[quote]rizsa wrote:
As an above average Olympic lifter and strength and conditioning coach, overhead squats are a great tool to improve your snatch, flexibility, and develop overall strength. My HS athletes OHS every training day. Some are using 80kg for 2 sets of five. Some of the keys to success are to lock out the elbows, push up on the bar, and twist the hands against the bar counter clockwise. I use/teach breaking at the hip first. Breaking at the knee first will use up the ankles ROM resulting in a shin angle not conducive to the OHS. Also, Pavel’s tension method or bracing result in better spinal stabilization. Hope this helps.[/quote]
Can you clarify your point on the hand twisting? I think I know what you mean, but if you actually twisted BOTH hands in a counter-clockwise motion, you would get a variation of the OHS, called the “crashing helicopter”.LOL.
Also, while I understand the point about the ankle ROM, it seems to me that if you break at the hip first, the bar would naturally want to start to come forward, making it harder to stay upright.
Broomstick and a bazzilion reps. Heals elevated if necessary and gradually decrease the height. Try the shoulder inlocates with a broomstick but in a good morning position (bent over and with a straight back). If you have difficulty with it, it’s lack of posterior shoulder strength, not lack of shoulder flexibility. Progress to a light bar or piece of pipe and you will see what I mean. It will be difficult to get a straight line from your hips to your hands.
[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
Broomstick and a bazzilion reps. Heals elevated if necessary and gradually decrease the height. Try the shoulder inlocates with a broomstick but in a good morning position (bent over and with a straight back). If you have difficulty with it, it’s lack of posterior shoulder strength, not lack of shoulder flexibility. Progress to a light bar or piece of pipe and you will see what I mean. It will be difficult to get a straight line from your hips to your hands.
Get yourself a broomstick, do shoulder dislocates with it at a grip width approximate to your snatch grip width. As you build mobility move you hands in. You can also perform this with a jumpstretch/ironwoody band. (My boss did them with an Oly bar, I wouldnt recomend this).
How do you do the shoulder dislocates? Any pictures, videos around that can show the correct form?[/quote]
Bump for the shoulder dislocates, anyone got any pictures or videos to show the correct form?
I got 5 sets of 3 reps with 50kg (just over half bodyweight) early last week so thing are starting to improve, I may need to work on breaking at the hips rather than the knees first though. I’ve got the same workout tomorrow so I think I might keep the same weight and work on form.
This exercise is one of the most “self correctors” of form I have ever used. When I was doing an empty bar my form was all over the place. I gradually did many reps over a period of months as a “supplement” to training and with nothing other than taking my time and not rushing heavy weights my form and flexibility improved greatly.
On many other movements I find my form “slipping” resulting in increasing my cheating, but with OHS the physics of the movement gives me feedback ie. get sloppy fall down, look stupid… a side note learning this exercise correctly takes humility but is worth it.
Twisting the hand counterclockwise was me only thinking about my left hand and forgetting avout my right, oops! The point was that if you twist against the bar you will lock the elbows in place and be locked and solid at the shoulder girdle. The break at the hip first ensures that my weight will be back, heels flat, and sit properly in the hole.
[quote]vcraig111 wrote:
This exercise is one of the most “self correctors” of form I have ever used. When I was doing an empty bar my form was all over the place. I gradually did many reps over a period of months as a “supplement” to training and with nothing other than taking my time and not rushing heavy weights my form and flexibility improved greatly.
On many other movements I find my form “slipping” resulting in increasing my cheating, but with OHS the physics of the movement gives me feedback ie. get sloppy fall down, look stupid… a side note learning this exercise correctly takes humility but is worth it. [/quote]
BANG ON!!! There is no room for error, cheating, wiggles, inflexible anything, or humping the weight up. If you have a strength deficiet somewhere or a flexibility problem or a muscle imbalance, the OHS will find it and the you and the bar end up on the floor. One of the best exercises to learn humility.
Apparently, when Shane Hammon (World Champion PLer) switched to OL for want of an Olympic medal, he started with 300 OHS with a broomstick per day…for a month.
I’ve got to tell you all, last week I had problems keeping upright on the last couple of reps of each set of OHS. I couldn’t figure it out because this was the first time in months that I had really had an issue with this - and it wasn’t the load either (maybe I slept wrong or something).
So,after reading Dan John’s suggestion for shoulder dislocates, I started doing them a few times each day. Did OHS this morning and what a difference! The best OHS I’ve ever had. No lie. I highly recommend the dislocates to anyone who hasn’t done them.
Dislocates = supinated grip, bar held behind the legs. Bar moves up behind the body and over the head. Ends up in front of the body.
Inlocates = pronated grip, bar held in front of the thighs. Bar moves upward and over the head. Finishes behind the shoulders.
Any gymnast will know the difference. I would recommend doing the INLOCATES, bent over in a good morning position. This requires you to use the muscles in the back of the shoulders to lift the bar past horizontal. These are the same muscles that keep the bar overhead during an OHS. Start with a broomstick. A very LIGHT broomstick.
[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
Dislocates = supinated grip, bar held behind the legs. Bar moves up behind the body and over the head. Ends up in front of the body.
Inlocates = pronated grip, bar held in front of the thighs. Bar moves upward and over the head. Finishes behind the shoulders.
Any gymnast will know the difference. I would recommend doing the INLOCATES, bent over in a good morning position. This requires you to use the muscles in the back of the shoulders to lift the bar past horizontal. These are the same muscles that keep the bar overhead during an OHS. Start with a broomstick. A very LIGHT broomstick.
TNT[/quote]
I think there are two different forms of dislocates being discussed here. Dan John describes a different animal than what you do. As for the part about “any gymnast can tell me the difference” - I don’t know any gymnasts, but I can tell you that what I did worked and I will continue to use them. Since I workout alone in my basement, no one will get a wrong answer when they ask me what I’m doing:)
My first post here in T-Nation. I like OHS, too. Here’s how I visualize and do them.
I stand on the platfrom with the bar over my head, snatchwidth grip. I try to rip the bar in two, as Danny John has recommended somewhere in his writings. After reading rizsa’s advice (that is earlier in this thread) I have also begun to rotate my elbows inward and it has contributed to better balance. (Thanks to both.)
Before descending I push my butt a little bit backwards, so that I have to move the bar a bit backward, too. If I don’t do it I’ll have problems with balance. After this initial light break at hips I break at knees and squat.
At the bottom I steady my balance before I try to rise up. This is usually necessary only in the first squat, after that I’m in the groove.
When I have secured my balance I squeeze with my buttocks and lower back, while continuing to rip the bar, and up I go. My concentration is on the spot on the wall before me, in my buttocks and lower back and on the bar that I try to rip.
I had to back off on weight earlier because off balance issues. Pushing my butt backwards so that I have to move the bar to a more favourable position before squatting has solved that.