On August 21 2014 03:17 Najda wrote: Why would low bar be worse for the SI joint than high bar?
Hamstring has to work on two joints: hip and knee. When torso is more upright, hamstring primarily works on knee.
Edit to clarify:
I think it's much easier to strain your QLs with a low bar squat with a lot of torso lean, as well as cause hip/SI joint problems and risk your spinal health. Olympic lifters have a lot of compression in their spine, and often compressed discs after years of lifting but I believe they experience fewer disc pathologies than powerlifters. When you have a lot of torso lean, your chest is at more risk of collapse, and if it does collapse, your back is at risk. That is why the proper spotting position for a low bar squatter is to hook your elbow under a persons shoulders to pull their chest up and help them complete the lift. Oly lifters can just dump the bar because the bar isn't so far out in front of their ass. When novices are learning to squat and don't have proper motor control patterns (through years of faulty motor patterns and lack of physical activity) they are at more risk for these issues, because they don't know how to properly brace their torso.
I'd like to think young kids are not idiots and the can squat,deadlift or bench without killing themselves. . That said, Klokov was pretty insistent on the importance of recovery. Sauna after every workout, full body massage after strength training, usually 1,5 hours for full body massage (T/T/S)
On August 21 2014 11:15 decafchicken wrote: Are you shitting me. If i had even half an hour of massage a couple times a week i would probably feel like fucking super man. So jealous.
Yeah same here lol.
I have a developed a pretty sick self massage routine for the legs though, did them yesterday after squats and felt like new. Like the real deal it takes like 30 mins though.
Other thing is that they have infra red saunas on their gyms, so they just dress inside and don't need to warm up.
Edit:
He said all russians train the same, what they change is the excercises depending on weaknesess in the lifts
"When you traing strength muscles get short and tight. Jump squat are very light (I do 60kg) 5x5 going to bottom and extending knee to maximum. After massage always"
What is different from others (Chinese, bulgarian) is that they don't mix the oly lifts with strength training. I guess it has to do with the technique in both lifts which is with torso very foward (watch klokov or aukhadov) so you must train the first pull a lot to sustain that position without falling over.
A pretty extensive part of the seminar was on the assistance exercises and how to adress various problems in the lifts. I'll write on that later if someone is interested; pretty much every fancy thing you have seen him do in youtube has a purpose.
Ok, I think should be added as sticky in the Oly lifting Thread. I'll try to make it coherent, but I might miss some ideas so I'll just mention them later lol.
General stuff:
"For olympic lifters balance is very important; legs and back have to be close in strength for best technique. However lifters with stronger backs specialize in snatch (me) and lifters with stronger legs and shoulders specialize in C & J (Ilya Ilin)"
"Most coaches can spot where is mistake in olympic lift. But a good coach knows WHY the mistake happens, and then HOW to fix mistake. For example, if athlete leans foward he might need stronger legs, yelling "don't lean foward" doesn't help".
"In crossfit (and powerlifting, added by me) ppl train really hard but get injured a lot. This is because they don't work on recovery. Olympic lifters do not injure regularly because we make sure muscles are not tight. Tight muscles make movement bad, bad movement causes injury"
"Many people find routines in the internet with exercises, reps, sets and percentages, and copy them. This is bullshit (exact klokov works). Most important is HOW you do exercises, second WHY you do them."
"In the Olympic lifts you need to teach your body to catch correctly, you CAN'T think. You lift and your body catches, thinking is too slow. Muscle memory is very important".
Snatch:
"For the snatch, when you go for PR is natural to get scared and think of bottom position, instead of the lift itself.
To make mind ready for the catch, drop snatch (you put bar in your back and drop down to snatch position) with more weight than PR must be done some times, and also light drop snatch as warmup. My best drop snatch is 245kg (LOL), so I felt very confident and now I'm not scared when I snatch.
