Eventually the stress induced on your body will take longer than 48 hours (the time until the next training session if you're training on Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to fully recover from, and as a result your next training session will be affected negatively. For example if you squat 140kg for 3x5 on Monday, you might only get 142.5kg for 4,3,2 or something like that on Wednesday. If you're not fully recovered, you'll feel it.

Stress on your body when you're on linear progression

If linear progression is right for you (and it will be for anyone who is new to lifting), the stress induced on their body will behave like the above diagram. Your body gets stressed by the first training session on Monday, but then the body is able to recover from it before Wednesday's training session, and so on. During this period you'll make the quickest gains you'll ever make.

  Stress on your body when linear progression is no longer suitable

As you can see from the diagram above, as I described previously eventually you'll reach a stage where the stress induced on your body will take longer than 48 hours to recover from and will affect your next session. This isn't invitation to be a pussy at the first sign of missing a rep though. If you get 3x5 on Monday but 5,5,4 on Wednesday, repeat the Wednesday weight for the next session.

A good rule of thumb of knowing when your linear progression days are over (PROVIDED YOU HAVE GOOD TECHNIQUE) is when you stall at a certain weight, then you deload but once you work your way back up you stall again at pretty much the same time, or a little bit higher. This means the time you put in to get little to no improvement is no longer worth it and you need to change how your program things.

If you started out on 5x5  and are experiencing the above, drop down to 3x5. You'll be able to continue making progress.

Introduction to Intermediate Training:

Intermediate model

In the above figure, you can see the model for intermediate programming. This is also known as the "Texas Method", because it was developed in Texas I guess. Basically you have a Medium day on Monday, a Light day on Wednesday, and a Heavy day on Friday. In terms of rep schemes it goes like this:

Monday

5x5 (~80-85% of Friday's weight)

Wednesday

3x3-5 (at a weight ~80-85% of Monday's weight)

Friday

1x5

This is the concept, remember how I said once you're at the end of your linear progression days, the stress induced from your first training session in the week will take longer than 48 hours to recover from? In intermediate programming, we take advantage of that. You will do a moderately heavy weight for 5x5 on Monday, then on Wednesday you will lift a light weight for low reps just to flush blood through the muscles (and whatever other justification there is for having a Light day, e.g gives you a mental break etc.), then on Friday you will lift a heavy weight for 1x5. 

Friday is the most important day, this is the day where you handle real weights. But it is important to get the volume on Monday's session in other to set yourself up to being able to lift heavy weights on Friday. Monday will be referred to as your "Volume day" and Friday will be referred to as your "Intensity day". You'll understand why when you look at the figure below:

Relationship between volume and intensity during a week of the Texas Method

So the week starts out with high volume moderate intensity, then you have the light day in the middle of the week, then the week ends with high intensity low volume (since you only do one heavy set).

The Texas Method Template

Here is what the program looks like:

Monday

Squat 5x5

Bench 5x5 (alternate with Press 5x5 in the next week)

Row 5x5

Curls

Wednesday

Squat 3x3

Press 3x5 (alternate with Bench Press 3x5 in the next week)

Power Cleans

Weighted chin-ups

Friday

Squat 1x5

Bench 1x5 (alternate with Press 1x5 in the next week)

Deadlift 1x5

Dips

Ab work should be done everyday too, just one exercise for 3 sets should be fine.

NOTE: Since the bench press and press alternate from week to week, the percentages for the light pressing days are determined from the volume day weight from the previous week. E.g in the above case, the weight to be used on the Press on Wednesday for 3x5 is 80-85% of what was done for 5x5 last Monday.

Getting Started on Texas Method

When you first start on the Texas Method, start light. Give your body time to adapt to this way of training. Whatever weights you finished with on linear progression, take around 80% of those weights and use them as your starting weights.

Your first week should feel easy. Let's say you stalled on 140kg for 3x5 on squats on linear progression. When you start on Texas Method, do 110kg 5x5 and 130kg 1x5 in your first week, 115kg 5x5 and 135kg 1x5 in your second week, 120kg 5x5 and 140kg 1x5 in your third week, 125kg 5x5 and 145kg 1x5 in your fourth week. The weights probably won't feel easy at this stage, so from here on take smaller jumps. Increase Friday's weight by 2.5kg.

Don't obsess over how much you do on Monday. It is just a volume day. After your fourth week on Texas Method, you can stick to the same weight on Mondays for 2-3 weeks. If you increase the 5x5 weight every week eventually you'll burn out too soon for this routine. At the moment I'm doing 145kg on Monday, and in the 180's for 1x5 on Friday (this may vary depending on individuals, but if you're doing 150 for 5x5 on Monday and 160kg 1x5 on Friday, the weights are too close).

I've been running Texas Method for squats for almost a year, and I can imagine doing it for much longer still.

Things You Should Know

• The weight you handle on Volume day doesn't matter to the point where you care about setting PR's on Monday
• Don't skip Volume day ever, without it you cannot perform well on Intensity day
• You can microload on the bench press and press if you wish
• If you stall, deload by 10% and take 3-4 weeks to work your way back up
• If you don't like benching and pressing heavy every second week, you can switch into a Texas Method split:

Monday
Bench 5x5
Press 3x5
Row 5x5

Tuesday
Squat 5x5
Power cleans

Thursday
Bench 1x5
Press 1x5

Friday
Squat 1x5
Dips
Deadlift 1x5

I haven't really listed assistance lifts in the above template. Note that you'll be focusing on one pressing movement over the other since one of them has to be done first. The light day has been omitted, but you can still do it on Wednesday if you wish (I do this).


Hopefully this post will be useful to fellow lifters out there!

Training 12/10/12

Haven't updated in a while, I'm currently training for a meet in November. Training is going well so far, yesterday I squatted 182.5kg x 5, and deadlifted 220kg 2x3. I'm doing Smolov jr for the bench press at the moment. It's a 3-week routine that involves benching 4 times a week It's a great program to use if your bench press has been stuck, however it is not to be taken lightly, if you have any shoulder or elbow problems this routine may aggravate them.

Training 13/9/12 and 14/9/12

Bench 106kg x 3
Squat 172.5kg x 5
Deadlift 210kg 2 x 4
Deadlift 140kg x 21

Not too happy with the bench PR, feels like I bounced it too much. Need to make sure I control the bar more next time.

