thread of getting sw0le

don't bar squat then

just squat using your body weight til you figure out the issue

work on lower ab exercises using your body weight maybe? would you say you have strong legs and abs? (the main muscle groups squats hit) if not, you can work on strengthening those muscle groups first -- olympic barbell weights ~44lbs, regular barbell i think is around half of that?

if hip mobility is an issue, try yoga moves that reduce tension and that allow for better hip reflexor mobility (eg google yoga poses hip reflexor)

I don't think leg strength is an issue -- I do weighted lunges with two 50lb kettlebells, I do front squats with a 100lb dumbbell, etc. I also don't think ab strength is, e.g. I have no problem deadlifting with good form, and a lot of that is leg and ab strength. Hip mobility definitely may be an issue, and possibly hamstring flexibility and even shoulder mobility -- I have persistent tightness behind my shoulder blade and I feel like that interferes with me getting my spine right. Again it's not like I feel my back curving from stress, it's more like it naturally curves when I'm in that position and I can't get it to do otherwise.

oh i see

yoga loosens you up, so maybe that might help?

other than that i'm out of ideas

Yeah thinking maybe yoga is the answer. Just have to find a way to work that in.

If I want to try an A/B split, is it possible to get in all of the following exercises, and if so, how would you split them:

Bench Press
Deadlift
Overhead Press
Squat
Pull-up

I am sort of thinking Deadlift/Overhead Press/Pull-up on one day and Bench/Squat the other day? Deadlift and Pull-up in the same day has the slight disadvantage of my hands/grip being tired by the time I do the pull-ups.

That's how I usually see it divided.

that's how i do it more or less.

don't totally know what's going on with your lower back but it sounds like you aren't extending your spine as much as you could so my two-cent suggestion is to try chair poses, which are basically free squats but you extend your arms up, in line with your spine. keep your knees directly over your feet and really send your hips backward, keep extending your spine with every in-breath, activate your core / low abs with the out breath. go as low as you can without sending your knees forward. hold for like 10-15 breaths and imagine you're a human high-voltage warning icon, basically. also, bridge and boat pose can help with strength in your lower core so you can extend properly and keep that shit straight.

On some meds that have suppressed my appetite a bit, and it's crazy and dispiriting how fast I am shrinking. Could be mostly in my head, but it feels like all my gains are melting away by the day

I was really getting into squats and feeling the benefits. Then out of the blue and not immediately after exercise, my knees started aching and I found it a struggle just to walk down stairs. It's gotten a bit easier, and yesterday I managed to do a few unweighted squats, but the pain is still there. Bit of a mystery really and no idea what might have caused it as I'm not sure it was the squats themselves.

Doctor.

almost getting my squat back to where is was like 6 months ago. As long as it takes to gain strength it sure does go away fast. Plus i feel like i'm pretty much at the point where it will take a drastic change in diet and overall program to continue with the gainz. tbh I don't think i have that level of dedication.

benefit of not squatting much for a while though is that my overhead press got a lot stronger and that has always been weak.

don't totally know what's going on with your lower back but it sounds like you aren't extending your spine as much as you could so my two-cent suggestion is to try chair poses, which are basically free squats but you extend your arms up, in line with your spine. keep your knees directly over your feet and really send your hips backward, keep extending your spine with every in-breath, activate your core / low abs with the out breath. go as low as you can without sending your knees forward. hold for like 10-15 breaths and imagine you're a human high-voltage warning icon, basically. also, bridge and boat pose can help with strength in your lower core so you can extend properly and keep that shit straight.

― map, Monday, April 4, 2016 9:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is good. Thx. Already tried it last night and I am already feeling how I can extend my spine better.

kewl

a good complement to the chair pose might be an ass-to-grass squat, sitting on your heels with your feet flat on the floor... you can squat from a standing position or get up from a seated position; try it both ways, notice what's going on with your back and hips, and maybe work on holding that position for a while

Yeah I have actually been doing assisted ass-to-grass for mobility and it has helped a good amount. It's only recently that I started paying enough attention to notice both the lower-back rounding and some inward pronation -- was able to correct that but working on the back.

x-post: knees and shoulders are dumb -- sometimes the fatigue pain in those areas feels real close to injury pain; the fact that it comes a fair bit after exercise is a clue that it's fatigue pain. If you can walk through it and it doesn't get worse and gets better within a day or so, you're ok.

Squatted today and it was much better. The chair pose thing got me to align my spine right, was a huge help. Also focused a lot on loosening up my tight shoulder since it interferes with my alignment. Thanks, swolebro.

