Day 2 today, Wendler bench, assistance squat and chins. Another one of those perfect Saturday sessions, few people in the gym , light music and just the rythmic crunch of olympic plates hitting the rack.
Bench is feeling very good, particularly now that I have focused on upper back work. As a consequence I feel much more innervation of the middle back as I lift and therefore much tighter. Still need to work on foot placement as tight hip flexors amongst other things are effecting my ability to get in an optimal position.
Since I have come back from injury I have dropped weight on both deadlift and squat enormously so that I can focus on working on my weak points without reinforcing the poor form that would come from pushing too heavy a weight. However during rest between sets today I witnessed a great illustration that you should never 'trust' how your lift is feeling rather always get objective evidence in the form of a video.
I overhead one of the guys suggesting that he had issues around the squat etc and that he was really working into some good form. Interestingly watching his sets it appeared the exact opposite was the case, his squat form had some obvious technical issues when going for depth.
From watching today it appears he has very tight hip flexors and perhaps his stance is a little narrow. Overall he sets up ok but as he squats back and approaches the limits of his flexibility (approximately 2 inches+ above parallel) the fun begins. This is where it gets nasty, as he pushes deeper his hips stay above parallel and he goes into a pretty nasty spinal flexion that results in him being completely curved forward in the spine. This impacts his hip drive out of the hole not to mention the danger for his spine full flexed with a loaded barbell (yes and before you say that the stone lift in strongmen comps requires rounded back lifting, that is an event specifically trained for where the flexion is controlled and the back is conditioned!)
The problem he has is that when spinal flexing for that last couple inches of depth it often feels like you are actually getting a good deep squat. I know as I had this problem myself. It's quite insidious and unless you actually video it you are none the wiser or as in this picture have someone spotting you to check....
Thankfully I picked up on it quite early through taking videos of my squat and have been working on my tight points ever since. In fact since I have been back training I have been videoing 1-2 sets of every squat and deadlift session weekly. That way I can't get to far out of alignment without picking it up. In fact I can point out a good 3-4 issues with each of my major lifts but each video they are getting better.
So the point of this post is that there is no excuse in this day and age of phones and tablets to be unaware of shit form. Even more importantly if you have shit form and you video it make sure you acknowledge it (be objective) and get the fuck on with fixing it.
Stay Strong
Thomo
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