Thoughts on my lifts

I've been meaning to do a write-up on my lifting progress, and things I've changed since I was lifting in college.  It'll mostly be structured around the three main lifts: the squat, deadlift, and bench.  For each of these lifts, I'll list what I've changed when doing them, and then for each point I'll go into detail about it.

I'm mostly looking for this post to be a place for me to reflect back on what has changed, but I'm also hoping whoever runs into this can learn from what I've learned.

For context, I weigh about 85kg, and my lifts are about 145kg-150kg-90kg for squat, deadlift and bench respectively.  I feel like an early novice lifter, since I've just entered the point where strength gains are considerably slower.

Squat

I have the most fun doing squats, out of all the 3 lifts.  It's such a fun movement.  But that being said, my squat is still a huge work in progress.  It's a really difficult movement, and it's actually a lot more technical than it seems.  Here are some of the things I've done to help me get stronger at the squat.

1. I started sticking my knees out more, on purpose.  

When I was squatting in college, one of the things I always heard about with squatting was I should never ever get my knees in front of my toes.  Because if I did, I'll put too much pressure on my knees and I'll get injured.  And I didn't want to get injured so I followed this.

As I started getting back into squatting heavier though, I realized that my back and hips were taking a beating.  I was doing more of a "good morning" squat, where I would sink down, shoot my hips up first, and then use my hamstrings and back to bring me back into standing.  And I mean it worked, I was lifting heavy.  But it wasn't pretty, and while my back wasn't in pain or anything like that, I had this gut feeling that it would start to hurt more if I went any heavier.  And plus I felt this limit with the way I was squatting.

When I was getting frustrated with my squat, I came across a video by Zack Telander about how he got his squat up.  There were two main things I got from his video, besides the always-important point of good sleep and nutrition, and that was core tightness/postion and bar speed.  The point on speed was especially important for me, because it helped me realize that, with the linear progression squat workout I was on at that time, the weights were getting way too heavy for me to even thing about speed.  That was a big reason for me to switch to RPE based training, but I feel like that's something almost every lifter goes into when gains start to not become so consistent, so I don't feel the need to go into too much detail about that.  But what I will say about RPE is that it's lifted a lot of stress off me in terms of training, because with RPE I know the intensity of each set that the workout expects from me.  Linear progression and percentage based workouts don't offer that same flexibility, so that's something I really appreciate.  It's made training more intuitive and fun.

But so anyways back to the point about speed.  So one week I decided to focus on speed when squatting, and I realized that, naturally, my form got better.  And specifically, I wasn't doing a good morning squat.  I was squatting down and coming up the same exact way.  I realized through focusing on speed that I was also focusing on my form a lot more, and that it was putting a lot of pressure off my back.

At around the same time this was happening, I also listened to more of what Zack Telander had to say about squatting.  I listened to his podcasts, and I also started listening to more weightlifters, rather than powerlifters, talk about the squat.  And this was really key for me, because I got to see how to look at the squat from the perspective of people who use it to get stronger for their real sport (weightlifters), instead of how to add more weight on the bar, because that's the end all be all (powerlifters).

How I see it is that, for a lot of powerlifters their hamstrings/glutes/hips are way stronger than their quads.  And so if you want to lift more weight, it makes sense to want to use those stronger muscles more.  That's why powerlifters do low bar squats, and that's why there's an emphasis on "hip drive" and loading up on the posterior chain.  In fact, if you watch this video where Ed Coan explains the squat, you can see him comparing the squat to a "good morning", and at one point Silent Mike even says it's not that much different from a conventional deadlift, in terms of stance and positioning.  And that's kind of the conventional wisdom you get in powerlifting in general: low bar, stick the butt out so you feel the hips and hamstrings more.  I was watching Alan Thrall videos and that was his wisdom too.  And I'm not here to say that they're wrong, I mean they're hell of a lot stronger than me, and they've been successful in their methods.

So now we'll move onto how weightlifters see the squat.  They like to use the squat as a great way to build base strength so they can perform better on their lifts (snatch and clean & jerk).  And so when weightlifters approach the squat, they're looking to build on mainly two things: explosiveness and leg strength.  The first part, explosiveness, seems pretty self-explanatory: since Olympic lifts are meant to be performed quickly and explosively, obviously there would be an emphasis on that in their squat training as well.  (Also, since Force = Mass * Acceleration, moving the weights quickly is an integral part of more effectively training the legs, or at least it seems supported by this study).  But I want to talk a little bit more in depth about the second point.