Like a lot of things with form it was as much a "kinesthetic intelligence" issue as it was a physical one.

it's there, you just gotta find it. like chiseling the statue out of the rock

Svelte, average looking dude here right now deadlifting 400. P impressive.

lil Wayne?

Lol. Idk I see this dude a lot here. Seems to be seriously *training*. Does a ton of low rep sets.

Still on Starting Strength, doing much better after I just started eating more and bought some 1.25 lb plates so I can go up even just a tiny bit each session.

But I'm still really struggling with the power clean, and after a lot of searching (not limited to the SS forums) have noticed something: has Mark Rippetoe ever given a straight answer to a beginner legitimately in need of help it is he just congenitally unable to be anything but a snide, condescending dick? The site culture on his forums is bizarre; it's up to charitably minded members to do anything but accuse people of stealing the book and make cracks like "maybe you have ovarian cancer."

there's this one dude who works out at the y, he's fit admittedly but this dude will see other ppl (that he knows but not like that well) and be like 'that's not how you do it, here's how you do it' and then work in on the next set all grunting and going 'like this' over and over in this kind of randy savage tone. any way i make him sound worse than he is really, those dudes are humoring him, but two things he does that kind of amuse and befuddle me is he'll say 'this isn't a library, it's a barbecue' like there's some wisdom there? also, apropos of nothing, he'll occasionally just kinda blurt out 'tarantino!' it's like he has some kind of meathead tourette's.

loving your gym, balls. that is amazing.

lololol @ "this isn't a library, it's a barbecue"

We're not hitchhiking anymore! WE'RE RIDING!

TARANTINO!

'this isn't a library, it's a barbecue'

lol send this to @animatedtext

But I'm still really struggling with the power clean where do you feel your issues are with the clean ?

The long arms problem, still. I've been trying to get into the gym and practice with just the bar whenever I can, but no matter how narrow or wide I make my grip or whatever weird shit I do with my shoulders, I can't raise my elbows even close to parallel with the floor without jamming the bar into my neck.

"This isn't a library, it's a barbecue" is dumb oaf talk for "I grunt when I lift, get over it." Although I am somewhat sympathetic to the concept -- I hate getting dumb looks when I count a little louder on my last reps -- dudes who say stuff like this are ostentatious show-offs who grunt like porno dudes throughout their entire routine for no reason other than their own joy.

I'm ok with the idea of there being different kinds of gyms and that if you really really feel the need to grunt a lot you should go to a proper lifting gym.

Tbh to get to a good front rack with elbows up youre going to jam that bar in your throat and it's going to be somewhat uncomfortable.at least ime anyways. Xpost to TT

Working on just wrist flexibility helped me some though

x-post: as opposed to an improper lifting gym? If you have weights at your gym, you're going to have some people making sounds of exertion, I think. I am not advocating for the 'roided out maniac, but I don't get zero-tolerance-for-grunting gyms at all. I work out at a gym with competitive bodybuilders and competitive weight lifters, and it's not the grunt-fest you'd imagine for regular work-outs with these dudes -- it gets loud when they are entering their competition headspace, but otherwise, it's no louder (and sometimes less disruptive) than folks talking too much on the treadmills.

I think "proper lifting gym" is code for "any place other than where I am at" that said I don't find grunting to be a big deal, but specific dude cited above sounds annoying.

he sounds amazing.

I'm glad to have the library/BBQ mystery cleared up, but I'm still baffled by TARANTINO!

TARANTINO!

deadlift pr on saturday: 3x3 @ 255

not a whole lot on a global scale but it felt pretty good! def at the point where i feel my grip giving out before my back does

I hit 3x265 last week. My deadlift weirdly seems to progress faster than my other lifts. I wonder if I'm just built for it - short stout legs, long arms for my body.

I went for my first run tonight since i started seriously lifting -- granted it was perfect, cool running weather, but man, running is so much easier for me now, it's like my body just does what it's supposed to do and I don't have to drag it along.

Had a breakthrough with breathing today, really figured out how to use the inhale for stability and the exhale for explosiveness and got the timing better. Strength, endurance and speed were all improved.

i turn away from the mic to breathe in

i used to hold my breath with exertion but now i try to keep breathing all the time, breathe more not less, and do the ujayi yoga breathing where you don't lose your core. also getting more breath in more often. helps me get through the last squat or two with better form.

I only tried this on Bench and Squat so far, which is what I did today, but I started to take a full breath in before lowering the weight, lower the weight all the way with my breath sucked in, and then breathe out somewhat forcefully as I raise the weight -- it seems to make it easier for me to raise the weight, like my physical pushing is in line with my breath pushing. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be for deadlifts or pullups.

I also on some reps did a full breath in and out before doing another rep.