Very happy with the deadlifts, recently threw in speed deadlifts on Tuesday (100kg for 10 singles, 30 seconds rest) to train my explosiveness, and it has helped my speed off the floor for heavy weights.

Training Update

Just thought I'd share how my training is going at the moment since it's been a while, this was done today (105kg x 3 bench, 70kg x 3 press):




My current routine is different to what I posted a while back, it is now like this:

Monday
CG Bench Paused5x5
Press 3x5

Row 5x5
Curls 5 x 5
DB Press 3 x 10
Lat Raises 3 x 10
Grip training

Tuesday
Squat 5x5
Power Cleans
Abs

Wednesday
Light High Bar Squat 3x3
Weighted Pull-ups
Abs

Thursday
Bench 1 x 3
Press 1 x 3
Reverse Flies 5 x 12
DB Bench 3 x 10 elbows tucked (recently started doing weighted dips too so might alternate between these two or something)
Lying Tricep Extension ss. Curls 5 x 12

Friday
Squat 1 x 3-5
Klokov Press
Deadlift

Abs
GHRs
Grip training
Conditioning

The problem with the old routine was that I was only benching and pressing once a week which was not enough. The program is pretty shit now that I think about it haha

I've instead adopted Texas Method style programming where you have a volume day and an intensity day, which seems to be working well. I have seriously upped the upper body volume (compared to what I was doing before anyway) because I feel like it needs to take a beating to grow. For the higher rep stuff I do, I'm not too concerned about how much weight I'm handling, its just to get in more volume. Getting stronger on the big lifts are still the meat and potatoes of my program.

Ever since that meet I competed in at the end of June, my squat wasn't really improving because I tried to get back into it too aggressively. I should've instead started out light and worked my way back up. Now I'm a month behind where I would like to be, oh well lesson learned. I also got rid of power cleans which was a mistake, because I think the extra pulling volume helped both my squat and deadlift. I've recently started doing Glute Ham Raises (you can use a leg curl machine if you don't have access to a GHR) for more hamstring work too.

The bench has been going up which I believe is due to the higher upper body volume, as well as eating more. My bodyweight is around 82-84kg at the moment (would like to get to 90kg for now).

Deadlifts are going alright, just need to figure out how to taper it for the next upcoming meet (sometime in November).

I also did a run of Smolov Jr for the bench press, which increased my 1RM by an easy 5kg. I programmed the numbers quite conservatively since it was my first time doing it and it paid off. Will plan to do Smolov Jr. again soon, I don't want to abuse it too much because it involves benching four times a week. Might do an article on how I improved my bench once it is less embarrassing.

Testing a conservative 1RM after doing Smolov Jr:

Also in regards to that overhead press article I wrote not too long ago, I found it easier to have the bar touching my chest it turns out, so you should try both ways to see how you prefer it.

Modifying Your Routine When on Linear Progression

Note: If you're just starting out on linear progression, stick to the program as written. Your first priority is nailing the technique on the main lifts. Now is the time to get it right, it will cost you later down the track if you don't put in the effort now. This definitely set my bench and overhead press back and now they're playing catch up. Don't be lazy.

Plateauing Lifts:

The first lifts to plateau will be the squat and deadlift. What I mean by plateau is that they will no longer progress from this style of programming. This is because you are handling a heavy enough load that the body now needs more time to recover from it. Plateauing is different to stalling; stalling is where you stop making progress but when you deload and work your way back up you can continue to make more progress.

The bench press and press will see more stalling compared to the squat and deadlift, but won't plateau as early.

There are people who have started on 5x5, and people who have started on Starting Strength so I will consider both cases in terms of how to modify your routine.

If You Started Out With 5x5:

Once you stall on a lift that you are doing 5x5 with (squat, bench, press, row), you should switch to 3x5. This will reduce the volume, and still allow you to continue to make linear progress. You will switch to 3x5 on the lifts at different times, because they will plateau at different times. Just because things stop working for one lift doesn't mean you need to change things for the other lifts if they were still progressing.


In essence you'll end up doing Stronglifts 3x5. The following sections will then also apply to you.

When the Deadlift Plateaus:

Eventually deadlifting heavy twice a week will be too much for the trainee (make sure the deadlift has plateaued first, if you are unsure, deload and try again and see if there is much of an improvement). What they can do instead is reduce deadlift frequency to once a week. The routine might look like this:

Monday
Squat 3-5x5
Bench 3-5x5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row 3-5x5

Wednesday
Squat 3-5x5
Overhead Press 3-5x5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3-5x5
Bench 3-5x5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Note: I have written 3-5x5 because the deadlift may plateau before you need to switch from 5x5 to 3x5 on the other lifts.

Now deadlifting will occur every Friday. The reason I prefer to leave deadlifts on Fridays is so that you can still squat on Friday will 100% effort. I found I could get away with deadlifting on Wednesdays for a while, but eventually I had to move the deadlifts to Friday because my lower back would not recover in time for Friday's squatting.

When the Squat Plateaus:

Eventually squatting 3x5 will be too much for your body, because you are handling a heavy enough load that it takes longer than 48 hours for your body to fully recover from. What you can do in this case is change Wednesday's squat session into a light day. What you can do is instead substitute Wednesday's squat for front squats, with a load that is lighter, say 75-80% of the load you handled on Monday, for 3x3.

At this stage, you should be familiar enough with the back squat, that you can try to learn the front squat without it affecting your ability to back squat (i.e you can UNDERSTAND the difference between the 2 squat styles). If not, you're fucking up. Put in more effort to understand how the different squat styles work.

 Put more effort into your squatting

This light squat day serves to give you more time to recover from Monday's squat session, and also pumps blood through the muscles involved in the squat to help reduce DOMS which was incurred from Monday's squats. On many occasions my legs felt less sore after I did light squats on Wednesday.

The routine will look something like this:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Eventually this way of squatting will stop working too and you'll need to switch to another way of programming, known as intermediate programming (or weekly programming). I'll save this for another post.

