Erector Assistance Work in Stronglifts?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

I have noticed that as the loads get heavier with squats my back has been struggling more. I blame this on me hardly progressing on deadlifts for a while due to me lacking in grip strength. On my heavy deadlifts my lower back begins to round. It is perfect in my warm up sets, perfect in my starting position, but as I begin to pull it starts to round. Thankfully it isn’t that bad and a lot of people in my gym didn’t notice but its there.

Should I be deloading on my lifts to let my back get stronger? If I am do deload should I be adding in assistance work for my back? Hyper extensions / stiff leg deadlifts?

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What does the program dictate? If it’s anything like SS, you deload after 3 misses and do not add assistance.

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At the weight you are deadlifting, i’m willing to bet the back rounding is more of a technique problem than a strength problem.

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[quote]dt79 wrote:
At the weight you are deadlifting, i’m willing to bet the back rounding is more of a technique problem than a strength problem.[/quote]

This.

I have rarely seen someone round on a deadlift due to a lack of strength. More often than not, their set-up is wrong, and it doesn’t allow them to maximize the strength they have.

I post this a lot, but see if it helps with your deadlift.

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[quote]Massthetics wrote:
I have noticed that as the loads get heavier with squats my back has been struggling more. I blame this on me hardly progressing on deadlifts for a while due to me lacking in grip strength. On my heavy deadlifts my lower back begins to round. It is perfect in my warm up sets, perfect in my starting position, but as I begin to pull it starts to round. Thankfully it isn’t that bad and a lot of people in my gym didn’t notice but its there.

Should I be deloading on my lifts to let my back get stronger? If I am do deload should I be adding in assistance work for my back? Hyper extensions / stiff leg deadlifts?[/quote]

Most people can deadlift more then they can squat so I’d say your form is off.

If you are having grip strength issues then I would say use straps and pull with overhand grip. Some people will say don’t use straps. I’ll ask this; are you entering a powerlifting competition soon? No. Ok well then it’s ok to use straps. Seriously you can work on your grip strength at another time but right now you want to deadlift some decent weight.

As far as finding an exercise that works the erectors, well you already have. It’s the deadlift. Best exercise for erectors by far.

To get strong at deadlifts you need to ramp your sets up to 5’s ,3’s or 2’s. Singles can work too but I wouldn’t worry about that until you get your form down. Don’t try and do high rep conventional deadlifts. I know there is a popular program that encourages it but why make shitty form a habit? Low reps will emphasize good technique and is still the best way of gaining strength.

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Despite deloading my back is still meh. Thanks for the video it was pretty useful. Through my own experience I have found that doing a narrow stance is best but I wasn’t really sure if I should be doing that. I will from now on. Below is a deadlift video, which shows my horrendous lower back rounding. It is perfectly fine on lower weights, just when I go heavy it rounds.

be gentle. But I know theres lots of things I could improve.

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I don’t see it rounding

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Back positioning looks pretty decent to me. I’d focus more on getting a hip drive; your knees extend almost completely before your hips come into play.

Also, echoing stuff from before: Use straps or hook grip. You had more in you than that.

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Ok there’s a very simple solution for this.

First, get your head in a neutral position, tuck your chin and get your upper back tight.

Second, imagine there’s a loaded bar across your shoulder blades and try to push it off as you initiate the pull.

Not a bad lift though. Just spend some time getting tighter and learn to brace your core.

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surely I can’t be the only one who can see my back rounding. As I set up my back looks OKAY, so-so its good enough in my opinion. As I start to pull, for those couple of frames where I begin to pull and the bar doesn’t move you can see my lower back begin to round. Shouldn’t it be more straight and my ass be sticking out more? But if you think my form is fine I will take your word for it.

My deadlift always felt kind of awkward and I never felt like I was in a strong position. The video which mentioned a narrow stance, and your mention of hip thrust which I have completely forgotten about will probably go a long way :).

dt79 - I don’t really understand those instructions, elaborate please?

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Google neutral head position.

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[quote]Massthetics wrote:
surely I can’t be the only one who can see my back rounding. As I set up my back looks OKAY, so-so its good enough in my opinion. As I start to pull, for those couple of frames where I begin to pull and the bar doesn’t move you can see my lower back begin to round. Shouldn’t it be more straight and my ass be sticking out more? But if you think my form is fine I will take your word for it.[/quote]

If you’ve seen videos with some serious lower back rounding, you’d be able to contrast to what you’re doing and see that you’re not doing that at all.

