Critique my lifts
- Thread starter mcFreid
- Start date
These are excellent tips illiniphase! Thank you.
Sadly Friday was not ideal testing grounds for everyone's advice. It wasn't because the advice was necessarily bad, but I for some reason was coming across a very rare mood of simply not "feeling it". I have no idea why, like I said such occurrences for me are rare.
I did try and implement the changes recommended, but some really didn’t work out. For instance I tried narrowing my grip and keeping my elbows pointed down on the squats, that didn’t work. I couldn’t find a comfortable position with the bar and it made the entire movement more awkward. There are a few other examples as well. Truly though today was not an accurate day to make any judgments. Therefore I will try again fresh on Tuesday and hopefully with a camera as well.
Sadly Friday was not ideal testing grounds for everyone's advice. It wasn't because the advice was necessarily bad, but I for some reason was coming across a very rare mood of simply not "feeling it". I have no idea why, like I said such occurrences for me are rare.
I did try and implement the changes recommended, but some really didn’t work out. For instance I tried narrowing my grip and keeping my elbows pointed down on the squats, that didn’t work. I couldn’t find a comfortable position with the bar and it made the entire movement more awkward. There are a few other examples as well. Truly though today was not an accurate day to make any judgments. Therefore I will try again fresh on Tuesday and hopefully with a camera as well.
I think we're taking about the same thing here. But activating the deep ab wall it will assist in a more forward rotation of the pelvis, helping him to keep his butt flat. Contraction in the deep abdominal wall throughout the exercise will also help preserve the form in the lower back and hips for the whole the exercise.
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It's better, but there is still a bit of an arch in the back.
Also, you should probably go lower, all the way until your nose or chest is just above or even slightly touching the ground.
It also looks like you're letting your shoulder blades get pushed backwards (or upwards since you're in a pushup position) into retraction quite a bit.. also a bit unward (shrugging). I'm not saying not to move the shoulder blades, but it seems you're just hanging on the structures holding the shoulder blades in place instead of actually using the muscles to hold the shoulder blades in place (for example the serratus anterior). I had this problem with push ups too a while back.
Also, you should probably go lower, all the way until your nose or chest is just above or even slightly touching the ground.
It also looks like you're letting your shoulder blades get pushed backwards (or upwards since you're in a pushup position) into retraction quite a bit.. also a bit unward (shrugging). I'm not saying not to move the shoulder blades, but it seems you're just hanging on the structures holding the shoulder blades in place instead of actually using the muscles to hold the shoulder blades in place (for example the serratus anterior). I had this problem with push ups too a while back.
Thanks for the reply. I'll try to go lower next time as I agree it doesn't seem like I'm quite hitting that perfect depth. I also agree on the back, it's getting better but still needs work. I'll keep at it.
I see exactly what you mean by the shoulder blades! I wasn't really sure if it was a problem or not. You said you had the same issue: any techniques to solve it?
Thanks,
Michael
I see exactly what you mean by the shoulder blades! I wasn't really sure if it was a problem or not. You said you had the same issue: any techniques to solve it?
Thanks,
Michael
Nice find!! Im gonna look into those Scap Puh-ups.
My new pushup maximum video is up!
As you can see, or at least I hope you can see or I’m becoming way too biased as a self-judge, my form has improved significantly. By keeping my eyes looking straight ahead I was able to go further down and after examination of the video it seems that I successfully broke parallel with nearly every rep (my form did break down on some of the later movements). I also have considerably straitened my slouching to where it is now near nonexistent (again except for the break downs as I approached failure). The only thing that I think really still needs some considerable tweaking is I feel like my shoulders are shrugging slightly, which they shouldn’t do. I still haven’t encountered a good method to prevent this, but I’ll keep trying.
Please tell me what you think,
Michael
As you can see, or at least I hope you can see or I’m becoming way too biased as a self-judge, my form has improved significantly. By keeping my eyes looking straight ahead I was able to go further down and after examination of the video it seems that I successfully broke parallel with nearly every rep (my form did break down on some of the later movements). I also have considerably straitened my slouching to where it is now near nonexistent (again except for the break downs as I approached failure). The only thing that I think really still needs some considerable tweaking is I feel like my shoulders are shrugging slightly, which they shouldn’t do. I still haven’t encountered a good method to prevent this, but I’ll keep trying.
