[quote]lift206 wrote:
IMO, improving technique and learning to strain comes hand-in-hand. The weight no longer matters when you learn what your body and muscles should be doing - this is how people auto-regulate as well. If I read the above comment when I was younger, I would think that lifting heavy and grinding is the same thing as straining (within this context) but that isn’t always the case. Now I consider straining as grinding through a weight (regardless of intensity) with solid technique because the ability to remain stable allows a person to really put up a fight. I am not saying that solid technique looks perfect either. Not making an argument against your comment but just trying to clarify that technique matters when straining effectively.
On that note, it doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t grind through weights with bad technique (unless it’s very bad). Making mistakes is how people learn and improve. There’s no excuse for not working hard if someone wants to improve.[/quote]
I appreciate the distinction you’re making between technique and form, because it’s pretty crucial. Form might go out the window on an ME movement, but you’re absolutely right in that you still want to be utilizing the right technique. It does you no good to learn how to strain with technique that you don’t intend to employ. Now, sometimes ME movement is performed with technique that is meant to simulate bad form for the sake of learning how to recover from this position (Dave Tate talked about this as “Chaos Training”), but here the technique IS “bad form”.
I perform chain suspended safety squat bar squats with a very rounded upper back because it helps me with strongman movements. Formwise, it looks terrible, but I’m employing the technique for a purpose.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I appreciate the distinction you’re making between technique and form, because it’s pretty crucial. Form might go out the window on an ME movement, but you’re absolutely right in that you still want to be utilizing the right technique. It does you no good to learn how to strain with technique that you don’t intend to employ. Now, sometimes ME movement is performed with technique that is meant to simulate bad form for the sake of learning how to recover from this position (Dave Tate talked about this as “Chaos Training”), but here the technique IS “bad form”.
I perform chain suspended safety squat bar squats with a very rounded upper back because it helps me with strongman movements. Formwise, it looks terrible, but I’m employing the technique for a purpose.[/quote]
That makes sense. It took a long time to learn to purposefully do something right. Now you’re telling me it’s beneficial to purposefully do something wrong. Damn. Thanks for the heads up, haha. Definitely something to consider in the future.
Excellent point about using heavy lifts to “teach” yourself.
Last month I did heavy inclines Tuesday, and lighter bench press on Friday. It was OK, a heavy day and a light day, but nothing special.
This month I tried declines on the heavy day. Week 1 I worked up to a heavy triple(90%?). Each rep touched at a different spot on my chest, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my elbows.
Week 2 was 5 singles with last week’s weight. I really had to fight to keep my shoulders “packed” and to keep my elbows tucked to keep the bar over my sternum, not drifting “down” towards my face.
Friday, when I played down to bench press light, something was different. I was way, way up on my traps. My setup felt really “tight” and I could feel my chest “rising to meet the bar” each rep. My bench technique had improved all by itself, like magic! The heavy declines had “taught” me to bench better. It was awesome.
Now I’m trying to come up with more lifts that can shock my brain into benching better.
[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
I have been reading some articles by Louie Simmons and Dave Tate, Louie says that he came up with DE days for lifters who couldn’t handle 4 ME days a week. Has anyone tried this setup?
My intention is no to debate DE work, that’s another topic in itself. And I am aware that you can work up to a heavy set of 1-3 after DE work. I think that raw lifters are more likely to be able to handle more frequent max effort work than equipped lifters because more bands and chains (and gear) would be used by equipped lifters, which, in effect, is overload training for raw lifters.
Any thoughts?[/quote]
I’ve tried it. Worked well for peaking(short 6-7 week cycle). But i only did ME lifts and sone abs, to help recovery
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Excellent point about using heavy lifts to “teach” yourself.
Last month I did heavy inclines Tuesday, and lighter bench press on Friday. It was OK, a heavy day and a light day, but nothing special.
This month I tried declines on the heavy day. Week 1 I worked up to a heavy triple(90%?). Each rep touched at a different spot on my chest, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my elbows.
Week 2 was 5 singles with last week’s weight. I really had to fight to keep my shoulders “packed” and to keep my elbows tucked to keep the bar over my sternum, not drifting “down” towards my face.
Friday, when I played down to bench press light, something was different. I was way, way up on my traps. My setup felt really “tight” and I could feel my chest “rising to meet the bar” each rep. My bench technique had improved all by itself, like magic! The heavy declines had “taught” me to bench better. It was awesome.
Now I’m trying to come up with more lifts that can shock my brain into benching better.
[/quote]
Great technique should transfer across lifts. It’s being able to maximize stability and recruit as many muscles as possible to execute a movement pattern. Using different variations can help with the learning process. Becoming somewhat proficient at those variations can translate to better muscle recruitment in other lifts. At least that’s my experience. Nowadays if I suck at doing a certain lift, I want to figure out why. It may not be as simple as thinking that X amount increase in lift A should increase lift B by Y amount. If you learn to get better muscle recruitment from a weak muscle but your strongest muscles are still the same strength, you won’t see immediate gains. But you are investing for the future and increasing potential by allowing more muscles to work for a given lift.
That line of thinking is helping me improve on squat and deadlift and I’m going to apply it to bench since it sucks. When doing military press, I seem to rely too much on a lower back arch, my chest and lats instead of keeping my upper back and abs as tight as possible. Next cycle I’m tossing out the belt, dropping the weight and focusing on execution. Hopefully it pays off. If I can learn to stay as tight as possible when doing military press, incline, decline and dips, I think it’ll transfer to bench.