Concepts for Beginning Powerlifters 1 - Focus on small change

One of the challenges being new in this sport is the amount of information  that you need to contextualise and  apply to your training. I have learned over the last year that it's important to just stick to 2 or 3 key things per movement and seek mastery in those before moving on.

For example my squat has been all over the place this last year as I experimented with many different aspects of technique. As a consequence each session felt like I was starting over as I hadn't really embedded and mastered the technique change I had been working on.

Now I have focused on picking just 1 or two aspects, in my case hip and ankle mobility as I believed this would give me a much stronger position out of the hole and help me stay a little more 'chest up'. Importantly this also removed lots of confusion and dissonance each session as I only had to focus on the one aspect.

It's been 2 months and my squat is looking much better. In fact I videoed my session today and it was pleasing to see my positioning looking far more consistent. Importantly the bar path is staying straight, constantly tracking over the mid-foot allowing me to drive strongly from the bottom.

The key going forward is to keep applying the same cues so that this movement pattern becomes second nature. I have now added work to improve my T-spine mobility but I am concious to reinforce my previous technique gains so I don't regress in these areas.

There are no guarentees in this sport but I am looking forward to Nationals, in fact I am booking flights tonight so it is locked and loaded!

Stay Strong

Thomo