February Q and A thread
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Huge progress1
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StephieWillcox wrote: »MattBrouse wrote: »StephieWillcox wrote: »I guess I'm feeling quite unbalanced. I barely ever feel my glutes/hams working whereas my quads are pretty much permanently feeling worked.
I feel like that is ultimately affecting how much I can squat, and getting some other muscles involved would help me out!
However, as sardelsa mentions, I'm probably looking at this the wrong way. I should be switching my accessories to work on glutes/hams, and letting my squat be what it is
Along with the aforementioned potential LACK of need for "correction" as well as a likely worthwhile addition of certain "posterior chain focused" accessory exercises, a simple cue to yourself with each repetition to "feel" your hamstrings squeeze on the decent and actively squeeze your butt on the way up might help with feeling "connected" to those working muscles better.
I recall my own experience of, after several years of serious lifting, being cued for the first time to "actively" squeeze my butt and hams and being blown away by how different it felt for me.
So I did this on Monday (as well as switching the bar to a lower position on my back) and my bum has been KILLING me the past 2 days. Need to work on the hamstrings, but @Dopeitup gave me some good advice on the form thread and I think a slower decent will help here. As well as keeping tight at the bottom of pause squats (I have a tendency to relax in the hole).
By the way, complete side note but you mentioned anterior pelvic tilt (which I have a hilarious amount of) and issues standing up straight before squatting. Look into hip flexor stretches and glute activation drills. Those were the source of my issues and something I'm still working on now. It has made a WORLD of difference in my squat technique and not pitching forward. And it's even helped my hip issues from sumo deadlift inadvertently.
I have some to suggest if you don't mind looking like a perverted fool in the gym but ....yeah.2 -
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When doing dumbbell pressing, should the bottom position be at the point where my upper arms are parallel to the floor (arms looking like goal posts) or should it be lower so that the dumbbells touch my shoulders or chest (arms looking more like a W)? Or does it matter?
Also, is there such a thing as incline shoulder presses? Or is any incline considered incline bench press?0 -
When doing dumbbell pressing, should the bottom position be at the point where my upper arms are parallel to the floor (arms looking like goal posts) or should it be lower so that the dumbbells touch my shoulders or chest (arms looking more like a W)? Or does it matter?
Also, is there such a thing as incline shoulder presses? Or is any incline considered incline bench press?
For your first question, I think this is more personal preference. I always do shoulder presses (DB or BB) starting from the collarbones/shoulders or thereabouts. You'll find lots of people do limited ROM for a variety of reasons (pain, rehab, pussying-out/ego-lifting, whatever). If you can touch the DB to your shoulder area without pain then I'd probably stick with it. Just my opinion, not based on any real factual information. My arms look like a W in the mirror for the very bottom of the movement, yes. They quickly go vertical as soon as I start pressing.
Incline shoulder press, sure. I'm not sure if there's an actual technical difference but for me, incline bench results in the bar/dbs touching much lower (pec area) whereas with incline press, the bar touches higher. More of a shoulder and tricep isolation movement. I also tend to use a more vertical bench incline for incline pressing and a more horizontal bench position for incline bench. I PERSONALLY don't like incline press because it's painful on my shoulders and IMO is a bit riskier than incline bench, so I rarely do it. I
Again, personal opinions abound, your judgement may vary.0 -
So after 7 weeks, I retested my 1RM (so far only on DL; OHP & bench tomorrow, squat on Friday). But I went from a 1RM of 235 --> 300 lbs (and I feel I could do a bit more, but didn't want to push it on my deload week). Hoping this improves my bro stats.
Correction, just looked at my numbers, I went from 225 to 300 on DL
Bench 175 to 195 (I went for 205 and almost died, thank you spotter)
OHP 135 to 145 (I hate press).
I did learn a valuable lesson, going for 2 PR's in one day is not a smart thing. High Bar Squat test is tomorrow. Started at 245. Hoping to get over 300.
I do think I need to work on my form for both upper body moves.
245 to 285 squat. Not as happy but not bad. Goal for next cycle is perfect form0 -
That third plate is so close I bet you can smell it.0
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The best advice I got for correcting that was to intentionally force yourself more in the opposite direction. It feels unnatural as hell at first, like you're completely off kilter in the other direction, but you actually end up pushing straight. Damned off balance brain.
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »
The best advice I got for correcting that was to intentionally force yourself more in the opposite direction. It feels unnatural as hell at first, like you're completely off kilter in the other direction, but you actually end up pushing straight. Damned off balance brain.