So, leg strength.  What I thought before was, well I'm doing squats, and no matter how I do them, I should be training my legs, right?  But that wasn't necessarily the case.  When listening to Zack Telander and (I think someone who is/was ZT's coach?) Max Aita, the focus was on building the quads.  And the way to build the quads was to squat high bar, and to make sure the knees are forced outward enough so that the weight is being lifted more by the quads on the way up.  The videos I watched to learn this were this one and this one.

So what I learned from this was that,

1. with the "good morning" squats I was doing, I was probably training my back more than I was training my legs, and
2. since overly depending on my back was counter to an explosive, efficient squat (for me), I wanted to train my legs more.  

God, that was long as hell to type out... I didn't think it would be this long.  But yeah, that was how I got to thinking, I need to train my legs more, and specifically my quads.

So I took Max Aita's squat advice, came back into the gym, went like 20% lighter for my usual lifts, and checked if it felt better.  And yeah, it did.  I felt like my movement was way more efficient with the focus on using my quads/ keeping a neutral back/ going straight up and down, and most of all, I felt my quads growing.  Like it's funny because, at one point before, I was not getting sore in my quads anymore, and I was thinking huh, maybe I'm not doing enough reps, I should bump that up, or huh, maybe I've gotten stronger.  But the fact was that, it was probably that I wasn't focusing on my quads to lift the weight.  As soon as I emphasized them, I felt them getting worked, and getting bigger and stronger.

But honestly, I think what matters to me most is that I'm happy doing squats this way.  I don't feel an intense weight on my back, and it just feels good to have my hips fully under the bar, and I'm pushing it back up with my quads and my then following with my hamstrings/glutes.  I'm moving quicker and more efficiently.  It sucks that I had to drop weight to get to a more comfortable place, and that it'll take me a while to get back to where I thought I was.  But I'm glad I found out about this, it's like there's a whole other part of my legs that were completely untrained and can now get even stronger.  Like there's potential for me, when before I couldn't see where specifically I could start getting stronger from.

So yeah, that tweak has helped me feel a lot better about my squat.


2. I bought weightlifting shoes.  

Honestly I didn't think I needed them.  I think it never even crossed my mind in college because I had no money.  Especially because, if you want to get the good ones the prices are no joke.  Romaleo's cost like 300 bucks easy.

I got mine for mainly 3 reasons:

1. They were cheap.  This is honestly probably the biggest reason.  I got the Adidas Leistung 16 II's.  They're notorious for the 1 inch heel, which is slightly above average and therefore makes it fairly controversial in the weightlifting community.  But they were marked down from like $250 to $99 when I got them, so that was nice.  Apparently Adidas does this thing with their weightlifting shoes where they make a new model every Olympics, so they mark down the older models.  So yeah, good timing.  Also I wasn't super particular about heel size or fit, since I was really only going to squat in them.  If I start weightlifting in the future, I might think a little harder about the particular shoe I want.  But for now these shoes work, and they work really well. 
2. Achilles problems.  I'd like to cover issues with my achilles/calves in another post, but basically, it felt uncomfortable squatting deep because of restrictions in my achilles tendon.  So for that the shoes really helped. 
3. Stability.  I didn't realize how big of a deal stability was for me in the squat until I squatted barefoot one day, spontaneously.  It was to test my one rep max, and it just felt better to squat barefoot.  I hit some numbers I wanted to hit, I think that was when I did 145kg.  The next week I did my normal squat workout barefoot, and I realized how much easier it was.  I had effectively added something like 15kg on my calculated 1 rep max, just by taking my shoes off.  It was insane.  But the shoes I was squatting in before were tennis shoes, so now that makes sense.  So yeah, the stability and heel of weightlifting shoes have really helped make my squats feel solid.  

Deadlift

Since my back and hip muscles are pretty strong, deadlifts were never a problem for me.  Grip, however, always has been.  So here are some things I did to help with my grip.

