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  #131  
Old 11-16-2007, 12:01 AM
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Its a good feeling getting those PR's hey hopper.

Marv.
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  #132  
Old 11-16-2007, 10:55 AM
EricT EricT is offline
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Besides flexibility, working at it, and general strenght and stabibility...the secret to your squat "problems" are all in the glutes. On your squat vid I noticed that your lower back rounded out at the bottom a bit and that you just said you are not going as deep. Also that you are working on keeping your knees out..which I take to mean keeping them from caving in rather than having them stick out

Try these two tests if you can. Get down into a squat position, bw only, and take care to really try to tighten up and engage the glutes. If you can really get them firing what you will notice, in the bottom position, is that as you tighthen them your knees pull outwards. All the bullshit little methods people prescribe, like putting a ball between your knees and all that, are just that...bullshit. It's all in the glutes, baby!

Same thing for the back rounding out. For that try this exercise/stretch for working on depth without the butt-wink (I really shouldn't be giving this secret away ).

Stand in front of your rack upright so you can hold on to it. Grab onto it at around waist height or so. Get yourself into a position for squatting. Now what you want to do, rather than just sitting back and dropping into a squat is to PULL yourself down into a squat using the hip flexors. I'll expand on that.

Just like that little relationship between the knees and the glutes there is a relationship between the hip flexors and glutes. What you shoud notice is that when you tighten and engage the hip flexors (and quads) the glutes should fire and tighten up also. If they don't, then you have discovered a fundamental problem...your glutes ain't cominng to work so you would have to address that.

So, after establishing a good tight, neutral spine, you pull youself down into a squat using your hip flexors. Like pretending they are rubber bands. As you do that your glutes will engage and feel very tight and active along with your hams to some extent. As you get into the bottom position you want to keep the glutes firing. Then you can try to establish more depth. Sort of push down and wiggle into it. All with the glutes working. Here is the other little magical relationship you should notice. When your glutes are really working in the bottom position like that, your lower back won't cave under. It can't. As soon as you relax that relationship while trying to get deeper, the back will begin rounding out more.

That is the secret to it. It doesn't mean that it won't take work to get this going while you are actually squatting. But it gives you something to go far that is a lot less nebulous than this whole working on it though will alone. If you do try box squats this is something you need to be aware of. Most people actually completely relax their lower spine when they sit down on the box.

Things to engage the glutes more wouldn't hurt. Glute bridges. I find pullthroughs to be fantastic for that also.
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.
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  #133  
Old 11-16-2007, 09:01 PM
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WOW thanks Eric

Great post I appreciate the time that must have taken you to type up.I printed it out and Ill keep trying to do as you describe.

I have been thinking about doing pullthroughs before and was wondering what day to add them on? I was thinking Fridays for 3 sets of 8-10? Sound OK?

Once again thanks for the help.

Marv it sure does feel great hittin PRs mate, nothing better!
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  #134  
Old 11-17-2007, 12:05 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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That would be a logical choice being as it gives you that extra recovery time but for now I wouldn't treat them as more than an activation exercise. Maybe keep it to 2 sets and don't focus on going as heavy as possible but rather on using the glutes as the primary hip extensors. If you go too heavy then whatever compensation patterns you normally use will just take over. But if you keep it light enough you can really "feel" the glutes (and hams). Pullthroughs are great for that. Once you really get the glutes working you can progress really quickly on them. But at first you are likely to have some really sore glutes and hams so again that's another reason to keep the sets low at first.

One the glutes thing I want to mention a few things for anyone who cares so they can see the fundamental logic and also see that I am not saying something "different". A lot of times when it comes to the lower back rounding out people will tell you it has a lot to do with hamstring flexiblity. Which it can. So I mentioned flexibility at the beginning of that post. But what most people don't recognize is that tight hamstrings VERY often go along with weak glutes. Also tight lumbar extensors, etc. also. So you see this is just another part of the equation. Just working on hamstring flexibility alone will help to some extent but it won't solve the problem completely. Of course the whole back will need to be strong but that will really come along with it. It's not really back strength that is the problem even though most people just say to do extensions for almost any problem they see concerning the lower body, lol.