When the Bench Press and Overhead Press Plateau:

Once you have exhausted your linear gains on the bench press and overhead press, I would consider that to be the end of your time on linar progression and it would be time to move on to a different style of programming (since you have already plateaued on linear progression for the squat and deadlift already).

Remember, to get the most out of your linear progress for the bench press and overhead press, you should use fractional plates (they weigh 0.5kg). They will allow you to take smaller weight increases than 2.5kg and will reduce the likelihood of stalling.

You may also wish to switch to 5 sets of 3 reps for the overhead press which worked pretty well for me. Don't be lazy with the overhead press, train it hard and you'll have healthy shoulders.

Power Cleans:



Power cleans are great. They are highly technical and force you to perform a forceful hip extension at just the right time and position in order to get the bar onto your shoulders. If I get better at them I'll do a post on this exercise :P There are plenty of useful resources on the internet though, Don McCauley and Glenn Pendlay are Olympic coaches who would have some good articles on the interwebs.

If you want to do power cleans, there's a few ways you can implement them into your routine:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Power Cleans 5 x 3
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Note that power cleans are performed much differently to deadlifts, in that they are eased off the floor in a controlled manner, and using the lats you sweep the bar inwards to keep the bar close to your body, then you accelerate as the bar passes your knees. This is much different to a deadlift where you drive your legs hard into the floor at the start to break the bar off the floor.

Assistance Exercises:

One final thing before I forget; assistance exercises. This includes pull-ups, dips, ab work and curls.

You can implement them into your routine like so:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row
Curls
Ab Work

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5 (will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups
Ab Work

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5
Dips
Ab Work

You might want to superset the ab work and assistance exercises to save time.

Stronglifts 5x5 vs. Starting Strength?

Stronglifts 5x5 and Starting Strength are both beginner programs which run on linear progression. The lifts involved are almost the same (squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press). Which program should you do?

This is how Stronglifts 5x5 is set out:

Workout A

Squat 5x5

Bench 5x5

Row 5x5

Workout B

Squat 5x5

Overhead Press 5x5

Deadlift 1 x 5

This is how Starting Strength is set out:

Workout A

Squat 3 x 5

Bench 3 x 5

Deadlift 1 x 5

Workout B

Squat 3 x 5

Overhead Press 3 x 5

Power Cleans 5 x 3

You'll notice that Stronglifts has higher volume since it has 5 sets whereas Starting Strength advocates 3 sets. Once you get to fairly heavy weights (for a novice), squatting for 5x5 3 days a week will become excessive. This will probably occur around the 1.3-1.5xBW Squat mark (this will vary between individuals). At a heavy enough load, the stress from 5x5 will eventually take longer than 48 hours for an individual to recover from, and this will negatively impact the next workout. This doesn't mean than 5x5 is the devil and that you should have nothing to do with it. In intermediate programming, we take advantage of the fact that the stress from 5x5 takes longer to recover from (will touch on this in another post).

So the volume in Starting Strength is better for long term progress. You will be able to continue with linear progression for longer. Also because of the lower volume, you'll be able to handle heavier weights.

Does that mean you shouldn't do Stronglifts 5x5?

If you're starting out training for the first time, I think SL5x5 is ok as the extra sets will give you more technique practise. You'll get the benefit of being accustomed to higher volume if you end up switching down to 3 sets of 5. Its up to you in the end, but if you want to continue making progress through linear progression then you need to switch to 3x5 at some stage. You can even start out with SL"3x5" if you wish. I wouldn't suggest doing less than 3x5 though. The volume in 3x5 is just right, because the lifts are still performed on a regular basis.

Stronglifts 5x5 has Rows whereas Starting Strengths has power cleans though?

If you are benching, then you have to row. Otherwise you will end up with an imbalance in your shoulders which will invite injury later down the track.
.
So if you decide to start out with Starting Strength, I would suggest you do rows instead of power cleans. Power cleans are quite a technical lift, and the mechanics involved are quite different to the deadlift, different enough that you shouldn't try to learn both exercises at the same time. Wait until you are confident with deadlifts first.


On an unrelated note, Starting Strength was created by Mark Rippetoe, a strength coach who runs a training facility in Texas. Stronglifts 5x5 on the other hand was created by Mehdi, a guy from Belgium who runs a website. Rippetoe has been around for much longer, which would probably give the impression that the Stronglifts program is a rip-off of Starting Strength. Personally I don't believe Rippetoe himself invented the squat-press-pull template for workouts. It's hard to say who did, but Bill Starr (who actually mentored Rippetoe) had been teaching this method of training since the 1960's (long before Rippetoe was coaching).

Bill Starr, known as the father of strength training

Getting The Most Out Of A Beginner Routine eg. Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5

Its very easy as a beginner to cut your progress short on linear progression routines like Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5, and this could be for a variety of reasons.

1. Not sticking to the program
2. Bad technique on the lifts
3. Not ensuring optimal recovery through eating and sleeping

I'm sure there are other reasons but I can't be bothered thinking of more.

I will address these reasons, to show you how you can ensure you're getting the most out of these type of routines.

Not Sticking To The Routine

Countless times I've seen people not doing the routine consistently. I'll recommend a program for a beginner who's asked me for advice, and they'll make some good gains from it, then several weeks later I'll find out they're doing some stupid routine again, or that they're just mucking around in the gym. They didn't stick to the original plan. This could be for several reasons such as:

• Studies/work becoming more demanding
• Injury from playing a sport
• Loss of motivation

Think about it like this, there are 168 hours in a week. If you're training 3x/week and each session lasts about 1.5 hours, that's 4.5 hours per week. 4.5 divided by 168 is around 2.7%. You can't dedicate 2.7% of your week to improving yourself? If the answer is no, then seriously just quit, because you don't have what it takes to achieve. The people who get good results from training are the ones who are willing to put in the time.

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Here's a suggestion for how you could modify your routine if things like work/study become more time consuming:

Session A
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 10

Session B
Deadlift 1 x 5
Row 5 x 5
Curls 3 x 12

Session C
Squat 5 x 5
Overhead Press 5 x 5
DB Bench Press 3 x 10

It's not optimal for a beginner because the frequency with which you perform the main lifts is slightly reduced so progress will be slower, but now there are 2 main lifts per session instead of 3, so it cuts down on the duration of the workout. This is just temporary, and once your time frees up again you should go back to the original layout (whether its SL5x5 or SS).

