210 AMRAP on squats (I did 8 reps smh)
http://youtu.be/Bay3L-U7aW0
I think I need to control my gaze more. Its probably because of the stupid mirrors. Brolic, that cue you told me was really hard to do. I'm going to continue to work on it
Your squat reminds me of my friends from a few years ago. He never really fixed it and still has issues. I was going to recommend packing your neck and keeping your spine neutral but he has always done that and the way the motion breaks down appears to be similar. He also tried Adipowers, Nikes, etc. For the first 18 mos he wore chucks but the problems were still there, so technically I am not sure how much the barefoot would have helped, although I know for a fact the raised heels didn't help him at all.
If I pause on your video in the last rep when you struggle the most, in the few frames around 1:00 timestamp, it appears you have rocked forward a bit and your posterior chain levers are all out of prime position relative to your back and the load position. This is apparent on all the other reps but this is the point it is most exacerbated and slowed down. Kind of like on a DL when your ass shoots up first, I feel like you kind of rock forward on your toes on all your reps a bit and when this is repeated, fatigue begins to break down the motion beginning at the weakest points of loading. Watch your knees starting from the first rep, at the bottom of the hole they bounce forward and then your ass bounces back. It all kind of begins there.
It's not really a "rainbow" so much as a "zig-zag" bar path. You can see a very similar movement pattern in
this old video I took of my friends 3x5 @ 275. Every. Fucking. Rep. I superimposed all 3 of his sets with a transparent vertical line at the start position of the bar path so he could see where and how bad it was deviating. This behavior is exhibited on each rep but is most egregious at the fatigue point. The fifth rep of each set is awful and the third set is most particularly terrible. The fifth reps start at 0:16 and each one is 10% worse than the other and basically identical.
That is what I am seeing here, your levers go out of whack a bit because your ass goes up independent of your shoulders and the bar pitches forward and down a little, which means your chest has collapsed, then you kind of take the rest of the load and pull it up with your back and it is clearly visible through not only the zig zag bar path but the point at which the load movement begins to suffer (deviate and slow) the most.
So I would suggest focusing on keeping a balanced load feeling in your feet, not too much on the heels or the toes. Cueing your chest forced up was something I learned with low bar position mechanics providing the muscle-mass shelf by squeezing your elbows back and up. So maybe focus more on those cues and drop the gaze at the upper corner where the wall and the ceiling meet as it's clearly not helping keep your chest proud and can only cause upper cervical strain at this point.
If you were to look at the ideal low bar squat the angle and distance between the shoulders/chest/bar load position and hips never change. The ball sockets of the hips and the final break at the knees dictate the entire range of motion in terms of vertical travel. When that angle becomes divorced and the ass shoots up first then it turns into a weird half-squat half-good morning that's not good for anybody. For reference here is the last video I personally have recorded from an
AMRAP Squat set, hopefully that illustrates the ideal, although I realize it is certainly not perfect by any means.
OK now that I have addressed the actual substance of your video it's time to notice the weird background stuff! Priorities, people - I hate it when someone posts a form video and the only comments are on some irrelevant spaz/chic in the background. So now that I have excused myself by addressing the substance, I will now address the nonsense.
I will never understand people who squat in an open rack and carry it all the way out past the safety bars. The only guy who does that in my gym gets a pass because he is a semi-pro BB and can squat 500 pounds. Also I haven't even seen him do those lately, instead he takes a 45 hex plate out and stands his heels on the edge of the plate with his feet almost touching, then he does the deepest high-bar 3x10's I have ever seen straight up ass to grass - 225, 275 then finish with 315. That is justified because the safety bar would surely fuck up his ROM and clearly he does not need it at that weight level. Other than that single example, I have never seen a legit reason to walk the load out of the rack. OR even more aggressively ridiculous, using the POWER CAGE but from the outside hooks, so again you have no actual safety mechanisms in place. GG.
Found the source of my shoulder issues. My pec is junky as hell and apparently so are my traps and rhomboids.
Used my theracane on my back and it's so tight it felt like my front delt as gonna rip off. Then I lacrosse balled my pec and I felt a bunch if shit, really big shit, break free.
Very interesting, I feel similarly, in that my shoulder health also seems to be highly related to how tight/junky my pecs and traps are. I had never once passed over those areas with my theracane and I started doing this two weeks ago, shoulders have never felt better.
We go OT all the time. I was just concerned especially with two posts on a new page of it getting out of hand.
Nah thanks for this, I was already sick of it and didn't want to be the one to rain on the basic parade.
425 bench was a nogo. Should have known to aim lower since my shoulder and left pec have been tight. Good news is 405 went up incredibly easy before this.
Straight up beast. You are my bench press heroooooo! Actually scratch that, you are my compound lift hero, full stop. I pay attention to all your comments and have learned a lot from your shared experience as you have become more comfortable and adept at pushing heavier weight around. Thank you.
Jesus fuck, that's incredible. Fucking amazing.
That is so amazing! I really love that photo as well! <3 I am looking forward to see that video! Absolutely awesome kitty!
Thank you for the kind words, I know we don't share "art" here very much, but that is one area I have really been pushing myself over the past year outside of the weight room. I was not sure if anyone would be interested, but I'll keep it in mind when the post processing is completed on the video and hopefully be able to share that as well. I genuinely appreciate the support and am glad you two appreciated the shot!