1. Hook Grip.

I remember vaguely hearing about hook grip in college.  But back then I was like, nah, I don't need it.  I used liquid chalk, and if I felt my grip was struggling, I would just rest until my grip felt strong enough to pull another set.  But I think back then I didn't try it out more out of not knowing how popular/ helpful it was, rather than me being afraid of my thumbs getting injured, etc.  Also, it's kind of iffy on if my gym allows chalk, since I've never seen anyone use it.  So I've been using hook grip as a way to stay away from having to use chalk.  Should I find a better gym?  Probably, but it's close, it's cheap, and it works so yeah, I'll stick to it for a while.

For anyone reading this who's hesitant about hook grip, or just can't seem to figure it out, I'll try to lay out how it actually works (at least for me), and some common issues I went through when trying to figure it out.

How it works:

This is covered in a lot of places like YouTube, so I won't go into too much detail.  But basically you wrap your thumb around the bar, as vertically as possible, and then wrap your other fingers (most importantly your index and middle fingers) around the thumb to lock that position.  And then you want to squeeze your thumb around the bar, and squeeze your fingers around your thumb.  And that's pretty much it.

Common issues:

• You forget to use your thumb in the lift.  A lot of the popular videos I watched on YouTube about hook grip talk a lot about "squeezing the hell out of your thumb" with your other fingers, but they fail to mention that the thumb has to squeeze the hell out of the bar too, in order for the grip to work.  (I actually only found out about this by reading it on another blog, which I would link but can't seem to find...). If the thumb isn't squeezing, it's just a normal grip with your thumb in your hand, which actually makes the lift that much harder.  The things is, your thumb muscle is huge and is really really strong.  So use that to your advantage, and hook that thumb strong around the bar.  It's called hook grip for a reason...
• Your fingers slip from around your thumb.  Maybe it's just a me problem because I have really sweaty hands, but maybe you might run into this too.  What I do to combat this is to wrap adhesive tape around my thumb so that my fingers can wrap around a texture that's grippier than my wet skin.  I see olympic weightlifters do it but with athletic tape, and I'm guessing it's for the same reason?  I learned this trick from Alan Thrall I think.  He said it was a good way to combat pain from potentially aggravating the thumbnail, which I haven't really had yet, but yeah, for me it's about not slipping. 
• Your calluses get gnarlier.  When I did double overhand, I actually never had to really worry about calluses getting really bad.  And that was because, when you grip with just your fingers and not your thumb, the weight of the bar will be in your fingers.  I wish I had some pictures to explain this, but we'll have to do with words.  If you have a bar in front of you, or anything like a pole, try to hold it normally double overhand.  Now try a hook grip.  You'll realize that since the bar is held tight to your palm by your thumb, when it starts rolling out when you're tired, it'll roll on top of all that skin on your hand.  Before hook grip I think I had calluses but nothing really major.  After hook grip, I tore 4 calluses, and 2 of them were quite painful.  The first one was pretty bad for sure.  But I've realized that's just the nature of hook grip.
  
  If you're scared about tearing a callus, or you've torn one already but are still looking to train (which you should, unless that shit's like really bad), I recommend you check out Brian Alsruhe's video on that.  Basically the point of the video is, you should remove calluses before they tear if it's safe to do so, and you can protect your torn callus hands by using athletic tape.  Check out the video for those instructions since it's a little detailed.
  
  Of course, I guess I could have used lifting gloves.  I heard that it makes your grip weaker because of the thickness of the gloves, but I don't know, they probably have thin ones.  But yeah, I don't use gloves.  Probably because I started using the stuff I'm about to talk about next:

2. Lifting Straps.  

So I bought them a week ago and I used them today for the first time actually, for deadlifts.  It's amazing.  The idea is, you wrap your straps around the bar so that it'll roll against the way it'll usually roll in a double overhand grip.  And grip was not a matter for me at all today.  I did what I think are my heaviest sets of 5 yet at 120kg, and they went up really easily.

But I think I want to emphasize why grip technique and aids were so important to me, and that was because I was really finding it to be a limit in how much I was lifting, in terms of weight but also really in terms of form.  There would be weights that I would know I could do well, but because of loose grip, I'd have to stay over the bar a lot longer than I wanted to, which put a lot of stress on my back.  So it was nice to be able to really hit my hamstrings and glutes, while keeping my back safe, all because of straps and hook grip.

I also try not to rely on both of these too much either.  I only used straps for my last 2 sets today, and i like to do more than half of my working sets with pure double overhand.