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If you are injured from a sport, first step is pinpointing what the injury is. Common injuries are occur in the joints such as the shoulder, hip, elbow and and knee. You can also tear muscles but they should recover quicker than tendon/ligament injuries.

When you get injured, this doesn't necessarily mean you should stop training (unless the injury is really serious like a spinal injury). You just need to figure out what you can continue to train.

If you have a knee injury, you should avoid movements which involve knee flexion/extension such as the squat, but you can still try stiff-legged deadlifts. Again this depends on the injury, but the point is finding what DOESN'T hurt, and training that for the time being. You should still be able to train your upper body as normal (maybe not the bench press because you need to bend your knees when lying on the bench, again find out for yourself).

I'm not an expert in this area, but the idea is to do your research. Find out how you can help your injury, and how to prevent it from occurring again if possible. When your injured, don't just do nothing and suffer in silence, think about recovery, think about continuing to move forward.

----

Loss of motivation can occur for a few reasons. Maybe you're getting bored of the routine, or you aren't seeing the results you wanted. If its the latter case, I'll address this in the final section of this post.

In terms of boredom, tough titties mate. The muscle confusion thing is bullshit, switching it up every week or whatever is stupid. Consistency is the key, this is how you will know you are improving. If you're squatting one day, then doing leg press the next, then lunges the next session, how do you know you're getting better?

High frequency of the main compound lifts will also give you more chance to drill in the correct technique. Correct technique on the main lifts is extremely important, especially once you start handling heavy weights.

Bad Technique on the Lifts

Read these posts, and practice, practice, practice:

http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-compound-lifts.html
http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-lifts-part-ii.html

Not Ensuring Optimal Recovery Through Eating and Sleeping

Have you heard the saying "you grow outside the gym"? Well it's true. This is how things work; training acts as a stimulus for your body, a form of stress. When you stress your body, you need to be able to recover from this stress in order to come back stronger than last time. And the way to actually recover from this stress is through eating and sleeping.

This is a reason why people may not be getting the results they wanted. They're not getting bigger and stronger. Guess what? You're not eating enough.

A car with a bigger engine needs to consume more fuel than a small car. Same thing applies to people. If you have more muscle, your body NEEDS more calorie intake. Your body also will not grow if it's not getting enough food to grow. You can't create something out of nothing. All the times I've made the best progress on my bench, I was gaining weight. This wasn't necessarily the case for my squat and deadlift but that's because I'm better at those lifts. This will be different for everyone.

So start paying attention to WHAT you eat, and HOW MUCH of it you're eating. That way if you're not gaining weight, you'll know that you need to increase your food portions. If you can't do this, then quit. You don't have what it takes.

Gaining weight as a beginner is also important, because you increase your strength ceiling. If you weigh 10kg heavier than how much you weigh now, you'll be able to lift more weights (provided you are training whilst you are gaining weight too).

Think about it like this, get stronger so you can get bigger, and get bigger so you can get stronger. Lifting heavy weights will increase your muscle size, and eating more will allow you to continue to grow, so you can continue to get stronger.

As a beginner, keep it simple! Focus on getting stronger, and make sure you're gaining weight! Don't go over the top with eating though, because you don't want to get too fat either. It might take some time to find where this fine line (of how much food is enough for you to continue to grow) lies, but once you do, you'll have a good understanding of your body.

A good way to stay motivated is to set a goal for yourself. How big and strong you want to be. Never lose sight of this goal, and you shouldn't have a problem staying motivated.

*****************

When you do everything right, you will make very good gains on this type of routine. It won't last forever however. You will know when it's time to move on once you have deloaded, and worked your way back up but you don't see much improvement anymore and you stall again. When I say this, the stalling MUST be due to your body's inability to recover from the training, not because you have bad technique or because you're not eating enough.

I know this sounds a bit confusing, but there is actually a point you will reach, where you can no longer squat a heavy weight for 5 x 5, 3 times a week, because the stress will become too high. Similar case for the bench press, overhead press and deadlift. I will address this, and intermediate programming (the next step after linear progression) in another post.

Improving Your Press

For guys with long forearm who have trouble with overhead pressing, you might find this article useful:

http://startingstrength.com/articles/learning_press_rippetoe.pdf

Basically instead of trying to force the bar to rest against your shoulders which compromises your leverages, you set up with optimal leverages for the triceps and as a result the bar is suspended in mid-air, but this won't be an issue if your triceps are touching your lats, and everything is tight and flexed (triceps, biceps, lats and glutes)

You can see me pressing this way here



If you compare to someone with shorter forearms, you can see how the position of the triceps are pretty much the same (pause at 0:09 for the first video, and 0:12 for the second video below)



Does it actually help to press this way? Well yes, because:

1. You reduce the distance the bar has to travel
2. The trriceps are in a more efficient position to press
3. There is less layback

I have pressed with the bar resting on the top of my chest before, and I found I needed much more power off the chest and I had much more layback, but with this technique I dont need as much power off the bottom and layback is reduced by quite a bit.

Training 19/7/12

Weights done:

Bench 95kg 10 x 3 (only last set shown)

Deadlift
205kg 2 x 4
185kg 2 x 5
165kg 2 x 6

Been doing Smolov Jr. for the bench, I'll do another post on this later.

I recorded all my deadlift work sets today, if anyone's curious to see how much pulling I do (once a week).

My First Powerlifting Meet

On my first attempt for squats I just wore a T-shirt but my back wasn't chalked up so the bar slid up my back when I was coming out of the hole. This threw me off slightly but I was still able to finish the lift. Whacked on a singlet on top of my shirt and chalked it up, no more issues.

For the bench, the pause diminished my bench strength by quite a bit. Decided not to go for a third because I knew I'd fail anyway.

For the deadlift, I just went for gold. Took massive jumps between attempts but I knew I could handle it.



The meet was run by UNSW Barbell Club. If you live in Sydney and enjoy lifting heavy weights, look it up on Facebook.

