I’m struggling with a lot of my lifts because of lower back strength, well I feel that it’s lower back strength I do a lot of olympic lifting. My Power clean is up to 230 lbs my power snatch is up to 160. I’m struggling to push on because my squat sucks. I strugle to squat 310. Does any one have any good routines or advice for building up lower back strength? or advice in general how to push on?
Deadlift.
Not deadlift, if you do oly-lifting. It will confuse your technique if you are doing snatch pulls or clean pulls.
I guess you could do snatch pulls more frequently. Increasing frequency is the most basic way to increase strength in something. I presume you are doing high-bar back squat?
Tell us what you actually do.
I have started doing more snatch grip and clean grip dead lift and tend to lift a lot more from of the floor around 350 comfortably with claen grip. I do olympic style squat I just dont lift as much as Ishould weighing 230ish. Been Doing a lot of single rep stuff the last couple of weeks.
low bar good mornings and rack pulls from knee cap level
good old reverse hypers, glute bridge, stiff legged deads, snatch deads beltless shit
high rep squats fry my spinal erectors more than anything else. I love GM but those hit my hammies more than lower back.
Try some lower bar PL style squats where you are more bent over, that should hit the lower back (might jack with your OL form though)
Weighted Back extensions or good mornings.
When it comes to squatting, deadlifting, and doing good mornings, THE CLOSER YOUR FEET ARE WITH EACH OTHER, THE MORE YOU’RE GONNA HIT YOUR LOWER BACK.
And I personally don’t think that your technique with the oly lifts can be negatively affected from doing those exercises as long as you stay away from max weights.
Whats the reasoning behind the feet closer together hitting the lower back? So higher volume for a while? Would it be wise to squat heavy somedays?
[quote]skipie11 wrote:
Whats the reasoning behind the feet closer together hitting the lower back? So higher volume for a while? Would it be wise to squat heavy somedays?[/quote]
…I’m not an expert in anatomy so I can’t give any detailed explanation as to why the lumbar region gets more work with feet closer together. Sorry about that…
What I do know is that conventional deadlifting puts alot more stress in the entire back region than sumo… And I’m pretty sure than if you do good mornings with the same stance as you would when you’re doing conventional deadlifts, you’d hit your lower back too, compared to a wider stance GM…
Your question about squatting heavy… You should always squat heavy, always… Of course if you’re doing some type of westside program, you may substitute squats with GMs, box squats, etc., but it’s the same thing. You do them HEAVY.
Volume? It depends… A more accurate answer is… I don’t know.
Hmmm my erectors always feel it most when I squat narrow stance (hips next day and quads never)…never heard that point before…learn something new…
Skip…as to your lower back problem not sure you got one.
check out Carl Darbys thread in the O/35, "Throw heavy stuff far… " Carl does back squats for reps with mid to high 200s, clean grip deads under 300, and has a 105kg snatch and 130kg c & J.
Your power snatch and power clean (personally your power snatch sounds too. low…) sound right for your squat…
Where I train the jrs have similar ratios, although that said, we are thinking high bar stance together, back upright style squat…
[quote]CoolColJ wrote:
low bar good mornings and rack pulls from knee cap level
[/quote]
This.
It doesn’t sound like skipie is a competitive oly-lifter, so I am not surprised his snatch is kind of low.
I have had one competition last summer. I’m at University doing physio and the gym I have is on the first floor so cant drop 100 kg, which kinda stops me going to heavy. I do my olympic lifting because I enjoy it and it helps me with my sport. Thanks for the advice every one I’ll give the narrow stance a try see what results I get.
What no one apparently has mentioned, include heavy ab work. I mean heavy, stuff you can barely do for 10 reps a set. You need to get a very strong core to support your lower back. Train lower back, but just don’t neglect the front. This’ll prevent injury and going heavy won’t feel as heavy.
Good luck!
[quote]GMH454 wrote:
Hmmm my erectors always feel it most when I squat narrow stance (hips next day and quads never)…never heard that point before…learn something new…
Skip…as to your lower back problem not sure you got one.
check out Carl Darbys thread in the O/35, "Throw heavy stuff far… " Carl does back squats for reps with mid to high 200s, clean grip deads under 300, and has a 105kg snatch and 130kg c & J.
Your power snatch and power clean (personally your power snatch sounds too. low…) sound right for your squat…
Where I train the jrs have similar ratios, although that said, we are thinking high bar stance together, back upright style squat…
[/quote]
??? Is it really low? My full snatch is only 150 pounds and my ATG back squat is 315+!
There’s something horribly wrong with my technique.
I can only full snatch around 60kg but power snatch 72kg. I’m trying to fit more snatch balances in to see if that helps me get up.
Search for a thread called “All powerlifters are fatties”. If your erectors don’t measure up to that guys then keep working.
Just kidding. But it does give you something to work toward.
[quote]TYPE2B wrote:
GMH454 wrote:
Hmmm my erectors always feel it most when I squat narrow stance (hips next day and quads never)…never heard that point before…learn something new…
Skip…as to your lower back problem not sure you got one.
check out Carl Darbys thread in the O/35, "Throw heavy stuff far… " Carl does back squats for reps with mid to high 200s, clean grip deads under 300, and has a 105kg snatch and 130kg c & J.
Your power snatch and power clean (personally your power snatch sounds too. low…) sound right for your squat…
Where I train the jrs have similar ratios, although that said, we are thinking high bar stance together, back upright style squat…
??? Is it really low? My full snatch is only 150 pounds and my ATG back squat is 315+!
There’s something horribly wrong with my technique.[/quote]
2B, one of the jrs (17 & 77kg)in my club does a 75 P/S for sets of singles could probably double (caught a little over = ) and has a best front of 115 set last week, (all kgs) our top 94 has a 130 P/S caught too low for my liking to be a P/S and back squats 160 for reps judging by his best clean of 180, he should do 200, but right now does not look like it.
So if you were in our club, Doc would have you do lots of snatching and drills, and would not worry about your squats…work out your weaknesses and fix them one by one…