Bench

I never liked benching all that much in college, and I don't really like it all that much now too.  It's a weird way of measuring upper body strength.  But also I've just been so injured in my left shoulder, in college especially.  I stopped benching in college because I thought benching would always hurt my shoulder if I got into a higher rep range and heavier weights.

But it's funny and amazing because I actually got back into benching.  And I'll try to show what I went through before being able to bench normally, with very little pain.

1. I tried reverse grip bench, and got hurt more.

I first got this idea from Greg Nuckols, who I think only benches reverse now, because of his shoulder problems.  I read what his problems were specifically, and I think I remember it saying something like an impingement of some sort, and I was like yeah, that kind of sounds like what I have.  So I decided to try the reverse grip to see if it was any good.

The first week went pretty well, no shoulder pain, and I felt pretty strong using it.  As the weights got heavier though, I could feel that my arm mobility was not good enough to be doing reverse grip.

So here's specifically what happened.  My arm mobility for external rotation sucks (at the shoulder), and so because I didn't have enough rotation, I had to overcompensate for rotation at one of the joints in my bench press.  So that could have been either my shoulder, elbows, or my wrists.  In my case it was my elbows that overcompensated, and specifically my right elbow.  It twisted too hard when I was doing reverse grip, and so it hurt for like a good week.  I kept going with the grip for like 2 weeks, but then I realized the heavier I got the more I was going to hurt my elbow.  So I stopped. 

2. I focused on mobility.  

So after reverse grip failed, I had a choice to either going back to just dumbbell presses, or try the conventional bench press.  I chose the latter.  And to my surprise, I didn't feel that much pain in my shoulders afterwards.  I felt that maybe I could keep doing these and stack a little more weight. 

I've been benching for like a solid 3 months now, and it still doesn't hurt.  To ensure that I won't get injured when I stack more weight on, I stretch certain issue points I have.  And those specifically are my pecs, lats, and shoulders. 

So you might ask me, how did I know how to focus on those three?  What I did was I did a self-diagnosis thing with Squat University's article on shoulder pain.  It's pretty damn extensive, and you'll need to be at the gym to do these if you really want to go through every single step, but I went through most of them to see which ones I might react to. 

Everyone's shoulder issue is probably different so I can't really speak for everyone, but since I've lived the typical suburban childhood and lifestyle of sitting in front of a computer for the whole day, shoulders rounded and never stretching and yada yada, so I think if you've lived a similar lifestyle, you might have very similar issues to what I've had, especially pec and lat tightness. 

So for pecs, I basically roll them out with my lacrosse ball, especially right under the collarbone since that feels pretty tight for me.  Then for lats, same thing, roll it out with a lacrosse ball.  I was surprised how tight I was in that region, especially around the bottom of the rib cage, and through my side abs.  (Yeah, apparently the lat stretches that far, so it'll be a long stretch...). Finally for my shoulders, I do this... it's hard to explain, but I can't find a video... let me find one... ok it's this stretch at 8:44.  Great stretch to externally rotate the shoulders, but also what I like doing is to stretch my neck while doing this too, since it helps hit the spot real well, as opposed to a straight neck stretch, which never felt right for me. 

3. I never do reps I might fail.  

I realized that, when I try to ego lift and do way more than I'm capable of, my form gets really ugly.  And ugly form bench press is honestly the most common way I hurt myself in the past.  If my arch collapses, if I'm leaning onto one side more to get leverage for my weaker right/ left arm, that's not a good rep for me.  So I've just been super conservative with how much weight I stack on. 

4. I move the barbell up slightly before it hits my chest.

I don't know if I have the mobility to get the bar down to my chest consistently.  Until I do, I'm stopping short of it.  It also helps me to focus more on my pecs and triceps in supporting the weight at the bottom position, rather than letting it rest on my chest for a quick second, and relaxing my muscles.  So I think it's safer for me in the long run. 

Conclusion

Wow this took a lot longer, and was a lot longer, than I expected... I didn't really get to go into other stuff too, like mobility and diet, which I was hoping to add on as a sort of extra thing.  But yup, these are my current thoughts on my own lifting at this moment.  I might do a follow up post on how some of my tweaks/ tips have actually helped me.  My squat actually became a lot faster and more consistent because of the quad-focused training.  Hopefully I can get into more detail about that later.  Thanks for reading.