Recent Lifting 15/6/12

Squat 180kg x 3

Had to deload, stalled at 192.5kg. Been working on my hip mobility too



Bench today did 100kg x 1, 105kg x 1, 105kg x 1 all with a pause



Deadlift 205kg 2 x 4 -> PR Felt a tightness in my hamstring so I didn't do backoff sets today

Training to Build Muscle

Check out this bodybuilding routine.

If you look at that routine, you'll notice the reps lie in the higher rep range, 8-12 reps. This must mean if you train like that you'll get massive right? Wrong. You need to understand that steroids plays a significant role in the training of professional bodybuilders. If you did a routine similar to the one I linked above, provided you are not using steroids I guarantee that you are wasting your time.

On an elite level, bodybuilders and powerlifters train specifically for their goals (size for bodybuilding, strength for powerlifting). This may give you the impression that this also influences the way they look because of the way they train, but the truth is the steroids that they take are also specific (different steroids affect your body in different ways). If you didn't get that, professional bodybuilders take steroids which promote muscle growth, whilst powerlifters take steroids which promote muscle strength without as much increase in muscle size compared to bodybuilders.



If you look carefully at the image above, there are a lot of grey areas in terms of how your body responds to different rep ranges. This is because when you train in the 5-12 rep range, you will gain a combination of the different types of hypertrophy (myofibrillar and sacroplasmic). In myofibrillar hypertrophy, the muscle's ability to contract forcefully will be improved, and the myofibrils in a muscle also increase in size. In sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the increase in muscle size is primarily due to the increase in sarcoplasm in the muscle, which means the cells in the muscle become better at retaining fluid.

This means getting bigger and getting stronger aren't as mutually exclusive as people think. If you don't plan to take steroids but want to gain muscle guess what? You have to get stronger, and you have to eat enough to promote muscle growth. Don't expect to get bigger just by following routines of professional bodybuilders and taking magical supplements that claim to promote muscle growth. It actually takes time, hard work and some level of sacrifice. If you look at natural bodybuilders in the past like Reg Park and Marvin Eder, they were strong as hell. Reg Park could bench press 500lbs (~230kg)! There are even modern natural bodybuilders today who also compete in powerlifting. Do you really think your body will produce big muscles naturally that aren't strong? How the hell is that useful? Of course your body isn't going to do that. When your body realises that it is being subjected to stress (in the form of training), it will respond accordingly.

So how should you train then? For beginners 5 reps is a good range. It gives them enough reps for them to practise correct technique, but doesn't take them so close to the point of failure that their technique breaks down significantly. Volume is achieved though more sets, 5 sets of 5 reps works well for beginners (my previous posts cover suitable routines for beginners). This isn't the only way beginners can get stronger, but this method definitely works, provided you put in the effort through training hard and recovering sufficiently (eating and sleeping enough). As a lifter becomes more experienced, they may wish to train in different rep ranges (e.g triples for the main lifts to focus on lifting heavier weights, and higher reps on assistance exercises such as curls and tricep extensions) but that won't be covered in this post.

Bottom line, if you're not willing to train hard and get stronger, then you don't deserve that physique of your dreams. This is the truth. There are no shortcuts, no secrets.

Recent Lifting 8/6/12

Squat 192.5kg x 1

Bitched out today was meant to do 3 but I wasn't feeling mentally up for it.



Bench 100kg  x 1 (did 2 singles) (paused)

Practising new bench form, and it seems to be working for me. I can get just as big of an arch as with my old setup, but I can more effectively utilise my legs in the lift.






Deadlift 202.5kg 2 x 4 (only one set shown)

Next week I will be back where I stalled before. Can't wait to kill it!

Recent Lifting (This week) 1/6/12

Squat 192.5kg x 2



Press 70kg x 3,3,3,2,1



Deadlift 200kg 2 x 4



Bench: 95kg 3 x 5




Dips: B.W + 50kg x 3

My Current Routine

Monday

Squat
5 x 5

Bench
3 x 5
2 x 6 (90% of the weight I used for the 3 x 5 sets)
1 x 8 (80% of the weight I used for the 3 x 5 sets)

Assistance work:

Barbell Row
5 x 5

DB Curls
Adductor Machine


Tuesday

Assistance work:

Power Cleans
singles, still need to nail the technique, I'm getting there

Dips
Three week cycle;
in week 1: work up to 3 x 8
in week 2: work up to a top set of 5
in week 3: work up to a top set of 3
The cycle is good because it allows me to get strong in different rep ranges. If you're just starting out with weighted dips better to stick to 3x5 first until that stops working. I'll explain the cycle in more detail at the end of the post.


Wednesday

Light Front Squat (80% of the 5x5 squat weight on Monday)
3 x 3

Incline Bench Press
Might be with a barbell or dumbbells, depends how I feel, the point is to keep it light

Pull-ups
Three week cycle;
in week 1: work up to 3 x 8
in week 2: work up to a top set of 5
in week 3: work up to a top set of 3
The cycle is good because it allows me to get strong in different rep ranges. If you're just starting out with weighted pull-ups better to stick to 3x5 first until that stops working.


Friday

Squat
1 x 3

Press
6 x 3

Deadlift
2 x 4
2 x 5 (90% of the weight I used on the 2 x 4 sets)
2 x 6 (80% of the weight I used on the 2 x 4 sets)


Saturday

Conditioning (not too intense, but enough to maintain a good level of conditioning for general health)


There isn't really a right or wrong when making a routine, however its the principles behind the program which make it effective.

• Are the staple movements the main compound lifts (squat, bench, press, deadlift)?
• Does it aim to make you stronger?
• Is there enough volume?
• Is the workload stressful enough? Can you recover from it?
• Will it help you achieve your goals?
• Is it easy to modify if an aspect of it does not work well for you?

------

Why is Monday's squat 5x5, Wednesday's squat light and Friday's squat 1 x 3?

It's based on a template known as the Texas Method which is an intermediate program. Monday is your volume day (5x5), Wednesday is your light day and Friday is your Intensity day (you start out with 1 x 5 but I've exhausted that so I'm doing 1 x 3 now). The point is to handle a medium weight on Monday that is stressful enough (that you can still recover from it) and be able to handle heavy weights on Friday. For example last week I squatted 147.5kg for 5 x 5 on Monday and 185kg x 3 on Friday. The light day on Wednesday gives you a mental and physical break, and should leave you feeling refreshed and ready for Friday's Intensity day session. It's a good way of training if SL5x5 or Starting Strength doesn't work for you anymore, because you can no longer recover from squatting heavy every session (because the weights stress your body too much). You will need to experiment as to how much volume on Monday is enough however. A good way to treat Monday's session is to keep the weight the same for three weeks before increasing the weight. This ensures that volume day doesn't get too demanding too quickly.

