Deadlifts n' Squats - Page 5

keep your back straight. try looking @ the ceiling to prevent your head from leaning forward. Ideally you'll look straight ahead, but if you can't then look up. and yes, it does feel awkward when you do them right before you get used to the movement. leaning forward = bad. make sure your knees don't flare out too far or forward past your feet too much. i didn't read the parallel debate, but make sure you go at least that far. I prefer deeper squats with slightly less weight than normal for growth, but settle for parallel with heavy weights. just make sure you don't stop before parallel. stopping at 60 degrees is the worst on your knees. A lot of people you see stop here, unfortunately, because it's easier.

drive upwards with your heels only, and not your toes.

Interesting debate re: squat depth

Personally Im of the A2G camp, from experiencing the stress on knees when trying to 'brake' for a parallel stop. Coachvu - when doing full squats, the knees are not brought in to the action, the act of 'braking' is what brings them in. the stop at the bottom relies on your hips and ass. From my experience, trying to push up from the bottom is all hips and ass for me.

For those interested, try A2G squats from the bottom position - you'll feel a lot more in your hips and ass

Trap bars are long femured mofo's saviour (ie me). For me, they replicated a leg press in my garage gym, whilst giving just enough work to the lower back. I used to do heavy breathing sets of 20 reps, followed by a sled drag, or followed by a farmers walk with the trap bar. I certainly miss the home gym.

I like ass-to-grass squats. That's one reason I don't like doing them at home when I don't have a strong training partner - too easy to get stuck in the hole. The trap bar is a home trainer's friend.

I never tried 20-rep trap bar (or conventional) deadlifts because of the grip issue. Were you doing something like the "20 rep breathing squat" routine? Did you set the bar down and breathe between reps? I'd think no matter what, your hands would end up hamburger, with calluses ripped off and shit. I've got a decent grip for a little guy and my hands would be like claws if I did a 20 rep deadlift set with respectable weight.

Goblin,

There's various '20 rep breathing squat' routines floating around. Good thing is, they usually invovle the 20 rep breathing squat. My main influence is Doctor Ken Leistner. Ive also read a lot of Stuart McRobert, John McCallum, and countless others in the HIT/abbreviated training camp.

My favourite workout, till this very day goes as follows

15-20 rep breathing squat/trapbar DL
8-12 rep hammer strength pullover
8-12 rep hammer shoulder press
8-12 reps weighted chins
8-12 reps weighted dips
8-12 reps barbell curls
8-12 reps shrugs
10-15 rep stiff legged deadlifts

1 usually only did 1 set of each excercise. If i wanted extra work, I would do a second set with 1 min rest, trying to get half the number of reps I got in the first set.

Extra chin/dip work was done by dropping extra weight to do bodyweight chins/dips to exhaustion.

Extra bicep work was done by having a loaded barbell to curl as soon as I got down from the chinup bar. This packed on an inch within a few weeks - very demanding however. Doing this over the course of a year thicked my arms beautifully.

Anyway, I did have to reset my grip a few times when i started doing TBDL's, but I actually used to do a lot of grip work additionally. I trained quite heavily with the ironmind grippers, and their wrist roller, and the rolling thunder ( a rolling handle, a real SOB). At peak grip strength, my grip was strong enough for anything my body could handle - especially with a thumb hook grip.

Always used chalk, never used straps. And yes, callouses get ripped off. Best thing to do is actually clip the callouses, so they cant get ripped off, taking extra skin with them.

I still get the Ironmind catalog, although I don't have any specialized grip equipment other than CoC grippers, a wrist roller, and a homemade 35-lb kettlebell I use occasionally.

I never did actual HIT workouts, as I started lifting right around the same time I started training Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I was always scared that HIT workouts would render me unable to train hard the next day. I have, however, been very influenced by the "old school" training mentality espoused by Stuart McRobert, Bob Whelan, Brooks Kubik, etc., as opposed to three different kinds of bench press plus pec deck and db flyes.

These days I don't train for significant hypertrophy at all - I've decided I like being small and lean - and I stick to a twice-a-week compound program with relatively low volume. I've also had good luck with a very abbreviated, high volume program, a la Pavel Tsatsouline's "Power to the People." In fact, I may be rotating back to that for a bit.

Although, since I don't currently train BJJ, I might try a HIT-style program. I've read a bunch of the HIT stuff, and was even a lurker on cyberpump.com for a while.

Funny - I used to train BJJ as well... and I dont really train for hypertrophy anymore either... having a thick neck means its only bespoke shirts for me (a good thing!).

The HIT workouts, done with no rest are a great cardio trainer as well... The pavel stuff is alright too, great change up... I do some kettlebell work as cardio/strength when I only have 15 mins for a workout at home.

The old school abbreviated methods are pretty much what I did as well, there is a lot of overlap. I could be wrong, but HIT as a term came about because of Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden (of Nautilus fame).

At the core, the HIT and old school stuff, much like any successful program is built on progression and a limited workload. Strength training for me is more art than science.

There is no way to overstate the effectiveness of power exercises. Squats, deadlifts, powercleans, clean and jerk, etc are all fantastic for usable power.