General Advice

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I am looking for general advice regarding the proper training programming for someone such as myself.

Compared to most of you i am fairly wimpy. Im very jelous of people who are close to my bodyweight who are putting up 400lb squats, 300lb power clean ect. Jelous.

I am most concerned with the acquisition of relative strength.

my current stats:

175lbs @ 13-14%bf

actual 1RM’s that i very recently tested:

Squat 280
Bench 215
Deadlift 415
P.Clean 205

Here are some short videos of me performing said exercises.
I appear to be kind of…lanky, i have some form issues and some strength imbalances , my large head appears to want to move around too much do to not having enough muscles around my neck.

I pretty much always attempt to move the weights as quickly as possible on the concentric portion of the lift.

Squats. I have some kind of sacroiliac issue where i have some kind of tight hip muscles and strength imbalance with my right and left leg but its not too huge of an issue if im paying attention to what im doing . Actively trying to spread the floor seems to help this .

Deadlifts. Always seem to be the easiest exercise for me do to my morphology. I just try to make sure to switch mixed grips so im not twisting that spine all out of wack.

Cleans are a fun exercise. I need more practice with ‘slamming’ the elbows forward and am not good at dropping to get under the bar. The prospect of proficiently doing full squat cleans with heavy weight seems unlikely at this point in time. Maybe i just need more chest and shoulder mass to rack the bar onto. I’ve done very little clean grip front squatting .

Presses, benches and rows. I am pretty weak with proper overhead presses. I am pretty weak with pressing movements in general. I think its because of a combo of thin wrists and long forearms presenting a mechanical disadvantage. In the past i have had trouble really locking out and extending on pressing movements, i have been working to improve technique on this .

I added the rows because i will do them fairly reguarly. I will start and end the rep on the floor . Its hard not to whip my head around and have a little bit of hip movement when the weight gets heavier.

I have done forms of weight training for a few years and didnt really keep track of weights that much because i was more concerned with metabolic conditioning and looking ‘hollywood’ and getting my ‘sweat on.’ ect. ect. Which i concluded was probably a waste of my time to an extent .

I am thinking i should probably be doing something like this for a program :

SS for exercise selection + Texas method for weekly rep and intensity modulation. I dont think that my recovery abilities are such where im able to be adding weight to my lifts every other day. I think weekly progress is more plausible.

If you have ANY advice or anything to explain or add, please post .

Thanks.

2

Choose one or the other.

Dont Frankenstein.

Start a log.

See you in six months.

Eat more?

3

5/3/1 has weekly progress followed by a deload the 4th week followed by an increase in weight the next month. Follow the workout as is and you will reach your goals. You know your maxes, get the ebook by Wendler and stick with it for a 6 months and eat like no other. Check out the agile 8 by DeFranco, that should help with your low back, glutes, hips etc. Work mobility drills daily and stick with it. Its not the most fun part of training but negating those imbalances will not only make you feel better physically, you mentally won’t think about all of those little issues. Lift heavy yet submaximal weight, stick to compound movements and keep working at it.
You will get there it just takes some time, Best of Luck!

4

kinda think you need to get your hips a little lower on the deadlift

5

Also, your knees are moving in too much on the squat

6

Squats: Feet are pointed too straight-forward, causing your knees to cave inward. Good depth. Try to avoid leading with your ass on those last tough reps. Lead with your shoulders, always.

DL’s: Hips lower on the setup. Push your hips forward and pull your shoulder blades back at lockout, but make sure not to bend the spine backward. Keep your shoulders tighter through the whole lift to get the best results. Flex your triceps, too. Looks like you’re pulling with your arms (kinda hard to tell in that shirt), and that’s a quick way into the O.R. for a torn distal biceps tendon.

Cleans: Get a coach if you really want to pursue these. You’re doing it so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. There is a thread I started some time back floating around here somewhere that has a lot of good info, though, if you want to check it out.

Bench: Your setup looks to be very loose. Tighten everything up until you are resting only on your shoulders and ass. Shoulders pinned back hard, back arched. A wider grip would help get more chest into it, and trying to pull the bar apart like taffy will get more triceps into it.