Also @MarkKO one last question. A lot of people say that they don’t count fiber towards their carb totals. If that’s the case, I’m assuming they don’t count towards calorie totals either? It’s my understanding that fiber isn’t actually absorbed, it just helps pull other food through the digestion tract better. Is this a pretty accurate assessment?
12/15/17
Weight: 268.8
Weight hovering around the 269 mark. Noticed this morning that my pants are fitting a little better around the waist and a lot tighter around the legs, so there’s that. Taking a two day trip to Chattanooga for the first time today for my gf’s uncles college graduation. Will try and sneak a training session in tomorrow night
I’m afraid I have no clue about that. I just eat veggies for fibre and I don’t count them.
For anyone that cares, the answer is no. Regular fibre doesn’t count towards calories. Soluble fibre counts for around 2 calories
Mane you just moved one step down the priority list lel
What is fi bre? How does it make the gains?
12/18/17
SKWAAATZ
Haven’t been able to hit the gym in a few days (work and took a trip to Chattanooga for the first time. Beautiful place) and wanted to fuck shit up today. Got to try out all my sweet new toys. My gym swag is reaching that of @guineapig
Squats:
135x10
185x5
225x5
275x3
315x2
365x1
405x3 PR!!!
315x12 PR!!!
@Despade look at how miserable that looks. It’s gonna really suck when you have to do 20
Edit: for anyone that’s wondering, on my 315 set, yes my squat transformed from a pretty “medium” bar to low bar by the end of it lmao 
By the 8-9 rep the bar had slid far down my back and my hands slid out. That’s why the rerack was retarded, the bar was lower than I’m used to and I had to let go of the bar to keep from smashing my hands
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Ha…yeah…fuck
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Look gooder lift gooder.
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12/19/17
Solid day today
Deadlifts: speed/ technique
335x8x2 (will upload later)
Bench: (all paused)
135x10
185x5
225x2
245x2
275x2
295x1
305x1 (TnG) PR for no elbow sleeves and true flat bench. Hit 305 last time I did layers but it was a slight decline (1 45lb plate under foot of bench)
These were all TnG
245x6
245x5
245x5
Was gonna stop at the 275x2 but was feeling good. Dropped the HDL sets to compensate for extended ramp
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Here’s the technique sets from today. Did the first five sets in heeled weightlifting shoes, the last tree were in socks. Didn’t record the first set, and on the last set some random guy bro(in an empty gym full of plate racks) walks directly up to the one plate rack that has my phone balanced on top of it and knocks my phone over to grab a 10 lb plate as soon as my set starts. After I finish my set he has the audacity to go “hey man, is this your phone? I knocked it over getting some weights.”… No shit it’s my phone, you failed abortion. You’ve watched me put it there and record the last SEVEN sets. It really wasn’t a big deal, but just the douche-iness of how he reacted got under my skin. Anywho:
Hey @Khangles when you get the chance would you do me a solid and look at these deadlifts and tell me what I’m doing wrong? I feel like I need an absolute overhaul. If you look at these (about 75% of my 1rm) and the ones where I was hitting heavier singles, it doesn’t matter how heavy the load they look like shit. They feel good but they’re ugly. (Note: this is all just my perception, I could be making a big deal out of nothing.)
Starting position:
I usually start hips pretty high cuz I’m tall and have shortish arms. I tried tinkering around and started getting a lower starting position, but my hips were shooting up before the weights broke off the floor. I saw you advise people to just start higher when that happens so I just went back to starting higher hips. The problem is my “ideal” hip position where the weight starts to break the floor seems like it’s almost an RDL when i look at it. (Again it feels good when I do it this way, but it looks bad when I watch it on video.)
Edit: also, what’s actual issue with starting lower and just lifting when the hips move up to that sweet spot? I’m guessing it’s a power leak? I feel like whenever I really focus mentally on “drive with the legs” is when my hips shoot up
Upper back:
My upper back is round on every rep. It doesn’t feel like an actual mechanical weakness (1. Because my traps and lats still feel packed pretty tight and 2. My back doesnt start to round when I lift, it’s round the whole time) it’s, like, a matter of mobility. When i deliberately pinch my scalpulas together and down my arms aren’t long enough to reach the bar. So I have to either 1. Loosen up my upper back a little (still trying to maintain tightness and force my scalpula together through the movement) or 2. Get in a lower starting position, which leads back to problem 1: my hips shoot up.
Shoes:
I’m still stuck between wearing my weightlifting shoes with a slightly elevated heel, or just wearing flat vans. The last DL session was in vans. This one started in the heeled shoe and then I did a few sets bare foot.
Heeled makes me feel like I start in a better position, and helps me get more leg drive, but sometimes makes me feel like I’m leaning forward a bit.
Flat soled shoes don’t feel bad either. Ive always deadlifted either flat soled or barefoot up until this last year when I got my new squat shoes. I’m only really asking because I’ve seen 99% of people advise against the elevated heel (with Mark Riptoe being the exception. He says they help activate the quads and give more leg drive) As far as strength goes, there’s no real discrepancies between em, and they both feel good so should I even worry about it? Is An elevated heel going to be something that is a bigger issue when I start moving more weight?
Not trying to put you on the spot all @khangles . I could just start a new thread. I’ve just seen you give really awesome advice, explanations, and breakdowns that have helped a lot of people fix form issues. As always, any help is very much appreciated.
Sorry about the wall of text. Just trying to be thorough as possible. (Plus the grotesque amounts of caffeine I’ve had today have me coked out lol)
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JK, haven’t watched the vids yet.
