Here’s the video from my 2nd powerlifting meet:
My first meet was mid-May of this year. This 2nd one was on December 6th.
Any advice that could improve my performance would be appreciated, especially the bench press. Thanks.
- Max (DieselWeasel)
[quote]maxbm wrote:
Here’s the video from my 2nd powerlifting meet:
My first meet was mid-May of this year. This 2nd one was on December 6th.
Any advice that could improve my performance would be appreciated, especially the bench press. Thanks.
- Max (DieselWeasel)[/quote]
Nice work there.
Your Squats looked pretty good. I’m sure you aren’t used to using a Monolift, I’ve done the same thing and walked it out as well, but my advice would be not to dance so much. Just unrack it, and take one step back with each foot, and maybe a quick readjustment if needed, but don’t spend so much energy with all the steps backwards and sideways. I saw a lot of this at my last meet, some people took as many as 8 or 10 little steps to get into position. Wasted energy to start, and a long way to get back into the rack at the end.
I would say that you’ve got a decent arch on the bench, but I’m not sure it’s doing much for you. I didn’t see a whole lot (any) of leg drive, and on the one you missed, you were up on your toes. Even if it’s legal to be on your toes in your federation, you still want to drive your heels towards the ground. You started out flat footed and ended on your toes.
Dare I say that your DL’s looked solid. It looked like you were uneven on your last pull. I don’t know if it was an uneven grip that caused your left side to come up faster than your right, or if it was just a little too heavy, and you ended up shifting your weight a little, but your form has improved significantly from the early days.
Modi: Thanks for the analysis.
Squat:
Yeah, I only used the monolift twice, once at my 1st meet in May and the 2nd time was during this 2nd meet, the one in the video, so it’s still new to me. True, I should probably work on taking less steps after unracking the bar and setting myself more efficiently.
Bench:
Right. My arch is good, but it looks like I wasn’t touching low enough on my torso to get the highest position for the start of the press. I think the reason that I came up on my toes in the 3rd attempt was out of desperation, because I didn’t realize I was doing that during the lift. How can I ensure that I use the most leg drive, since you said I’m not using much or even any?
Dead:
I don’t think the grip was uneven for the 3rd attempt. The somewhat uneven pull was probably due to the weight being too heavy, especially after the 2nd attempt and the meet in general.
Nice work Max.
The squats looked good, although I agree with Modi that there’s too much movement before you get set. What I do is one short step straight back, then one out to the side, then move the other foot to the side and set. They looked plenty deep, but you are a little soft out of the hole. I believe in lots of pause squats…you might want to look at that.
The bench is obviously a bit behind, and here, I would pause every single bench rep you do. I would also pause any dumbbell work you do. In addition, I would add in benches with a 3-5 second pause after the main bench work. That should help you stay tighter at the bottom…you’re wiggling a little down there.
Your deads did look pretty good…your feet are very close together which will take you off the ground quicker but make it a little tougher to lock out. If you’re going to stay with that style I’d focus some assistance work on the top half with rack pulls and heavy RDLs. As far as grip going on the last pull, it happens. Make sure you lock your tris and if keep up with your grip work.
Good job overall…congrats.
[quote]maxbm wrote:
Bench:
Right. My arch is good, but it looks like I wasn’t touching low enough on my torso to get the highest position for the start of the press. I think the reason that I came up on my toes in the 3rd attempt was out of desperation, because I didn’t realize I was doing that during the lift. How can I ensure that I use the most leg drive, since you said I’m not using much or even any?
[/quote]
There are a couple of things you can play around with. Your feet are angled out pretty hard. You could try lessening the angle of your toes while keeping the narrow stance, or you could try moving your feet a little wider. I think the first attempt was light enough that you didn’t need any leg drive at all, and it didn’t look like you got any. On the second attempt you can see your left foot slide a little on the way up (can’t see the right one, so I don’t know what it did). If you were driving your heels into the ground, there shouldn’t be any movement at all, and on the third, that heel came up off the ground, maybe out of despiration.
Like I said, you’ve got a decent arch to start with, so I would really focus on squeezing and holding the glutes tight once your arch is set, and then driving your heels into the ground as hard as you can on the way up. You want to try to get your ass to touch the back of your head. It will drive your traps into the bench and keep that arch tight throughout.
I used to be guilty of only using leg drive on anything heavy (90%+), but now I make sure that every rep I take is like a competition rep, from the arch, to the pause to the leg drive. If you practice it in the gym, it will be natural at the meet.
Ramo: Thanks for the tips.
Whats your routine look like?
[quote]Ramo wrote:
Nice work Max.
The squats looked good, although I agree with Modi that there’s too much movement before you get set. What I do is one short step straight back, then one out to the side, then move the other foot to the side and set. They looked plenty deep, but you are a little soft out of the hole. I believe in lots of pause squats…you might want to look at that.
The bench is obviously a bit behind, and here, I would pause every single bench rep you do. I would also pause any dumbbell work you do. In addition, I would add in benches with a 3-5 second pause after the main bench work. That should help you stay tighter at the bottom…you’re wiggling a little down there.
Your deads did look pretty good…your feet are very close together which will take you off the ground quicker but make it a little tougher to lock out. If you’re going to stay with that style I’d focus some assistance work on the top half with rack pulls and heavy RDLs. As far as grip going on the last pull, it happens. Make sure you lock your tris and if keep up with your grip work.
Good job overall…congrats.[/quote]
I don’t know if I agree with the bench advice here. I think by doing all this pausing, your really limiting the amount of overall strength you can develop. I think pausing “some” reps is a good idea, but your touch and go is always gonna be higher, and if you just get stronger, you will become more stable.
[quote]Tags wrote:
Ramo wrote:
Nice work Max.
The squats looked good, although I agree with Modi that there’s too much movement before you get set. What I do is one short step straight back, then one out to the side, then move the other foot to the side and set. They looked plenty deep, but you are a little soft out of the hole. I believe in lots of pause squats…you might want to look at that.
The bench is obviously a bit behind, and here, I would pause every single bench rep you do. I would also pause any dumbbell work you do. In addition, I would add in benches with a 3-5 second pause after the main bench work. That should help you stay tighter at the bottom…you’re wiggling a little down there.
Your deads did look pretty good…your feet are very close together which will take you off the ground quicker but make it a little tougher to lock out. If you’re going to stay with that style I’d focus some assistance work on the top half with rack pulls and heavy RDLs. As far as grip going on the last pull, it happens. Make sure you lock your tris and if keep up with your grip work.
Good job overall…congrats.
I don’t know if I agree with the bench advice here. I think by doing all this pausing, your really limiting the amount of overall strength you can develop. I think pausing “some” reps is a good idea, but your touch and go is always gonna be higher, and if you just get stronger, you will become more stable.
[/quote]
This is a good point, but if it’s something you haven’t been doing, or only rarely, I’ve found the benefit outweighs the downside of less weight on the bar. After a few months of doing this, the gap between your competition bench and touch and go bench really narrows a lot. At that point, you can use some of both.
But saying all that, some of the strongest benchers I’ve seen do mostly touch and go reps, so there isn’t one right answer.
Modi: Thanks a lot. I already improved my arch and I’m utilizing my lats more. Now I need to work on the leg drive.
BlackLabel: I’ve been doing Sheiko cycles since my last meet on May 17th.