Why do you only bench and press once a week?

If I followed the Texas method for the pressing movements also, it would go:

Week 1:

Monday
Bench 5 x 5

Wednesday
Light Press

Friday
Bench 1 x 5

Week 2:

Monday
Press 5 x 5

Wednesday
Light Bench

Friday Press 1 x 5

I don't like the idea of only benching or pressing heavy every 2 weeks since it alternates in the Texas Method. And I respond well to volume anyway so the way I've set it up should work well for me. Bare in mind I'm also doing dips and the light incline bench, so I'm really doing a press movement 4 times a week.

Why so many sets for the deadlift?

I've reached a stage where that's simply how much volume I need in order to make progress. 1 x 5 like in SL5x5 or Starting Strength just wasn't enough anymore. The higher volume is awesome, my back is dense as hell now and more muscular.

-------

The three week cycle:

Week 1:

25% x 8
45% x 8
55% 3 x 8

Week 2:

25% x 5
50% x 5
60% x 5
70% x 5
80% x 5

Week 3:

25% x 5
50% x 5
75% x 3
90% x 3
100% x 3

Basically you pick a weight you want to hit for 3 reps in the third week, then back-calculate all the other weights. You might aim too high the first time but after doing 1 cycle you'll know how to pick a suitable number. You should only train this way if you can do pullups with 40kg or do dips with 40kg strapped on, its a good way to keep making progress as well as get strong in different rep ranges.

Recent Lifting 11/5/12 and Other Thoughts

Felt like crap going into the gym today, good thing I didn't listen to my body.

Squat 185kg x 3



Deadlift 210kg x 1



Deadlift 220kg x 1




No PRs on the bench press or overhead press at the moment since I'm coming out of a deload for both lifts.

--------------

Its frustrating how misguided people are about training these days. To people getting stronger and getting bigger seem to be like two totally different things nowadays. Before steroids, bodybuilders were strong. To get bigger you had to get stronger, and to get stronger you had to get bigger. They come hand in hand, they're not as mutually exclusive as people these days seem to think. The legendary Reg Park (Arnold's mentor) was very strong, with a 500lb bench press; 600lb squat; 700lb deadlift and a 315-pound behind neck press.

Reg Park was strong and certainly looked strong too

He may not look as impressive as modern day bodybuilders and that's because of steroids. Steroids push the capabilities of man. These days that's what it takes to be the best. That being said, even the best modern bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman were strong.

If like me you don't plan to take steroids, then if you want to build muscle you gotta get stronger. Even if you're training in a different rep range say 8-10 reps, you're still aiming to increase the weight you can handle for that many reps so in that sense you're still getting stronger. I think I've written about it enough times in my previous posts about why lower reps are better for newer lifters though so I won't talk about it here. As you get more experienced you can train in the higher rep range for your assistance exercises, but you should still focus on getting stronger on the main lifts.

If you think its possible to get huge naturally without getting stronger and eating more, you're living in a dream world I'm afraid, and no one can help you. Doesn't matter what supplements you take.

On an unrelated note, some people try to relate to how I train, talking to me about protein supplements and shit. I should clarify that I do not train for bodybuilding. Aesthetics is not the only goal, I simply train to be awesome and look awesome while doing it. I don't think I'll ever think I'm awesome though which is good because it means I'll always be pushing myself. Like Bruce Lee says, 'be happy, but never satisfied'.

My Recent Experience on Linear Progression

Here's a brief write-up about my recent experience on linear progression (bench press alternating with the press every session, and increasing the weight each time you bench or press the next session). I switched to a weekly routine too early for my bench press and press and they didn't make significant progress. After a while of messing around trying to figure out what was wrong, I realised the answer was simple, to go back to linear progression and milk out those gains properly. My bench press and press were going nowhere with the training methods I was using at the time so going back to basics worked out pretty well for me. If you're not following, basically I did Starting Strength for the bench press and press, using 3x5 (3 sets of 5 reps) for the bench and 5x3 (5 sets of 3 reps) for the press.

When did I start LP: 28/11/12

Stats before:
Bodyweight: 77kg (28/10/12)
Bench press: 90kg x 4
Press:60kg x 3
Dips: B.W + 43.75kg x 1 (not as deep as possible, just below parallel)

Stats after:
Bodyweight: 80-81kg (15/4/12)
Bench press: 96kg 5,5,4 (14/3/12), with one deload. 110kg x 1 (actually tested this)
Press: 70kg 5 x 3 (13/4/12) with one deload. 77.5kg x 1 (actually tested this)
Dips: B.W + 45kg x 3 (as deep as possible) (21/4/12), doing more volume on dips too

So I did 3x5 for bench press, with a grip wide enough where my forearms were perpendicular to the floor. I did 5x3 for the press, with a grip just outside the shoulders. I originally started out using touch-n-go for the press. The reason for this was it helped to teach me to press in a vertical path. My technique sucked before because my grip was too wide, and the bar would travel in too curved of a path.

My bench press stalled at around 92.5kg, deloaded and worked my way back up to 96kg for 5,5,4 before stalling again.

My press eventually stalled at 67.5kg. The reps got really hard because I couldn't get decent breaths in when I held the bar at the top, so when I deloaded I switched to dead stop. It worked out to be better for me (much easier to breathe), and I got my press to 70kg 5 x 3, I stalled at 71kg 5 x 2.

My bench press and press also started interfering with each other. When I benched on Monday, my press on Wednesday sucked, and by the time it came to press next Monday it went a lot better.

When I found that the improvement of my bench press after deloading was not significant, I decided LP was finished for it. I decided I would focus on my press for the time being, and switch from regular bench press to close grip bench press for the time being. My press stalled at 71kg, and similarly to the bench press, the improvement was not significant after deloading, so I decided that LP was finished for the press too.