Please tell me what you think,
Michael
Hey LeiYunFat,
What do you mean by control reps more? Do you mean go slower? I was testing my maximum on the video above just fyi. But, I will try to do as you say and really focus on just making 5 or 6 pure perfect ones (that is when I'm not testing my maximum
). My elbows are tucked slightly. I heard this is a personal preference thing though, does it matter much on how much they are flared/tucked? I find it most comfortable in the position that is shown in the video.
Thanks for the response,
Michael
What do you mean by control reps more? Do you mean go slower? I was testing my maximum on the video above just fyi. But, I will try to do as you say and really focus on just making 5 or 6 pure perfect ones (that is when I'm not testing my maximum
). My elbows are tucked slightly. I heard this is a personal preference thing though, does it matter much on how much they are flared/tucked? I find it most comfortable in the position that is shown in the video.Thanks for the response,
Michael
I took some new lifting videos today during my standard full-body workout on tues/fri. My camera started to run out of battieries though so I wasn't able to record every movement. Instead I chose to get on film what I thought were the lifts that I have been trying to improve my form the most with.
To start we have my squats:
The only thing I noticed here was I wasn't quite going as deep as I should. I do think though that since last time I fixed the slight rounding of my back in the hole as well as the slightly extreme lockout I did at the top of the lift. If you see anything I missed (which you probably did since I'm not exactly an expert on these mattes) please let me know.
After squats I did deadlifts:
These are still a huge issue for me. I tried taking a narrower stance, it didn't seem to help. I tried all these visualizing techniques such as thinking of it as "tug of war", driving through my heals, pulling back, etc... None of that seemed to work. I still am slightly rounding my lower back as it seems to lift upwards before my shoulders. I can't figure out how to fix this issue. If I use lower weights the problem goes away, but then the lift itself isn't doing much for me. As soon as it becomes difficult though, the problem comes back. Please please, any advice?
Last I have my knuckle pushups:
I think out of all my lifts these have improved the most. On the first set I still had a slight sag in my back, but I fixed that up on the 2nd and 3rd tries. I also have been really trying to break parallel, which I feel like I succeeded in doing. This along with a various amount of other minor techniques have made my pushups into my pretty much ideal idea of what they should be. Of course due to all this the actual movement became much harder and as you can see I wasn't quite able to complete my 3 sets of 10 as I failed on both my 2nd and 3rd sets.
As usual, tell me everything.
Thanks,
Michael
To start we have my squats:
The only thing I noticed here was I wasn't quite going as deep as I should. I do think though that since last time I fixed the slight rounding of my back in the hole as well as the slightly extreme lockout I did at the top of the lift. If you see anything I missed (which you probably did since I'm not exactly an expert on these mattes) please let me know.
After squats I did deadlifts:
These are still a huge issue for me. I tried taking a narrower stance, it didn't seem to help. I tried all these visualizing techniques such as thinking of it as "tug of war", driving through my heals, pulling back, etc... None of that seemed to work. I still am slightly rounding my lower back as it seems to lift upwards before my shoulders. I can't figure out how to fix this issue. If I use lower weights the problem goes away, but then the lift itself isn't doing much for me. As soon as it becomes difficult though, the problem comes back. Please please, any advice?
Last I have my knuckle pushups:
I think out of all my lifts these have improved the most. On the first set I still had a slight sag in my back, but I fixed that up on the 2nd and 3rd tries. I also have been really trying to break parallel, which I feel like I succeeded in doing. This along with a various amount of other minor techniques have made my pushups into my pretty much ideal idea of what they should be. Of course due to all this the actual movement became much harder and as you can see I wasn't quite able to complete my 3 sets of 10 as I failed on both my 2nd and 3rd sets.
As usual, tell me everything.
Thanks,
Michael
Pushups look a lot better.
Squats look a lot better as well. That is good depth unless you want to do atg. Angle is bad and can't see the bar placement/set up very well. Looks like you're falling over a bit. Keep practicing getting a lot of air in your belly and staying tight before each rep.
You need to be bending at the hips more on the DL. Your back looks okay to me. Pull without shoes to feel out the lift better. Keep in mind that challenging weight will never allow 100% perfect form.
Squats look a lot better as well. That is good depth unless you want to do atg. Angle is bad and can't see the bar placement/set up very well. Looks like you're falling over a bit. Keep practicing getting a lot of air in your belly and staying tight before each rep.
You need to be bending at the hips more on the DL. Your back looks okay to me. Pull without shoes to feel out the lift better. Keep in mind that challenging weight will never allow 100% perfect form.