Sometimes you catch at bottom but far falls, this is very frustrating. This happens because body has not been taught how to fight the bar. To teach this, I do klokov press (PBN he said lol) and when arms are very tired, do an overhead squat. The movement with arms shacking conditions the body to fight the bar
Sometimes when you snatch, the bar goes a bit foward and you drop it You can teach body to catch the bar (muscle memory) by doing front barbell raises in the bottom snatch position. My best result in this exercise is 75kgx3 (LOL I can barely do it with a stick). Of course when I snatch 200kg I can't save the bar like this, but if the bar is a bit foward I can hold it, bounce and take a step foward and save the lift.
Weather finally allowed paragliding yesterday. It's really not a very hard "exercise" by itself, but man, I am completely wrecked today from 12h of flying around mountains. Super happy though!
and I'm fairly certain through my internet researched personal diagnosis that my weak glutes are the cause. I was told to stick my butt out more the last time someone watched me squat, and by not doing that, it's probably placing too much stress on my flexors. Igne told me to sit in squat position for 10min everyday, which I'm doing. I'm also stretching and can do this:
without any problems and pushing my hips forward as far as I can possibly go. So mobility and flexibility is probably not the cause. I've also been doing glute bridges on rest days and pre-workout and some other glute stuff before squatting. Should I take a break from squatting? What else can I do to strengthen glutes and practice correct form? I don't wanna bench more than I can squat and attract weird stares.
Basically on warm up sets at about 80% of the workset and worksets, I experience a sharp pain near my hip flexor area as I'm coming up. Sometimes I squat through it but sometimes with 1 day rest, the pain gets pretty bad and I lower the weight.
On August 22 2014 07:10 zulu_nation8 wrote: I'm having pretty bad hip flexor problems still with squats and it's now at the point that I'm only comfortable doing the same weight for work sets as my bench work set. My deadlift is still 100 lbs more and looks to be at the correct weight though I get a tiny bit of pain after those also. I was looking at this: http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-recovery/squats-and-hip-dysfuction-2-common-problems-and-how-to-fix-them
and I'm fairly certain through my internet researched personal diagnosis that my weak glutes are the cause. I was told to stick my butt out more the last time someone watched me squat, and by not doing that, it's probably placing too much stress on my flexors. Igne told me to sit in squat position for 10min everyday, which I'm doing. I'm also stretching and can do this:
without any problems and pushing my hips forward as far as I can possibly go. So mobility and flexibility is probably not the cause. I've also been doing glute bridges on rest days and pre-workout and some other glute stuff before squatting. Should I take a break from squatting? What else can I do to strengthen glutes and practice correct form? I don't wanna bench more than I can squat and attract weird stares.
Basically on warm up sets at about 80% of the workset and worksets, I experience a sharp pain near my hip flexor area as I'm coming up. Sometimes I squat through it but sometimes with 1 day rest, the pain gets pretty bad and I lower the weight.
sounds like a tight muscle to me. try supersetting 10-20 light squats (feel the pump) with that stretch until you feel it going away. Make sure your legs are equally flexible.
If that doesn't work get a sports massage.
FS 155kgx1, 140kgx3x8 (PR) Clean pulls 90x3, 110kgx3, 120kgx1 (focus on pulling up instead of backwards), Clean deadlift 125x3 OHP 60kg x7 x7 x5 x5 x5 Jump squats 30kgx5x5
It seems I still have an issue with depth at higher weights (100kg). First set I recorded and I wasn't low enough. I went lower on most reps in the following sets but I also need to work on keeping my torso more upright.
Anyone have any recommendations on videos/stretches/mental queues to think about on keeping the torso near vertical in the high bar squat? I've googled quite a few already... I think I just really need to get into third world squat positions and actually hold it there for 10 minutes instead of 30-45 seconds. And then work on keeping the torso upright...
On August 22 2014 11:10 zulu_nation8 wrote: so do one set of 10-20 at a light weight on top of the warm up sets?
As a general rule when something hurts you warm up more.
After workout do 10-20 light squats to pump, stretch. Then repeat as many times as needed (both squats and stretches) until you feel the muscle loosening up and getting longer. To stretch psoas in tha position you need to squeeze the glutes and reduce the knee angle a bit (on that position you'll feel more pressure in the quad)
Also I think the weak glute thing is non sense since your deadlift is way higher than your squat.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.crossfitoakland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hip%20flexor%202-1.preview.jpg?c66548)