I plan to now begin weekly programming for the bench press and press (increasing the weight on a weekly basis to give my body more time to recover), since LP no longer works for me now (which is good).

In terms of my physique, my shoulders, arms and chest got bigger. My back and traps also got bigger due to deadlifts, heavy pull-ups and rowing. My legs (and probably glutes) got bigger from squats. Bodyfat levels stayed pretty constant. During this time my diet and sleeping patterns were also very consistent (today diet is still consistent, sleep slightly less consistent due to university and work).

http://img152.images...omparisondr.jpg

What did I learn:

• fix up technique first before experimenting with assistance exercises. My bench press grip width was too wide, when I narrowed it slightly I was able to recruit my triceps more effectively. Same for my press.
• Keep your programming as simple as possible for as long as you can. People have been training for decades, no need to reinvent the wheel and do weird rep ranges. Keep everything in perspective. If you're bench is 100kg, you are not advanced. No point doing advanced routines if you're not ready for it. You're a novice for longer than you think.
• Dynamic effort is pointless for beginners. If you can't even bench like 150kg don't bother with dynamic effort.
• Volume is important. Gotta get in enough work to stress your body to adapt. Madcow for the presses is shit if you're naturally a bad presser, the ramped sets are not enough volume.
• If you're naturally a bad presser, get your triceps as strong as possible. Do heavy ass weighted dips. If you can't do that other options include lying tricep extensions, push press or incline bench. Just make sure you're hammering your triceps and forcing them to grow.
• You're a beginner for longer than you think. Let your ability to recover from your training sessions dictate your programming. If you can bench heavy and then bench with a heavier weight again 4 days later, you're a novice. Don't listen to strength standards that might say your bench is intermediate or whatever. Listen to your body.

To those intensity junkies who work up to 1 top set, the top set only feels 'tiring' because you had to get mentally prepared for the set. Don't interpret stalling from training this way as overtraining, interpret it as undertraining. You cannot overtrain if you're benching 100kg and pressing 70kg. I stuck with 1x5 for my deadlift for 2 years, eventually I plateaued (stalled then deloaded and worked my way back up to pretty much the same weight, no improvement). Once I added in more sets my deadlift got moving again. Volume is important.

Recent Lifting 27/4/12

Squat 180kg x 3



Took me a while to nail this. The first three attempts I only got 2 reps during the past weeks, then I deloaded to give myself a mental break which seemed to do the trick, finally got three reps today.

Deadlift 205kg x 4



I did a second set but only got 3 reps the second time :( Will try again


I trained at PTC Sydney today, best gym I've ever been to. Has everything you could possibly need, plus a friendly environment, supportive of heavy lifting. Definitely recommend this gym to anyone serious about their training.

Recent Lifting

Squat 177.5kg x 3



Deadlift 202.5kg  2 x 4 (only one set shown in the video)



Press 70kg 5 x 3 (only one set shown in the video), done on another day

Females Should Train Too

Women are entitled to staying healthy just as much as men. Just because you have breasts and a vagina doesn't mean you need to train differently. Don't use your gender as an excuse to do jack-all in the gym, spending an hour on machines whilst checking in to Facebook to show off to your friends where you are.

Women who train are hot. Observe:



Pretty sure most women would be happy to have a physique comparable to her's. And that kind of physique is definitely possible to achieve through training hard. Sorry but you're going to have to ditch the stair master. Only through training hard will you get results. If you haven't read some of my previous posts, I said getting massive and bulky is impossible for women unless they take steroids because their body does not produce enough testosterone naturally.

By the way her technique was a bit flawed because she failed to set her lower back at the start, making it really hard to lock the weight out on the top.

If your other half is strongly opposed to you training and being awesome, he's probably afraid that you'll make him look bad. Half the guys I see at the gym can't even deadlift as much as this girl which is sad:



I'll be honest, females are at a slight disadvantage when they first start training. Their upper bodies tend to be weaker. It is common for many to not even be able to overhead press or bench press using the empty 20kg barbell.

Here's a simple routine females can do:

Session A:

Barbell Squat 5x5

Dumbell Incline Bench Press 5x5

Barbell Deadlift 1 x 5

Lat Pull-Downs 3 x 8

Session B:

Barbell Squat 5x5

Dumbell Incline Bench Press 5x5

Dumbell Rows 5 x 5

Push Ups 3 x 10

*Note* The work sets are listed, the warm-up sets are not included but yes you should warm up.

The program is simple as hell, which is why it will work. Better to get good on a few exercises than be average on a million exercises. Now I will explain it. First you have the squat. Any serious training routine has the squat in it, it's the best exercise for you hands down. It'll build a nice ass on you which should be enough incentive for females to do it.


Note the dumbell incline bench press. This exercise trains the same muscle groups as the flat bench press and the overhead press (pecs, shoulders and triceps), it's the exercise in between these two. This is just to keep things simple for female beginners since learning the squat is enough of a handful at the start. It can be harder to motivate female beginners so it's better to keep things as simple as possible at the start. The idea for the incline bench press for female beginners comes from Paul Carter of Lift-Run-Bang so he gets the credit for this. Increase the weight when you can get all the reps. Once you can do 10kg in each hand, try switching to an empty 20kg barbell. You will need a spotter to help you with unracking/racking the bar, but make sure they don't touch the bar during your set unless you get stuck.

Deadlifts are in there because they're great for strengthening your back. People don't stress enough how important it is to have a strong back.

You want a strong back so you don't end up like this when you're old

The lat pull-downs and push ups are extra assistance exercises, but you should still aim to get them done. I don't see too many girls who are able to do push ups. Do them on your knees if you have to but try to gradually transition into doing them on your feet. Make sure you don't flare your elbows out to the sides, keep them tucked in. This video shows the push up being demonstrated pretty well.

The above program caters for females who have a lack in upper body strength. Once this is no longer an issue, they should go on to follow the standard routines which have harder upper body exercises such as the overhead press, bench press and pull-ups. When following the above program, every now and then you should try to do a pull-up just to see where you're at.

Now to conclude this post with photos of women training:

Might take some time but you'll eventually be able to press weight overhead if you keep at it.

