What are the best variations to address weaknesses/sticking points for the big 3?
THe article “Bulgarian Training Simplified” had an interesting breakdown at the bottom of the article, but I wanted to open up some discussion about why/how these work.
I’ll edit this original post as this questions gets answered:
@khangles Pause variations at various points on all three lifts. Extra long pause for bench. Pin squats/bench. Tempo squats, bench and DL
Squat
If the sticking point is below parallel:
Wide Stance Squat
Paused Squat
Low Box Squat
If the sticking point is above parallel:
Zercher Squat
Front Squat
Box Squat (legal depth)
Squat from hole or just above - can’t say this loud enough - PAUSE SQUATS!! @osu122975
Bench Press
If the sticking point is off the chest:
Floor Press
Spotto Press
partial ROM from chest to half way up sub max weight for reps. Keeps pressure/tension on pecs/front delts. @osu122975
If the sticking point is around mid-range:
Incline Bench Press
3- Board Press
2- Board Press
If the sticking point is at lockout:
Close-Grip Floor Press
Close-Grip Incline Bench Press
Close-Grip Bench Press
an aggressive slingshot or Titan Magnum @osu122975
Deadlift
If the sticking point is breaking from the floor:
Deficit Deadlift
Floating Deadlift (deficit deadlift without bringing the barbell back on the floor)
Sumo Deadlift
pause deads below/at knee. Better setup technique. @osu122975
If the sticking point is around the knees:
Zercher Deadlift
Romanian Deadlift
Pin-Pull Below Knees (focus on pulling with the posterior chain; not on leveraging by bringing the knees under the bar)
If the sticking point is above the knees:
Barbell Hip Thrust
Pin-Pull above knees
Sumo Deadlift
(lockout) speed singles from floor 75-85% work on technique (getting hips thru). @osu122975
And OHP:
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Bench off chest - partial ROM from chest to half way up sub max weight for reps. Keeps pressure/tension on pecs/front delts.
Bench lockout - an aggressive slingshot or Titan Magnum
Deadlift off floor - pause deads below/at knee. Better setup technique.
Deadlift lockout - speed singles from floor 75-85% work on technique (getting hips thru).
Squat from hole or just above - can’t say this loud enough - PAUSE SQUATS!!
Why do these work? Experience.
Truthfully - reps are your friend. You don’t need excessive variation. If your 5s or 3s are heavy enough, they should cover most aspects of each movement.
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Deadstop bench would be my goto.
How long are your arms? Just not sure I’d consider floor press for this issue.
Interesting thread idea. I’ll throw in
Pause variations at various points on all three lifts. Extra long pause for bench. Pin squats/bench. Tempo squats, bench and DL
That was from this article: Bulgarian Training Simplified , so I used that list as a framework. I personally dont like to floor press.
I needed this thx to all…
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High bar or SSB squats, adding a pause will increase the demand on the quads even more
Dead squat (bottom-up squat from pins) starting below your sticking point.
Dead bench
Overhead press (shoulders can be a limiting factor at the bottom)
Wide grip bench - do this for sets of 6+ reps unless you want to injure a pec or shoulder
Isometrics, or just getting stronger overall. Getting stuck in the middle doesn’t really indicate a particular muscular weakness, it just means that the weight is too heavy. If it came off your chest fast enough then it wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the middle.
Dead bench starting a couple inches off your chest might help but I haven’t tried it so I can’t say, supposedly that works better for guys with long arms and I am not one.
Anything that emphasizes triceps, particularly slingshot and board presses, even better with a close grip. Direct tricep work can help too.
Building up your quads
Trap bar deadlift if you pull conventional
pauses around the knees
heavy barbell rows
bands and/or chains
stop pulling with a rounded back - better leverages to break the floor will result in a harder lockout
Floor press is good for strength off the chest if your arms are short enough and your torso thick enough that the bar touches your chest. Otherwise it is more of a midrange or lockout movement.
What exactly do you mean by deadstop bench?
Off pins, starting from the bottom, for singles.
