Self Assessments- Retarded In The Workplace, But CROOSH In The Gym

Those boots lack straps- luckily, she's got one in her hand.

For anyone who's been a longtime fan of this blog, you're fully aware of my belief in bootstrapping for any and all lifters, no matter how neophytic.  The reason for this is because I am unaware of the existence of any human being who has amounted to anything worth talking about from just having followed orders, be it in the gym, on the battlefield, or in the workplace.  Free thought and the desire to individualize one's actions and persona should be held as dearly to you as your girlfriend hold her pocket rocket or rabbit- you should be screaming and foaming at the mouth while raining down blows on anyone who would have the audacity to strip them from you.

This is what half of Reddit and all of Bodybuilding.com looks like.

It occurs to me, however, that many people suffer from analysis paralysis and that they are more or less reduced to a 2003 Christopher Reeve when they enter the gym, as they've had programming crammed down their throats like they're an 18 year old coke head in an interracial porn every time they have watched television or read a magazine about lifting- commercials and ads constantly exhort you to avoid "wasting your time" in the gym and to adopt whatever program is in vogue to do so.  Here's a newsflash- the only way you're wasting your time in the gym is if you're not exerting yourself.  Any workout at all done with the requisite effort is far superior to what most assholes do- print out a program and then phone in all of their workouts, as they've not actually considered the whys and wherefores of the program.  

Before you call bullshit and claim you know people who try hard and achieve no results, I will tell you unequivocally that

1. that's not possible, and 
2. even a shitty workout regime done enthusiastically over time will yield heaps more benefits than a "great" program, simply because the lifter in the shitty program will, if they stick with it, eventually develop the ability to program for themselves. At some point, they'll have tried everything under the sun, they'll certainly know what won't work, and they'll likely have a lot of insight into what does work.  Additionally, they'll know what their repetition/set sweet spot is (I'll cover this later), which is invaluable knowledge.  Thus, their time has not been wasted- it's been wholly consumed with research, rather than development.

Frankly, I don't give a shit what metaphor helps you- whether it's Jesus and the "teach a man to fish" story or Baron Munchhausen pulling himself out of a swamp by his own hair, you should be figuring shit out for yourself in the gym.  Again, however, the ugly problems rears its head like the singer Seal crawling out of an open sewer that most people aren't sure how to go about self-assessment, much less self-determination.  While the latter is going to have to wait for a week when I have nothing to do but write, self-assessment should be pretty easy for any of you with an ounce of introspective ability.  As such, I will teach you how to assess your own form and modify it by using myself as an example.

The Squat
My squat, clearly, is hardly a weak point, though that is no reason not to tweak it.  Over the last couple of years, that lift was increased pretty dramatically for me, due in part to new training methods and in part to modifying my form.  My form went through two different assessments in four years as I strove to make gains and to work through pain issues.  The first time, I noticed some pain in my right knee occasionally when squatting.  That being a rather major sign that something is amiss, I started playing with the width of my feet and the angle of my feet to try to alleviate that pain.  I did not, repeat DID NOT, consult with any internet message board for tips- comments about back rounding and "butt wink" are NEVER useful.  I did, however, check through Pubmed and a couple of powerlifting books to see if I could find any clues there.  Both resources were useless, but I quickly found that spreading my stance wider and pointing my toes forward alleviated the pain and allowed me to sit back far further than I'd ever done before.  I knew from doing lockouts that I had far more power when I dropped the bar lower on my back and spread out my feet, so I started using the exact form I used on lockouts for my full squat.  That took some getting used to, as my hips continually sent me messages that they were going to beat my ass like my name was Rihanna for making them stretch so hard, but the change in stance paid off.

My progression went something like this:

1. Knees hurt
2. Angle feet out more- knees hurt more
3. Angle feet in more- knees hurt less
4. Check sources to confirm this makes sense (as it runs contrary to everything I'd read in training manuals and magazines about foot angle on squat)
5. Note that I am strongest on lockouts with a very wide stance and lower bar placement.
6. Widen stance.  Lift more difficult because of bar position (too high), which shifted my weight forward.  I didn't notice the weight shift from videoing my lift, I noticed it because the lift was harder and I felt my weight shift on my toes... you know, because I was paying attention.
7. Lower bar.  Retry.
8. Lower bar more.  Retry.
9. Find sweet spot on my back where the bar won't slip off.
10. Pound the shit out of my new form and bask in the glow of continual gains on my squat.