Deadlifts are awesome

Stop Deadlifting Like An Idiot

The deadlift is surprisingly a commonly misunderstood exercise in most commercial gyms, despite being one of the most simple exercises to learn. I've seen more people perform the deadlift incorrectly than those who actually do it right.

Here are a few ways I've seen people deadlift incorrectly (the bold text in the next paragraphs are what people are doing wrong):

Deadlifting the first rep as normal (with the bar starting from the floor), but for the subsequent reps not lowering the bar to the ground. Your body only gets good at what you subject it to, so if you're just doing partial reps like that, you're going to be weak off the floor. How to correct this? Start each rep from the floor.

Why do people deadlift this way? My guess is they want to do Romanian Deadlifts, which are a variant of the standard deadlift so that they can target their posterior chain more. The difference with RDLs and standard deadlifts is that the legs are more extended (but the knees are still slightly bent) and not everyone can bring the bar back down to the ground.

Romanian Deadlifts (RDLs) were actually invented by an Olympic weightlifter, Nicu Vlad. Guess how Olympic weightlifters train? They do the clean and jerk, and the snatch which both involve pulling the bar from the ground. So even if they use the RDL, they're still doing other lifts which involve starting from the floor. The RDL is just an assistance exercise and should not replace actual pulling from the floor.

Are Romanian Deadlifts for you? Probably not. Stick to the basic lifts and after a while if you see weaknesses in your hamstrings then you can make a judgement call whether or not to use RDLs, but leave that for when the time comes (and that will be a long time away).

Deadlifting for high reps, say in the 12-20 rep range. You're never going to get strong on the deadlift if you do such high reps. Your back and hamstrings will stay puny and weak. Who do you think is going to have a stronger back? The guy deadlifting 100kg for 20 reps or the guy deadlifting 200kg for 5 reps? If you have to think about that, you really don't know anything about training I'm afraid. I've seen guys in the gym with impressive upper bodies but pathetic stick legs because they don't squat or deadlift properly.

Your body responds to stress, whatever stresses your body more will cause more of an adaptation in your body. Sticking to sets of 5 reps is plenty of work for a beginner. As you adapt to a higher workload (after say a year or more of training) you can add in some backoff sets (sets of higher reps done at a lighter load) for extra volume.

Using straps. Grip strength is important, because if your hands are weak, you won't even be able to grip the bar hard enough to deadlift it off the ground. Straps should only be used on exercises where you are handling much heavier loads than the deadlift, such as in exercises like shrugs and rack pulls, but these are for more advanced lifters so don't worry about it for now.

Grip the bar as hard as you can so that you can see your knuckles; do this for every exercise. Stick to the double overhand grip for as long as possible on the deadlift, and once that grip starts failing switch to using mixed grip (for the top sets only). Once that fails start using chalk.

If you have a weak grip, hold the bar at the top at the end of each set and count to 10 seconds. Your deadlift might take a slight hit for a while because of this, but if you have weak hands you need to work on that for now.

Shrugging the bar at the top. This one isn't as common but I still see people do it. The traps already get enough stress from being involved isometrically in the deadlift. And if you don't have any traps, that's probably because your deadlift is pathetic. Get strong on the deadlift and your traps will grow. If you want more trap work do some power cleans and snatches too.

Lowering the bar slowly during the eccentric phase. This is the area which annoys the hell out of me like nothing else. I don't care what the personal trainers say about lowering the bar slowly. How many personal trainers have you seen deadlifting heavy anyway? Don't forget the bro's as well. They will undermine your deadlift because 'you're dropping the bar'.

Firstly, fuck you I'm not dropping the bar I'm lowering it. Secondly, you cannot lower a heavy weight slowly. There is absolutely no point. It will do more harm than good. An exercise where you might lower the weight more slowly would be RDLs but the weight you're using would be lighter.

The point of the deadlift is the concentric phase, the portion of the lift where you lift the bar off the ground. There is no stretch reflex in the deadlift, which is why the eccentric phase of the lift is not important, and also the reason why deadlifts are tough. You're just pulling the weight from the floor using brute strength.

When lowering the bar, it's just the reverse of lifting the deadlift. Shoot the hips back so the bar clears the knees before landing on the ground. If the bar has to literally go around your knees when you lower the bar, you're doing it wrong, shoot the hips back more.

Here's me deadlifting 200kg for 4 reps, you don't see me lowering the bar slowly. It sounds loud because the plates I'm using aren't bumper plates. The sound of the bar landing on the ground is not nearly as loud when using bumper plates. The loud sound is probably the reason why people think you're dropping the bar. Or maybe they just don't like being reminded that they're weak.



If you're still skeptical, watch some other badasses deadlifting heavy ass weights way heavier than me:






Abusing the use of touch and go. First off this is what a touch and go deadlift looks like. Basically you perform the first rep as normal, then afterwards you lower the bar in a controlled manner (but not too slow) to get a stretch reflex and 'bounce' the bar off the floor. I know I said there's no stretch reflex in the deadlift but if you do it this way there is. I'm guessing this makes the subsequent reps easier due to the stretch reflex. I don't have much experience with this technique.

Now what I mean by abusing the use of touch and go is when people don't lower the bar in a controlled manner, but let the bar drop quickly so that the bar literally bounces off the floor, and they use this to their advantage to lift the next rep. This is bad because it becomes more likely for the lifter to lose tightness in their back, and they can end up pulling with a rounded back this way. Also, the bouncing is cheating. This is why I prefer doing each rep from a dead stop because you can't cheat that way.

Deadlift with bent arms. You risk the chance of tearing a bicep if you deadlift with bent arms. The tear occurs when the heavy weight forces your arms to straighten out. Despite the deadlift being a pull from the ground, you should not actually be using your arms to pull. Visualise your arms as simply being hooks which support the weight. Make sure your arms are fully extended before initiating the deadlift.

Not engaging the legs properly. Here's an extreme example. The legs extend too early in the lift which means the back has to do all the work. This puts more strain on your back and also limits how much weight you can handle. You can prevent this mistake from happening by not attempting to yank the bar off the ground. Think about pushing your feet into the ground when you start the lift. Don't think about pulling with your back at all.


I hope this post was enlightening and useful, now go out there and deadlift some heavy ass weights (properly)!

Badass. 'nuff said.