[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]jacob-1310 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Observations:
Big things:
- You unrack the bar with your chest already down. This means that you are loose in the back to begin with. This is bad. You should never unrack the bar with your chest down. Your head is also looking down. This is bad. Keep your head up to help keep your chest up (although this varies a bit at the elite levels, but you’re not there yet).
Unrack with your back already tight and your head up. Don’t look down. lock your elbows down.
- Your elbows are way too high. This forces your chest to stay down.
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thanks aragorn. I actually just watched this video http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/08/episode-306365-set-up-the-knee-hinge-joint-so-that-it-will-actually-hinge.html
he gives a great way to stay tight and keep back taught etc.
do you have any tips of keeping elbows down? or just play around with certain things?
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well, really just force them down. Like a chin-up or lat pulldown. It’s an actual force thing. If your back is tight enough (shoulders pulled BACK and together), the shelf should still be there when the elbows drop. The looser the back is the less you can drop the elbows because you are using them to create a shelf to set the bar on. So the fear is that you’ll lose the bar off your back right? Well, if you tighten and squeeze your back together, and arch hard like you’re doing a barbell row held to your chest, then it becomes “easier” to keep the shelf with elbows down.
Back tight means:
- shoulders drawn back, not just your arms, your actual shoulder blades
- think “stretch the chest” to pull those shoulders back
- arch hard like holding a barbell row to your chest or an RDL
- squeeze that as tight as you can and keep it there lol.
This is one reason I like training the back isolation work with a “squeeze and hold” contraction at the top. It’s super draining, but it teaches you to hold that position, which is exactly what you need to do in a squat and powerlifting style bench.[/quote]
i try to do that as best i can, but maybe when i walk out i just become lose seeing as i breath lol. I like the idea of squeeze and hold. Definitely will do on rows. Might (most likely) is a the problem with my bench as well.
thanks for taking the time to lend advice.