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Haha no chill
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Ima make it not so short and not so sweet. If you want some clarification or HowTos on anything just specify
Not the worst I’ve seen and definitely not a steaming pile of shit. Technique/form can always be better tho and I think it’s a good idea to always try to get sexier lifts whether you are a beginner or a world record holder.
I think you’ve read what I chucked in that other thread somewhere and that still stands. Unfortunately for some peeps mobility and body segment lengths that can mean a torso angle that’s closer to parallel to the ground than vertical. Does load up the back more so you are more likely to get rounded out and thus its especially important to brace hard and start in a good position.
Power leak and hips shooting up at the start tends to fuck people up technique/bracing wise.
Not worth it if you get tight in one position and explode off the ground if you end up actually beginning the pull from a different position and wasting that drive off the floor. This isn’t even mentioning form/technique breakdown due to the abrupt hip rise e.g. loss of tightness and rounding of the back.
If you really like pulling from a low position it can work. If you do a true clean pull you miss out on a lot of potential posterior chain action and end up moving less weight. If you just start low and do a “Mikhail Koklyaev” you end up pulling from a high hip position anyways.
Read up in this thread for more:
Konstantin Konstantinovs did pretty well with a rounded upper back tho.
If you want to pull with a flat upper back (you don’t have to) you gotta put in the mobility work / let getting into position for deadlift stretch you out over time and/or live with whatever the best position is that you end up in with a neutral braced spine (even if that is back parallel to the ground)
Cues like long arms, externally rotating your elbows/arms/shoulders and covering your armpits with your arms may help but in the end you just need to get in the best position possible
For powerlifting deadlift purposes any position you can get in with heels you should be able to get into in flats. It pretty much takes a combination of knee bend/forward over the bar and sitting back to find the same position in flats as in heels.
Heeled shoes make the difference in enabling olympic athletes to achieve a combination of extreme depth and more vertical back angles that would be physically impossible without. These positions are part of the base upon which successful oly lifting is built just ask the Chinese. In powerlifting we do not assume these positions so for deadlift heeled shoes offer no advantage. They do disadvantage you a tiny tiny bit in that they turn the DL into a 1 inch deficit deadlift.
Better to deadlift in decent flat footwear e.g. slippers for powerlifting purposes.
Next time you’re hitting some high-ish percentage 1RMs (enough for some form break down if you aren’t concentrating) turn one of the sets e.g. 3 reps into 3 singles and film from different angles including, at minimum, a perfectly side on angle that isn’t half the length of the fucking gym away and a front side-ish angle like this vid
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Hey man you’re awesome, thanks.
I guess I was a little over critical of myself. Seeing my upper back so round when I thought it was decently straight was pretty surprising.
You right. Guess I’ll just go back to the way I’ve been doing it naturally and start with higher hips.
Cool, guess I won’t be super worried about the rounded upper back. I still feel tight through my back and core. I would like to see the curve straighten out at least a little bit though. What kind of mobility stuff do you do? In general, specifically for deadlifts, whatever.
I’ll try these out. Itll probably help straighten out my arms too.
Duly noted. Vans it it.
Will do. And yeah, I didn’t even consider the fact that other people can’t just zoom into the video on their phone like I can lol.
Jesus Christ, that guy looks like a fucking gremlin. No neck, unnaturally short torso and unnaturally long ass arms and legs. But hey, his upper back is way more rounded then mine so that makes me feel better
I do sumo stuff and bench stuff. Conventional wise I can get into position easy enough.
If You Don’t Mind Rounded Upper Back DLs
You should embrace it fully and train DL according e.g. cues/technique, assistance/accessory movements etc. Not to familar with round back deadlifts myself but start googling and searching it up on YouTube and there’s plenty of info.
If You Wanna Flat Back DL
Mobility work only works if you have an existing mobility deficit. If you already have the requisite mobility (likely) then its in the proper cuing, awareness of body position and practice of perfect form where you’ll get the most technique gains. It may even be neither or a combination of these factors and an activation/strength issue e.g. weak glutes
The most straight forward approach and the one that will likely pay off almost immediately is the technique improvements.
Probably need to get assessed properly if you want to look into mobility stuff. There’s no point doing mobility work if you are not immobile and it can make things worse if you are hypermobile so doing random shit willy nilly is ill advised.
Its all pretty complex because mobility deficits in one part of the body can show in others e.g. stiff/short hamstrings make it hard to maintain a neutral lumbar spine so if you address what you see then you aren’t fixing the actual problem. With full body movements like the deadlift muscles and structures about the knees, hips, and whole back are involved so its best to get to pro to take a look at you.
Well he has legit physical deformities so he has an excuse to not lift sexy. I think it actually helps him deadlift WR weight tho.
You forgot the switch to sumo section
Tru. Sumo is superior to conventional. #SumoMasterRace
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Ya know, I had a guy in the other thread say something about my glutes not firing when I DL. Idk how he assessed that by just watching the DL, but I’ve thought about it and he may be right. I’ve never actually thought about my glutes while deadlifting. I always focus on legs, back and core. Any cues or tips for getting the glutes involved? Just focus on really squeezing em when I DL?
I’ll be looking over those videos here shortly once I have some time to figure out how I can improve setup and form
The problem could be partly due to the fact that the last few sessions I’ve done heavy squats the day before DLs and my lower back is a little cranky when I’ve done em. I’ll try doing em fresh next time and see if that improves anything.
Well now I look like a dick lol. I’ve never heard of the guy so I thought he was just weird looking
Nope. I know nothing about that.
Would hazard a guess that it’s not the weird shit that instagram fit models are doing… but I’m sure with the magic of YouTube/Google you’ll find more than enough. Apply it, try it out for a while and see if it helps. Can’t really do any harm so go for it.