^ ya, that!
Those DL’s looked purdy…
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who’se lift is a little slow when things get heavy. I was imagining everyone exploding outta the hole like rabbits. Silly rabbit.
That said - hardly any back rounding -lookin Good Kimba!
George, it makes me feel much better that you did the same sort of reset! It feels like more work doing a complete reset and I get less reps. But more of those reps are decent as opposed to all of them being crap-tastic.
Betty, that is sweet of you to say.
N., oh no bunny action out of the hole here. My speed off the floor sucks. Alot. Probably for anything over 135. Any thoughts on effective speed work would be appreciated.
That is a seriously long rest between reps! It’s supposed to be an explosive lift. You look so tentative throughout. Once you get the bar moving, use the momentum to pick up the speed and lock it out. Bands will help with speed off the floor.
Go ahead. Throw eggs at me.
On the contrary, my same-sized friend. There is nothing I love more about this place than suggestions and critique. Without you all, my lifts would suck way, way worse than they do.
How on earth would one set up bands to deadlift? In my wussy gym that has nothing useful in the way of equipment.
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
On the contrary, my same-sized friend. There is nothing I love more about this place than suggestions and critique. Without you all, my lifts would suck way, way worse than they do.
How on earth would one set up bands to deadlift? In my wussy gym that has nothing useful in the way of equipment.[/quote]
If you want to deadlift against bands, just wrap the bands around the bar and step on them. Or wrap them around dumbbells. I think chains look more diesel, however.
It’s crazy how strong you are for your weight! That set of deads looked great. And nice ass.
Jack, either of those methods sound do-able. What would be the appropriate bands to buy?
Rachelle, that is by far the nicest thing I’ve heard today. Thanks!
Today I had another ART session. The actual deep tissue work still hurts so good. It just feels really healthy to have my ART girl do to me what she does. Indeed, when I thanked her for hurting me, she said that nobody ever says this to her. However, I’m sure you lot will understand.
The interesting part today, however, was the corrective exercise.
My body imbalances on my squats are: 1) knees caving in 2) hips pulling to the right on my way down because I don’t want to put weight on my weaker left leg and 3) my right hip is higher up than my left hip. That is honestly alot of fucked-up-ness.
So, I’ve got some new exercises. First, I need to buy or make a balance board with a center piece with a flat bottom like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Balance-Board-Fulcrums-Size-Colour/dp/B0029Y5ZUU. Then the exercise is a BW squat on the board keeping the board balanced on the flat piece by not pulling to one side or another.
The second exercise is another one legged balance thing. I’m to tilt my whole body to each side (head to toe in a straight line), then front and back for 30 sec. each while balancing on one leg. This is very hard for me because I can’t keep the free leg in line with my body very well – forward or back, but not straight. If I can get a 15 degree bend, I’m lucky.
The third exercise is a 1 armed kettlebell or dumbbell front squat with my feet offset by half my foot’s length. 10 reps right foot forward/bell in right hand, 10 reps right foot forward, bell in left hand, same for other side. This was a huge bitch, especially with my left foot forward and the bell in my left hand – my weaker side. My knees were caving, my hips were pulling right and my right hip pulled up. All with a quarter squat and a 12.5 kg. kettlebell!! I’ll have to start these with a 10 lb. dumbbell. Geez.
In order to do these exercises correctly, I have to look into a mirror. I just can’t tell by feel when all these bad things are happening.
I do think that my ART girl has helped me identify the structural issues behind why my squat is stalled out. I’m hoping daily corrective exercises on top of my 5/3/1 program will help me out here.
Deadlift in the cage. You can wrap the bands around the top bars of the cage (or put the safeties up as high as they can go and wrap around those) and then wrap them around the barbell. This helped me learn to accelerate off the floor and keep the momentum going to lock it out. I’m attaching a video of this. Look closely and you’ll see the bands. You’ll also see that my reset is virtually nonexistent now, although I don’t do touch and go.
^ Very cool! I see the bands peeking behind the rack. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this helps - so the bands basically add a bit of umph to the lift?
Kimba, super psyched to hear you getting extra mobility work in to help on the corrections. All that stability work sounds incredibly hard! Its so interesting how the ART lady can assess the imbalances and how the perscribed exercises work to fix them. I can’t wait to see how these work for you!
Hmmmmm. There appears to be two ways to use bands in deadlifting. One appears to be Jack’s suggestion which is to deadlift against the bands, anchoring the bands to the ground. This would seem to make the whole lift harder?
The other way seems to be what Snapper is showing, where the bands are actually helping you get the weight off the ground faster, but there is no help at lockout. Sadly, I have no power cage available to me. insert sad face here. I do have two long pullup assist bands, but nothing to anchor them to overhead.
Those DL’s looked great and how you are resetting is fine and still part of your set.
Also as was noted above, nice posterior chain.
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
Hmmmmm. There appears to be two ways to use bands in deadlifting. One appears to be Jack’s suggestion which is to deadlift against the bands, anchoring the bands to the ground. This would seem to make the whole lift harder?