Later, I started suffering from debilitating bicep knotting and pain, which kept me from squatting because every time I did, I found that my arms hurt for days afterwards.  I ended up spending hundreds of dollars on massages and spent innumerable hours using a Theracane to grind out knots in my biceps and brachialis like I was a housewife in the middle ages trying to make gruel, and I got the knots out... but my form brought them back.  Knowing that the loading on my arms had to be wrong, I started moving my hands around on the bar, eventually settling on an ultra-wide thumbless grip.  This took weeks to figure out, but the process resulted in me debunking yet another myth about "proper form", as I was under the impression that a thumbless grip would reduce the bones in my wrist to pain-filled fairy dust.  Had I asked the online community, that is likely what they would have told me as well- as I've mentioned before, large groups of like-minded people despise individuality.  In interdependent communities like online message boards, people will turn against you if you're perceived as different. "People who departed from the norm could be dangerous to the whole community- whether they were rich or very poor.  Either way, there was a tendency to seek the center and to resent people who were misfits"(Brafman 124).  As such, seeking advice from those communities will yield nothing but the same tired bullshit you see time and time again on those sites- finding useful, unique advice on most message boards about as uncommon as a Fulbright scholar in a Special Education class.  There's some shit you're going to have to figure out for yourself, no matter how aggravating and interminable the process seems.  It's not always going to be a laborious process, however.  To wit, here's my recent discovery about deadlifting.

The Deadlift

Though I'm hardly as good a deadlifter as I am a squatter (Ed Coan's records appear safe, for the time being), I'm hardly worthless at it.  I would credit high volume back work and a healthy serving of hate with my 670 pull at 181, as my form ranges from hideous to apoplexy-inducing in good pullers.  I rarely pull in the gym due to the fact that it reduces my ability to squat as heavily and as often as I'd like, so I've found a number of exercises that keep my deadlift reasonably good without putting undue strain on my upper and midback.  The problem I developed, however, is that the supplementary exercise I do are done with my head down- most notably, the Pendlay row.  As such, I have trained myself to pull from the floor with my head down, which makes my round-backed, stiff-legged pull even more horrifying to behold.  I hadn't known this, however, until I decided to tinker with it.

Since I had walking pneumonia, I've had worse than normal tightness in my upper back, caused by hours of blood-filled spittle coughing and vomiting.  Thus, squatting and pulling have been extremely painful, and always result in upper back cramping that only be described as crippling.    Pulling hasn't always resulted in the upper back cramping I normally get, even without the pneumonia, so I decided to figure out what the fuck was up with my back.  I started pulling in front of a mirror with 135, and my back cramped up, as it is want to do.  I then recaqlled that Benni Magnusson dips his hips right before he pulls.  As we have a similar style, I decided to try that, only to have my kneecap threaten me with violent explosive departure.  From that, I could ascertain something was amiss.  I then looked up, into the mirror, as I dropped my hips to pull, and the bar came up as if it was being levitated by mystical bisexual nymphs from the planet Vivid.  A chorus of angels sang a breakdown.  I might have cum a little.  And thus, my deadlift was fixed.  

 It really is that easy- you simply have to identify where and when you're failing, then examine what's happening when you fail and tinker with the movement until it flows.  Up next, I'll detail some common flaws with the squat and deadlift and the insanely easy fixes for them, and probably issue yet another harangue about thinking for yourself and the fact that you should not take advice from anonymous idiots.  That will likely be next week, as I have some records to break in the meantime.

RUM is streaming online here, in case you guys want to watch me terrorize the 165 lb weightclass on Sunday.

Sources:

Brafman, Ori and Rom Brafman.  Sway: The Irresistable Pull of Irrational Behavior.  Doubletree: New York, 2008.