It’s like being able to do high rep front and zercher squats without being choked out by the bar and no sore biceps. I literally could not do a bodyweight squat yesterday evening. I would just fall from right above parallel.
Also you can do it with your hands on a support rather than on the bar, it feels almost like a machine type movement where you can really target legs. I have little baby bird legs, and I need to target them heavily.
The bar was dirt cheap. I would highly recommend it so far.
The slight camber makes the bar throw the weight forward and try to take off your head. You need to use a lot of upperback to correct it, which in turn makes your upper back brutally strong. It also means you can use a less technical approach to squatting, and just “hulk” the weight up.
Along with this, very easy to train around common injuries using a SSB. Also awesome for good mornings and lunges.
Wow, almost a whole week off training. Been struggling a bit with life and such. Can definitely feel a negative shift in my state of mind when I’m not training/exerting regularly. Hope to amend this today or tomorrow.
How are you making out with these? A couple years ago I tried to get into doing these a bit (admittedly after becoming a fan of Jujimufu). Never progressed very far at all, but it was a fun little challenge to try it out.
It seems like a good combination of shoulder work, triceps work, a bit of core work, while also stretching my forearms. I enjoy them quite a bit. I think within the next month or so I’ll be able to do them without a wall.
High bar squat, beltless, paused
Barx30
135x5
185x3
225x1
275x1
315x1
365x1
405x1 harder and a bit higher than I would like
No mas pause
305x5
305x5
305x5
305x5
305x5
Slightly lower bar position/more forward lean, added soft belt
305x15
SSB lunges
135 for 10 minutes. No much clue on how many lunges or how far. Didn’t pause too often, and not for more than 5-10 seconds at a time. This was pretty brutal. Glutes were shaking and locking about 5 minutes in. It was almost easier to lunge than to stand, as glutes would begin to cramp as soon as I started to stand straight.
Update on “lat” work. Almost no lat soreness, but traps and the forearm flexors connected to my pinky and ring fingers are SMOKED. Probably turned into a curl/shrug hybrid at least from a muscle group worked standpoint since I had to work so hard to keep a grip on the bar.
Yeah. I still can’t activate lats worth a damn. I do crazy amounts if fatman rows, but they don’t seem to translate to pullups for me. I have trouble with bb rows not hitting the lats either. The only thing that’s working is db rows.
I can feel my lats with overhand and underhand barbell rows, but only when grip isn’t a limiting factor. Doing a lot of reps in a short time revealed a big weakness in my grip.
Hang clean ss/ lying delt raise
Barx10/5x20
Barx10/5x20
135x3/20x10
135x3/20x10
185x3/20x10
185x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x3/20x10
205x1
225x1
245x1
275x1 PR, actually resembled a clean, caught (or at least chased) at slightly below parallel
275x1 same as previous
275x1 same as previous
Well, just signed up for a Highland Games competition. May 17th, novice class. It’s only 20 minutes from my house, I couldn’t pass it up. Now to buy a kilt…