Interesting. I will have to try that.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »
The best advice I got for correcting that was to intentionally force yourself more in the opposite direction. It feels unnatural as hell at first, like you're completely off kilter in the other direction, but you actually end up pushing straight. Damned off balance brain.
Interesting. I will have to try that.
Post a video if you can. It's possible that you've got some asymmetry or some hip shifting which might be better addressed with accessory stuff (or even left alone) vs cueing.
I'm really curious to see it though to see what your friend is seeing.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »
The best advice I got for correcting that was to intentionally force yourself more in the opposite direction. It feels unnatural as hell at first, like you're completely off kilter in the other direction, but you actually end up pushing straight. Damned off balance brain.
Interesting. I will have to try that.
Post a video if you can. It's possible that you've got some asymmetry or some hip shifting which might be better addressed with accessory stuff (or even left alone) vs cueing.
I'm really curious to see it though to see what your friend is seeing.
OK. I will get my friend to get a video of me. There is a big expo at my gym this weekend, so it might be a few days.0 -
When doing dumbbell pressing, should the bottom position be at the point where my upper arms are parallel to the floor (arms looking like goal posts) or should it be lower so that the dumbbells touch my shoulders or chest (arms looking more like a W)? Or does it matter?
Also, is there such a thing as incline shoulder presses? Or is any incline considered incline bench press?
I tend to try to bring the dumbbells to my nips - a little higher than barbell bench, but still pretty close. That's me, because I think it fits my goals better. As Dope mentioned above, it's preference and/or what your goal(s) is/are.
Regarding inclines: I've never heard it called that, but I guess it's fine. Many (most?) benches can support a variety of angles. Incline bench is typically (obviously, you could vary it) recommended to be about 30º, although all of the stationary incline benches I've seen are at around 45º. If you want to do them at greater than 45º from parallel to the floor? Sure, I can see calling that an incline (maybe decline would be a better term, as it's less than perpendicular?) shoulder press. I don't think it really matters all that much what you call it, as long as you know what it is and why you're doing it.0 -
Regarding ROM on pressing exercises with DBs I think a huge factor will be individual mobility and whether or not pain occurs at end ranges of motion.
Generally, I think you should use the largest ROM you can such that you're not causing pain, and as you add load I would try to remain consistent so that you're not cutting ROM due to weight.0 -
Sanity check time.
March 25th is my next PL meet. I'm planning on competing at 181 lb. My original plan was to try to get down to about 175 by this time, so that I could slow bulk up until the meet. That didn't work out quite how I hoped, and I weighed in this morning at 179.8. While I generally would rather not cut water weight, I'm thinking maybe about a 1/2 lb per week bulk might be OK, so that I can hopefully get my squat back to a respectable number (it went very much south after a week off due to illness). This would make it so I had about 1 lb to cut - easy, as I'd probably just not eat carbs the day of, until after - for weigh-ins. BTW - I'll be weighing in Friday evening, lifting Saturday afternoon, so I should be able to replenish glycogen/water without issue.
Good idea? Or should I maybe go for 1 lb per week, or just maintain?0 -
Sanity check time.
March 25th is my next PL meet. I'm planning on competing at 181 lb. My original plan was to try to get down to about 175 by this time, so that I could slow bulk up until the meet. That didn't work out quite how I hoped, and I weighed in this morning at 179.8. While I generally would rather not cut water weight, I'm thinking maybe about a 1/2 lb per week bulk might be OK, so that I can hopefully get my squat back to a respectable number (it went very much south after a week off due to illness). This would make it so I had about 1 lb to cut - easy, as I'd probably just not eat carbs the day of, until after - for weigh-ins. BTW - I'll be weighing in Friday evening, lifting Saturday afternoon, so I should be able to replenish glycogen/water without issue.
Good idea? Or should I maybe go for 1 lb per week, or just maintain?
If it were me I'd be at maintenance or slightly north of that and see what your weight is about one week out.
If you need to cut the final week you could very easily just swap some carbohydrate for fat and do a very minor water cut given it's a night before weigh in.
As long as you don't go too crazy you should be just fine.0 -
Do you think switching to a 3 day routine-Mon/Wed/Fri with cardio on Tuesday/Thursday would be better for recovery? I certainly could see that it should be but I have loved what PHUL has done for me physique-wise. But, I'm not getting stronger and I am feeling a bit worn out.
No one has answered me so I will ask again. Will a 3 day lifting routine help me recover from worn out tendons & muscles? Almost 48 yr old lifter, 3 yrs lifting. My goal is recomp & strength.
My whole question & background is several questions up.0