The other way seems to be what Snapper is showing, where the bands are actually helping you get the weight off the ground faster, but there is no help at lockout. Sadly, I have no power cage available to me. insert sad face here. I do have two long pullup assist bands, but nothing to anchor them to overhead.[/quote]
I have the same problem with speed off the floor with sumo deads. I feel like once I get the weight a few inches up, I’m pretty unlikely to fail getting a lockout, but getting it from the floor to that first couple inches is rough and slow.
I was thinking that deficit speed deadlifts might help with it?
It seems like getting the help off the ground (using the bands like snap suggested) wouldn’t help with speed off the floor since the floor is where my sticking point is? Or am I misunderstanding?
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
Hmmmmm. There appears to be two ways to use bands in deadlifting. One appears to be Jack’s suggestion which is to deadlift against the bands, anchoring the bands to the ground. This would seem to make the whole lift harder?
The other way seems to be what Snapper is showing, where the bands are actually helping you get the weight off the ground faster, but there is no help at lockout. Sadly, I have no power cage available to me. insert sad face here. I do have two long pullup assist bands, but nothing to anchor them to overhead.[/quote]
Actually, its really the same either way, but you use different weights on the bar. The goal is to make the bar light on take off, and heavy on lockout, to develop speed, acceleration, and lockout strength.
Pulling against bands, you use lighter weights than you normally would, and the tension kicks in as you pull the bar off the ground. With the bands helping, i.e., Snapper’s suggestion, you us more weight than you normally would, but the bands are helping the initial pull off the bottom. The higher the bar gets, the less help you get from band tension.
In either case, you are getting “help” off the bottom–one through less weight to start, the other through band tension at the start.
If you want to try bands, look at the EFS site for bands, and get some of the lightest ones. They also have videos and charts with suggested amounts of tension for how much weight you are moving.
[quote]Chimera23 wrote:
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
Hmmmmm. There appears to be two ways to use bands in deadlifting. One appears to be Jack’s suggestion which is to deadlift against the bands, anchoring the bands to the ground. This would seem to make the whole lift harder?
The other way seems to be what Snapper is showing, where the bands are actually helping you get the weight off the ground faster, but there is no help at lockout. Sadly, I have no power cage available to me. insert sad face here. I do have two long pullup assist bands, but nothing to anchor them to overhead.[/quote]
I have the same problem with speed off the floor with sumo deads. I feel like once I get the weight a few inches up, I’m pretty unlikely to fail getting a lockout, but getting it from the floor to that first couple inches is rough and slow.
I was thinking that deficit speed deadlifts might help with it?
It seems like getting the help off the ground (using the bands like snap suggested) wouldn’t help with speed off the floor since the floor is where my sticking point is? Or am I misunderstanding?[/quote]
See my post above. Either way, you are getting help off the floor to increase your takeoff speed.
[quote]Chimera23 wrote:
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
Hmmmmm. There appears to be two ways to use bands in deadlifting. One appears to be Jack’s suggestion which is to deadlift against the bands, anchoring the bands to the ground. This would seem to make the whole lift harder?
The other way seems to be what Snapper is showing, where the bands are actually helping you get the weight off the ground faster, but there is no help at lockout. Sadly, I have no power cage available to me. insert sad face here. I do have two long pullup assist bands, but nothing to anchor them to overhead.[/quote]
I have the same problem with speed off the floor with sumo deads. I feel like once I get the weight a few inches up, I’m pretty unlikely to fail getting a lockout, but getting it from the floor to that first couple inches is rough and slow.
I was thinking that deficit speed deadlifts might help with it?
It seems like getting the help off the ground (using the bands like snap suggested) wouldn’t help with speed off the floor since the floor is where my sticking point is? Or am I misunderstanding?[/quote]
Paused squats, anderson squats and Good Mornings will help in getting the weight off the floor, which is THE hardest part of an unequipped sumo DL. Also, just doing more sumo deadlifting for reps, resetting each rep will help.
Finally came back to see your pictures - which honestly look way hotter than I was expecting - take it as a compliment 
I was thinking speed sets…They seem to have worked for me, at least. I will do like 25-35 singles with 45 sec rest between aiming to get faster and faster for each rep. I pull conventional, so I don’t know if sumo requires more manipulation with bands and whatnot to achieve better speed…
Joe, thanks for the votes of confidence.
Chimera, I’m glad I’m not alone with my slowwww sumo deads. Like you, if I can get the bar off the ground, I’m good. I’ve not yet failed a lift I’ve broken off the ground, but I’m sure that’s coming!
Jack, that is a complete and logical answer to my wonderings. Two of the short mini bands would be more than enough for me.
DCA, the only reason I know what an Anderson squat is, is because I’ve stalked your videos.
Bobbi, thanks for the compliment which I happily take. I’ve framed a bunch of those pix and they are hanging in my bedroom.
Owlie, how much weight off your max do you use for the speed sets?
[quote]kimbakimba wrote:
Thanks Maschy! I am fighting the rounding with every ounce of my being, but it is so. hard. at weights over 170#. That’s why I’m thinking seriously about a belt now.
I consciously try not to spend alot of time in the hole. It messes with my head.[/quote]
Oddly enough I was having this conversation with my guy the other day. When I pull heavy, I reset at the top and breathe. If I spend too long at the bottom it’s like all the stored kinetic energy drains away. The act of going down stores the energy for me. Other people do it differently.