Also reckon that if the bottom is truly your weak point then long pause bench are a better option than Spoto. If you have the usual sticking point of 3 to 4 inches off the chest then Spoto is great.
Keeping in mind that if you’re a powerlifter you should keep benching.
I see, I have never heard that called any name other than dead bench.
Thanks for the responses all.
Can we suggest percentages of variations vs the main lift? For example, this article (Know Your Ratios, Destroy Weaknesses) talks about ratios where a front squat is ideally 85% of your back squat.
Heavy enough to be challenging but not so heavy that form breaks down. For technique-focused exercises you can stay further away from failure and really focus on practicing the technique that you are trying to develop, so somewhere in the range of 60-85% would be appropriate.
I don’t think there are many powerlifters who can front squat 85% of their back squat. Most don’t front squat at all since there is no need to. All this talk of ratios makes sense for weightlifting (if your snatch or c+j is a low % of your squat then your technique sucks, if it is a high % then you need to get stronger and increase your squat) but it doesn’t really translate well to powerlifting. Sheiko and the Norwegians have rough guidelines for that kind of stuff but if you are particularly weak or strong with a specific exercise then obviously you would need to adjust the weights. Being dogmatic won’t get you far, look at things in a practical sense.
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I feel a lot of it comes with strength level as well. More time than not, people would benefit just from doing more of the comp lifts rather than spending a ton of time on other things.
I would say it depends on the situation. If your technique sucks or you just started lifting then working on the actual comp. lifts plus some hypertrophy work is going to pay off more than anything. And at the other end of the spectrum you have people like Malanichev who only do the comp. lifts. Everyone else is going to be somewhere in the middle.
The only well known coach I am aware of that isn’t into exercise variations for average lifters is Mike Zourdos, I know he worked with Mike Hedlesky for a while (Mike no longer uses his methods) but I’m not aware of him coaching any other high level lifters. Something like that could work for a while but eventually you are going to hit a wall and just throwing more volume at it won’t get you very far unless you throw some hormonal supplements into the mix.
It can make sense in powerlifting. I’m not necessarily a fan of congugate but that’s basically the concept.
If you hit X, on the floor press, expect Y on the platform is basically ratios in reverse.
What you are talking about is what they call “indicators”, the idea is that you have certain exercises that you find to have a direct correlation to your comp. lift so if the indicator goes up by a certain amount you should be able to estimate your new 1rm without doing the actual comp. lift. It doesn’t mean that everyone should be able to floor press 90% of their raw bench, but that might be how it works for you as an individual.
@jbackos was talking about this recently, maybe he can explain it better.
Thanks everybody for the feedback.
I know it’s been addressed for floor strength and getting out of the hole on squat, and off the chest for bench - but what are some hypertrophy-based exercises that help?
I’d imagine RDLs work the hamstrings to improve upon both the sumo and conventional deadlifts. I’d imagine OHP can help bench, and I’d imagine leg press/leg extension to build quad strength for the squat.
I personally warmup with GHR and cable pull throughs before squats and deads for lockout.
There are way too many exercises to list everything that can build all the muscles involved in the three lifts, you could just look at exrx.net or bodybuilding.com for exercises to target specific muscles.
What I would do instead is look at what makes an exercise NOT suitable for hypertrophy work. Partial ROM gives partial results so that is out. Bands can be hard on the joints so doing a bunch of high rep sets of sq/bp/dl of variations with bands is probably a bad idea, and I don’t see why you would want to anyway. I have never used chains and supposedly they aren’t as rough on the joints but I still don’t see any logic in using them for hypertrophy. Leg extensions - for every lifter who does them you have ten who say they fuck with their knees so I would be careful with those. Tricep extensions of various sorts - a lot of people get elbow tendinitis from them (I had this issue before) so they are one thing to be cautious with, better to do higher reps with a moderate weight and work on fatiguing the triceps rather than trying to move max weight.
That’s all I have.
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OHP variants?
Axel press, zpress,???
What about using Dumbrell presses to make the OHP move?
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