Mostly on deadlift I guess. I already know my back rounds funny on the squat and my knees do gayass movement on the ascent. My press is still not vertical.
My deadlift-that seems pretty bad to me. that’s lumbar flexion, am i right? for a little bit I thought it was thoracic, which seems to be ok according to big lifters. What can i do to improve? this obviously is too heavy for me 
Looks pretty decent to me. You are falling forward a bit in the squat but that is probably because the weight is near your max and you are fatigued. I have the same problem.
My only suggestion is to actually let go of the bar, stand up, and reset when doing deadlift. Also, don’t walk the weight back in after the deadlift, just let it drop to the ground.
Also, when lowering the bar on the deadlift, don’t bend your knees until the weight is past your knees. Pretty much just stiff leg it until it gets past your knees so the weight stays close to your body.
Only thing i can say is that you round your back halfway through some reps, right as you reach the knees on the way up. Is not so much of the upper back, but your lower back is rounded as you start the rep, try to get a bigger arch.
Why is your friend not spotting you, that last rep on the squat didn’t look too easy.
I thought the squats looked pretty good. The reason you go more and more forward as the set goes on is because your starting position keeps going more and more forward. Check out how much your chest has dropped and where your elbows are before you do your first and before you do your third rep.
Pick your chest up after every rep and drive your elbows forward.
Sit back on the squat some more; try to bring the bar down lower on your back.
Don’t lose your form at the end of your deadlifts; keep that arch.
Looking good all in all however.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
Pick your chest up after every rep and drive your elbows forward.[/quote]
x2. If you force your elbows forward, it will keep you chest up, and you won’t have a tendency to fall forward.
Also, keep the knees forced out on the way up, they tend to move around a lot.
Excellent advice guys!
falling forward on the squat–meaning my knees droop back forward again right? yeah gotta fix that, first time i really noticed it.
i walk the dead weight to the rack so i dont have to pick that shit up again.
matso- you mean on the deadlift right? I don’t see how i’m rounding when i get to the knees- i thought it was already round from the start. what do you mean by bigger arch-just starting position?
he doesn’t help me because we are used to falling onto the pins if we fail. and i haven’t failed in a long time. plus, that spotting way around the chest detracts from my concentration since he looks kind of funny (mirror).
hanley-you seem to have an eye for things that i cannot see. to me rep1 and rep3 setups look the same, what do you mean?! is the beginning setup good at least?
seadoo-what do you mean by the arch? you mean a rounded back? 0.0 and when you say the end of deadlifts-the lockout section or later reps? to mee it seems like i have bad form from the start so there’s not much losing anything!
modi-elbows forward as in more under the bar and perpendicular to the ground?
appreciate all the help everyone. can anyone give some advice on how to keep the back from rounding on the deadlifts?
Ditto on the elbows forward. They don’t need to be perpendicular to the ground, but they do need to much farther forward than you have them. I can visibly see you loose your upper back tightness, hips fire up first, and a slight forward fall. You also loose your low back arch. This is because you are searching for depth by tucking your ass under you. This is hard problem to fix because most of the time people don’t even realize they are doing it. The problem with this is that when come back up you have to regain your lower back arch and you lose a lot of power. Most of this can be solved by learning to drive your elbows forward. Another way to think about it is pulling the the bar into your traps.
i think your shoulders are a bit forward in the start position in the deadlift. try to place your shoulders(but try not to move the shoulder blades… much) down and back. this should help with the bar scraping your knees if it does, should give you more power and probably help with the lower back arch.
also… hamstring flexibility.
if you arent already trying to push out your abs try that too. lower back bending is basically the same as the waist bending. keeping abs tight keep it from bending.
[quote]Modi wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Pick your chest up after every rep and drive your elbows forward.
x2. If you force your elbows forward, it will keep you chest up, and you won’t have a tendency to fall forward.
Also, keep the knees forced out on the way up, they tend to move around a lot.
[/quote]
Good advice. You want to try and keep your elbows under the bar. I try to keep the angle of my elbows the same from the beginning of the set to the end. If your elbows drift towards parallel with the floor, the chest drops, and you dip forward rounding the back.
On the deadlift…
You might want to try starting with your hips slightly higher and pushed back a little more. The lumbar spine should be neutral.
A controversial point…
Some like to make sure the head stays in alignment with the spine when pulling (don’t look up). Some disagree and say you round the back more if you don’t look up. But, I’ve had better success when keeping my head neutral.