Last edited by EricT; 11-17-2007 at 12:43 PM.
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  #135  
Old 11-17-2007, 12:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HIThopper View Post
I have been thinking about doing pullthroughs before and was wondering what day to add them on? I was thinking Fridays for 3 sets of 8-10? Sound OK?
when i was on the texas method earlier this year i did the pull throughs on this day too. friday. the most looked forward to day of the week
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  #136  
Old 11-17-2007, 12:45 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Now I'm wondering if pull-throughs are on Rip's list of "legitimate" assistance movements? Probably not. Well you can choose your poison and hope that power-cleans solve all your problems
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  #137  
Old 11-19-2007, 08:59 PM
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Hi folks

Stress day yesterday, man it was hard.I hit all my reps on squats but had a few of them with some form errors.I tried my best Eric to do as you instructed and my glutes are sore as hell today,it must have worked! Missed the last rep on bench, GAY, but still a slight improvement I missed 3 reps last week.Chins I nailed easy, only did 3x5 but they were all good reps!

Stress Day 19/11/07
Squat 5x5 93.5kg
Bench 4x5,4 73.5kg
Chin 3x5 BW+10kg

With bench my thoughts are to drop the poundage and work my way back up doing 5x5.Thoughts on this anyone would be good.I was thinking dropping down about 5-7kgs.

PS Ill try get a vid up of squats asap if I get the time, things are soooo hectic ATM.

Cheers HIThopper
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  #138  
Old 11-20-2007, 09:07 AM
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HIThopper, sir, i have a few questions and perhaps a suggestion. of course, i am not extremely familiar with your journal compared to Eric so i will probably be corrected by him soon.

anyways, i would like to know:

1.) if u got only 4 reps on the bench press last set, did u rack the bar, rest and do the 5th rep later on or did you only do 24 reps total?

2.) when you say u missed one rep does that mean u failed, the bar got stuck at the bottom and a spotter picked it up for you or does that mean u were close to getting pinned?

3.) when you say you missed a rep, at what part of your ROM did this happen? in the sense, where is your sticking point? the bottom part of the bench? mid way? lockout?

my suggestion regarding the resetting is that if u want to avoid doing that, you could do 25 reps total next time, then wait till u hit 5x5x73.5 no matter how long it takes and then add weight. if u look back at when i did the texas method, this is how my progression looked:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sentinel
W16 --->>> 180 lbs
W15 --->>> 180 lbs
W14 --->>> 175 lbs
W13 --->>> 175 lbs
W12 --->>> 170 lbs
W11 --->>> 165 lbs
W10 --->>> 165 lbs
W9 --->>> n/a
W8 --->>> 160 lbs
W7 --->>> 160 lbs
W6 --->>> 160 lbs
W5 --->>> 160 lbs
W4 --->>> 155 lbs
W3 --->>> 150 lbs
W2 --->>> 145 lbs
W1 --->>> 140 lbs
if you're interested, this are my last two workouts on the texas method (in case you want to see a pattern):

http://www.bodybuilding.net/personal...html#post34436

and

http://www.bodybuilding.net/personal...html#post34670

i have customized the number of posts per page (10) so i cant give you page numbers but its posts 164 and 165 of my journal

i hope i was of help

cheers, sir.

Anuj
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  #139  
Old 11-20-2007, 11:10 PM
Jeffo Jeffo is offline
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Hey Eric,

Interesting post on the hip flexor / glute relationship. What does this say about people who get sore hip flexors from squatting? For about the first 2-3 months of squatting I had very sore hip flexors all the time. I used to massage them in the evenings and even between sets. I've heard of others getting sore hip flexors when they begin squatting as well.

I don't have any problems with them anymore. I hope this means they've toughen up and adapted, and not that I've changed something subconsciously.

Cheers,
Jeff
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  #140  
Old 11-21-2007, 11:00 PM
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Hi Anuj thanks for the fantastic post

1) Just did 24 reps total ,I would normally wait a few mins and get the remaining reps but I was tired, fed up and pissed off!! LOL so I didnt do it.

2) got pinned hard!!!

3) Missed it off the chest at the bottom, I got it up about 2" and got stuck.

Quote:
my suggestion regarding the resetting is that if u want to avoid doing that, you could do 25 reps total next time, then wait till u hit 5x5x73.5 no matter how long it takes and then add weight. if u look back at when i did the texas method, this is how my progression looked:
I did this with chins a while back, Jeff suggested it and it worked well on PR day but moved very slowly on stress day.Ill give it a shot tho cos things will move very slowly from here on anyways I might as well milk as much as I can.

Nice journal mate I will favourite those pages and have a good look at the progress when I get a little time,things are soooo busy right now I barely have time to update this journal on time!!!
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