No. DOMS does not determine the effectiveness of a session.
In addition to what @SOUL_FIGHTER said, you can do your warmup sets with a band tied around your knees tight enough that if you relaxed it would pull your knees in. Then you will have no choice but to consciously drive your knees outwards and you will begin to do it without the band.
Your stretch reflex is there, even if you don’t feel a bounce. But I don’t consider myself an authority on squats so I will leave this one open for others to elaborate on.
Sore lower back or upper back? And is it a muscle soreness or an injury? There is a difference between pain and injury.
Hold your arms out in front of you with your shoulders forward. Now retract your scapula. Your arms will still be locked out but your shoulders are back. This is what you want at the top of your bench.
It sounds like your rear delts aren’t big enough to make a shelf for the bar. Pull the bar down into your back where you CAN comfortably hold it and maintain body tightness, but don’t overthink your way into an injury.
it means you’re young. enjoy it while you can. I have no clue why people think they need to walk around sore all the time. You don’t want to be sore. That’s a terrible indicator of whether or not you had a good workout.
focus. force them out, hard. this is something that, over time, you’ll get better at as you get stronger. They cave because you’re weak. You’re training to become stronger. Eventually this will be less of an issue, as long as you’re doing your best.
that’s exactly what this means. you’ll just have to live with it. not a terrible thing though.
yes.
you’re doing the opposite of hurting it. you’re making it stronger.
you’ve been lifting for a very, very short period of time. You’re not gonna get everything right to start. This is just an indicator that you’re weak. Keep practicing. In this instance, it’s probably your shoulders/back that are too weak to stay tight. A video might be helpful if you find this to be a problem down the road.
2 things. You could either stop trying to ‘bend the bar,’ because that’s actually not necessary, or you could lean slightly forward at the top of your squat to displace the weight, so that it’s not in your hands. When I back squat, I don’t even have my hands all the way around the bar, I’m basically just holding it in place with my fingers. Gripping the bar hard is not important. All that’s important is maintaining tightness through your torso and back, so you don’t fold over. If your squats are looking good, stop worrying about this cue.
Squatting should be a very easy, natural movement for a healthy adult male. If you over complicate it, you’ll have problems. Don’t worry about the cues the high level squatters use. Just worry about making the squat feel natural, and as comfortable as possible.
Most people have slight imbalances like this. I do too. One shoulder is usually higher than the other. Hasn’t really affected me in any way. Not something anyone else is likely to notice.
That being said, I like face pulls with a rope on the cable machine to work on upper back and shoulder posture. I do these frequently, for high reps (20+ rep range). Use a weight that you can do without it being overly taxing. You’re doing it for joint health and stability, not necessarily hypertrophy, so going heavy is not important.
Thanks a lot guys. I now have some ideas of what to do or think during the workouts. But something that I must ask again is that, do I have to keep having to stop the weight’s downward momentum with my quads the rest of my life? Pushing the weight up is the easy part. I feel like straining to make the weights come to a stop is the part that tires me out. It would be so nice to have a counteracting force from hamstrings help me bounce out of it
About sore back from deadlifts, the soreness is in the lower back muscles, not in any joints.
And on the last point, I use a double overhand grip in deadlifts. I hook my thumbs when I get sweaty. Even in normal relaxed standing my right shoulder is a bit lower. Have a look. I drew some lines to make the lopsidedness obvious. My torso is a bit lopsided and shoulders are uneven. I seem to always lean to the left slightly. These become a lot exaggerated when I have a weight in my hands, i.e. deadlifts.
The human body is not symmetrical, man. That’s why bodybuilding is such a long pursuit. Look at pictures that @flipcollar posts of him as a super skinny kid, and look at him now - build enough muscle and you can cover up these things. Do not worry about stupid stuff like that, just keep lifting, posting, and grinding.
So I woke up late for class and had to hurry to college without breakfast. Honestly this is the first time in my life I have felt hunger this strong. I had originally planned to finish the first class on an empty stomach. But I started feeling dizzy and light headed in the middle of the class and had to excuse myself out. After having a huge meal from the cafeteria, I realized in the last 3 weeks I’ve gained maybe only a tiny bit of weight but a huge boost in appetite.
Anyway, I just wanted to ask what a deload week should look like in 5-3-1 for hardgainers routine. What do I do next week? Or do I not take a deload week?
If you feel beat up, I’d take a deload week. If you feel good, just get back to you 5’s week. I personally just deload when I know I won’t be able to train, especially when I travel.
If everyone is a bit lopsided, I’m not worried about myself 