[quote]kickureface wrote:
Excellent advice guys!
falling forward on the squat–meaning my knees droop back forward again right? yeah gotta fix that, first time i really noticed it.
modi-elbows forward as in more under the bar and perpendicular to the ground?
appreciate all the help everyone. can anyone give some advice on how to keep the back from rounding on the deadlifts?
[/quote]
Falling forward on the Squat means that your chest is falling forward on the way up (i.e. not keeping your shoulders pulled back and chest up).
In order to keep your knees from drifting forward, you want to start the squat by reaching backwards with you ass, and not driving the knees out over the toes.
Unless you have great shoulder girdle flexibility, I don’t think you are going to get your forearms perpendicular to the ground, but that’s the direction you want to head in. By pulling them forward, you are externally rotating the humerus, which in turn causes the scapula to tilt posteriorly. This forces you to keep your thoracic arch (= chest up).
Your back rounding on DL could be from one of 3 things. Does it round over on your warmups? If not, then the closer you get to a max pull, the less ideal your form is going to be. Second, you could have some flexibility issues, especially if you are also tucking your tail on Squats. Third, you could have some back weakness, in which case you can work on RDL/SLDL for some lower back/glute/hamstring strength, and some heavy BOR’s for mid/upper back strength.
[quote]kickureface wrote:
Mostly on deadlift I guess. I already know my back rounds funny on the squat and my knees do gayass movement on the ascent. My press is still not vertical.
my deadlift-that seems pretty bad to me. that’s lumbar flexion, am i right? for a little bit I thought it was thoracic, which seems to be ok according to big lifters. What can i do to improve? this obviously is too heavy for me
You’re doing heavy sets, so some form breakdown is to be expected. Your first rep on the squat was really good. The next two weren’t as good, but you’re lifting heavy.
I thought the press was good. Obviously, we couldn’t see how your wrists looked, but you kept your stomach tight and didn’t arch your low back.
DL - I think your back is rounding because you’re not getting your hamstrings and butt enough into the movement. You should feel it there as your pull comes up. If you don’t, then you know you’re doing it wrong. This could also be a mobility issue, but your mobility looks better than last time.
as others have said looks like you need to get your elbows under the bar, that coupled with a closer grips (could’nt see it in the video) should keep your upper body tighter.
some times changing one thing can have a domino effect in fixing other things.
i dont understand the elbows under the bar crap. i’m following starting strength form by mark rippetoe, so it tells me to keep my wrists straight with my forearm. this is only possible with elbows more back?
i thought my grip was pretty close. i use a thumbless grip but if i extend my thumbs across the bar, it reaches the inside knurling
|::::::::======::::::::
= is the smooth part in the midddle, so i hit the inner :. hope that made sense.
i think it’s buttwink that makes my chest drop and thus my tightness go away.
Try get your knuckles to point towards the ceiling, then bring your elbows down keeping them inline with your wrist
Looking at the video, your elbows point to the back, and should point more towards the floor.
You want them more beside your torso than behind it.
[quote]kickureface wrote:
i dont understand the elbows under the bar crap. i’m following starting strength form by mark rippetoe, so it tells me to keep my wrists straight with my forearm. this is only possible with elbows more back?
i thought my grip was pretty close. i use a thumbless grip but if i extend my thumbs across the bar, it reaches the inside knurling
|::::::::======::::::::
= is the smooth part in the midddle, so i hit the inner :. hope that made sense.
i think it’s buttwink that makes my chest drop and thus my tightness go away.[/quote]
Rippetoe teaches the Squat differently than most coaches seem to. He advocates higher elbows and also looking at a point on the floor out in front of you, rather than looking straight ahead or slightly up. He’s advocating a higher elbow position in order to create a larger shelf (traps and rear delts) for the bar to sit on, so you can move the bar into a lower position more comfortably.
I agree that it’s easier to keep the bar in place with the high elbows, but it causes me to dump the weight forward at the heavier weights.
[quote]Rippetoe teaches the Squat differently than most coaches seem to. He advocates higher elbows and also looking at a point on the floor out in front of you, rather than looking straight ahead or slightly up. He’s advocating a higher elbow position in order to create a larger shelf (traps and rear delts) for the bar to sit on, so you can move the bar into a lower position more comfortably.
I agree that it’s easier to keep the bar in place with the high elbows, but it causes me to dump the weight forward at the heavier weights.[/quote]
Good post. I like doing more of an Olympic style squat, despite what Rippetoe says. It feels better for me and seems more athletic.
RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT CARRY THE LOADED DEADLIFT BAR BACK INTO THE RACK LIKE THAT. unload the weights and then rack it