Fixing Her DL Form

Training
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Hey gals, Ive posted this in the PL forum as well but i reckon a womans thoughts on this might be good too.

Im currently training my friend. She is a semi pro golfer over here in Scotland, but shes from Germany. She has asked me to show her the squat/DL basics as she wants to increase her power.

Her squat form was exceptional from the start, very deep, good back position etc.

I only had to change her hand position and get her to focus on keeping her knees out and she was doing great squats. Worked up to 50kg/110lbs for 3 and 55kg/120lbs for 1. She has plenty left in the tank imo - around the 75kg/165lbs i reckon but that will come with confidence. This was basically her first time squating ever so I was very impressed. She weighs 60kg/130lbs so imo thats great for a first squat attempt for a man let alone a girl.

The deads were another matter thou.

She has long levers. Think shes 6ft1, but most of it is leg.

On conventional she was rounding in the mid back a bit and shooting her hips well ahead of her shoulders. I made her focus on keeping her chest up and keeping the bar running along her legs/thighs as she was throwing it out in front a bit. She also needed some work on her lock out. We got this down with an empty bar and then added weight. Everything was great until about 40kg/88lbs when she started rounding and shooting her hips again. I tried a few things but nothing seemed to work. She was pulling the weight up ridiculously easy but I didnt let her go any higher with the rounding. We had a look at her back strength by doing some lat pull downs and DB row. She was pulling down half the stack for easy 5s and DB rowing 25kg/55lbs for easy 5s aswell so I dont really think its a strength imbalance in her back.

Any help here would be great. I should have got videos but I forgot my camera.

I then thought to try out sumo deads to see if this helped.

She preferred these a lot and once she remembered to get her ass low and to “hump” the bar she was doing well. We worked up to 80kg/175lbs for 3’s but her back began to round in the same place again.

Could this just be due to fatigue or is there something I should try to find her weakness. or is it just practice makes perfect as this was her first time DLing aswell?

Ive proposed that we work on these lifts for another 2-3 sessions and then we will shoot for a true max and then write up a routine based of them. Good idea/bad idea?

Any other good exercises to perform to try and find the reason for her back rounding would be appreciated too.

Cheers
Scott

2

stronger back:

1- keep deadlifting at a weight she can handle properly
2- barbell rows
3- kroc rows
4- good mornings

I would also throw in some presses - DB and BB.

as far as shooting for her “true-max” if her form is off at a light weight you could really injur her back and kill her game.

fatigue could be an issue - how long was this session? And yes practice makes perfect so take it up one step at a time.

not sure if a weakness is the tru cuplrity at this point, but then again I’m not a trainer. Anyone else with the proper certs or experience wants to speak up?

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[quote]nlmain wrote:
stronger back:

1- keep deadlifting at a weight she can handle properly
2- barbell rows
3- kroc rows
4- good mornings

I would also throw in some presses - DB and BB.

as far as shooting for her “true-max” if her form is off at a light weight you could really injur her back and kill her game.

fatigue could be an issue - how long was this session? And yes practice makes perfect so take it up one step at a time.

not sure if a weakness is the tru cuplrity at this point, but then again I’m not a trainer. Anyone else with the proper certs or experience wants to speak up?

[/quote]

ive given her kroc rows, bb rows and some machine rows to do on her next gym day where she does cross fit style complexs.

I was in for some light cardio and prehab work as I have events tomorrow (im a strongman so this PL mumbo jumbo boggles me sometimes)

She did maybe 20mins cardio with me, then some stretching. Then possibly 12 sets of squats and 8 sets of box squats. all in the 8, 5 or 3 area.

her legs are probably double the length of her torso (no joke) so Im wondering if this is common with long limbed lifers or not? Her shoulders were still locked back when she was rounding, but her lower back was solid. She was rounding about an inch below the T-7 mark File:Orientation.PNG - Wikipedia

Cheers for the input.

Scott

4

We have some fabulous tall lifters around here - unless I’m mistaken the pull sumo.

Most women have a weak upperbody so working it hard should be a good way to fix it.

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gonna get some videos on Monday. Shes coming in with me to meet the other PLers/Strongmen I train with. Its squat day… hope the screaming and slapping doesn’t intimidate her too much!

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i agree with nlmain…get her back stronger but also incorporate heavy abdominal exercise to make her abs strong… you can do something as simple as an abdominal crunch with heavy dumbell…learned this from an old school deadlifter ( one of the first 800lb deadlifters)…strong back…strong abs…also personally feel the Kroc rows are great

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cheers mate.

she will love the thought of MORE ab work :smiley: had her doing heavy pallof presses, standing ab pull downs and some planks etc today aswell.

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Agreeing with N. Definitely good mornings, hypers, rows. Or if your gym has the beck extension machine(I am lucky to) That will strengthen the P chain without risking injury due to form.
Maybe start out with Stiff legged Deadlifts with lighter weight.
I am not that tall, but I am all torso and arms and I pull conventional and it took me months to perfect my form.
What helped me most was taking videos of myself DL, and watching videos of others doing it. Or watching others in the gym. Now I can really notice when I am rounding my back.
Good luck.

_Mel

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Okay. Call me stupid. But what exactly do kroc rows do for DL? I think of DL accessory work being weighted hypers, hamstring curl, good mornings, glute/ham raise, etc.

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snap- kroc rows help with things like making your upper back strong enough to hold it’s position, lockout, etc. the stuff you mentioned is good, too. even tricep work can help a dl.

OP- if her back is rounding, she probably doesn’t have the mobility or hip strength to do the lift properly. add in some more foam rolling, hip thrusters, glute bridges, lunges, etc. make sure on the lunges that she keeps her torso upright and squeezes her glutes to come up.

instead of having her pull UP on the bar, have her think about pulling the bar back, and pushing her hips forward. the bar will come up by nature of the movement but keeping the bar close by pulling it back will keep it near her center of gravity, where she’s the strongest.

and really, you already know better than to post a question without video.

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thanks for the advice so far.

Will implement some of it and get videos on Fri. :smiley:

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