My understanding is that there’s really a continuum when you’re talking about lower back “safety”. As long as you’re within that range you’re fine. At one end is a very arched back. At the other end is a slightly rounded back.

Now, like with most things, the stronger the surrounding musculature is, the less stress there is on the joints, so some people have massively strong lower backs and can “get away” with a fairly rounded spine, without compromising anything.

For example, Klokov’s stiff-leg deficit snatch-grip deadlifts:

After 0:50, you can see 1) how rounded his back is relative to yours, and 2) how much muscle he has on his lower back.

But I’d say, more importantly, no need to think too much about this. Your grip needs more work than your lower back positioning :wink:

Also, could I be wrong? Sure. Just relaying what I currently understand.

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Ok i found it. I am not great with descriptions. This was posted in the powerlifting forum by Emskee. I think he has a log here.

[quote]emskee wrote:
From the time that you you initiate the pull until just over your knees, you are pulling from a point on your back about 4" above your belt. Do you feet that? I’m betting that you do.

Put your head normal to the rest of your spine, make your chest big and support that bigness by your upper abs which are perched on the belt, imagine pulling from a point where the cervical spine connects to your thoracic spine (like around where the bar goes when you lowbar squat), as if there is a cable there pulling you upward. I’m NOT saying hyper extend your spine because some upper back roundness, lower back flatness tends to accompany a good conventional deadlift. I’m saying use your rib cage, abs and belt and LOCK your spine.

In my experience, personal and observed, It is hard to pull from mid trap when your head is thrown back.

If the bar does not move, you are on your toes or your chest collapses (back rounds) you are most probably too far from the bar. Play with foot position until your pull feels like it comes from the position I mentioned earlier. Since you will be pulling from mid trap, your delts will be a bit in front of the bar. That is okay because your lats and tris combine to make the line of force vertical. Chances are that your hip position will automatically adjust if your upper body is as above and your feet are where they belong.

You’ll probably have to decrease the weight, but if you learn to make your body from the hips up a solid, proud mass and pull from higher on your spine rather from the middle, all should fall into place.

Couldn’t hurt to try this. Just knock a ton off of the bar and try it.[/quote]

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Lorez, I still don’t quite see how rounding your back can be okay even if your the most muscular person on the planet. Our spines are designed to handle large compressive forces, which is its very hard to injure your back doing squats. However SHEAR forces are what they are NOT designed to handle and its very easy to snap your shit up. This is why dead lifting can be dangerous and you need to keep your spine in a natural position. If you are rounding your lower back, like klokov for example, you are putting an immense amount of shear force on that spine. I don’t care how strong you are, load is load. Correct me if im wrong though but thats my understanding…

Dt79 - I learned recently while tweaking my squat form I should be taking one thing at a time. I am first going to be working on a narrower stance and grip and start thinking more about my lockout. Once I feel confident in that I will move on to neutral head position etc. I did deadlifts today and did a narrow stance. I feel stronger but I am less flexible in a narrower stance and its more of a challenge to get down low and set up without rounding my back due to the tightness. But nothing too extreme I pull just fine.

But a narrow stance doesn’t feel right for my hip. It feels like the joint that connects my thigh and my pelvis is supposed to be more outward. When I deadlift (and squat) with a narrow stance I feel like im going to snap my hip. Not literally, but the tension is there. No pain it just feels uncomfortable. Wouldn’t be surprised if its muscular and I should be doing more stretches to cure it, don’t know. But overall it seems like a narrower stance is the way to go :).

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[quote]Massthetics wrote:
Lorez, I still don’t quite see how rounding your back can be okay even if your the most muscular person on the planet. Our spines are designed to handle large compressive forces, which is its very hard to injure your back doing squats. However SHEAR forces are what they are NOT designed to handle and its very easy to snap your shit up. This is why dead lifting can be dangerous and you need to keep your spine in a natural position. If you are rounding your lower back, like klokov for example, you are putting an immense amount of shear force on that spine. I don’t care how strong you are, load is load. Correct me if im wrong though but thats my understanding…[/quote]

You have the right basic idea.

To your first point, the amount of shear force experienced is very much dependent on the angle. Looking at things in a very isolated and simplified sense… if the force is in line with the spine, it experiences 100% compressive force and 0% shear force; if it’s perpendicular, it’s 100% shear force and 0% compression.

Then there’s basically a threshold that defines “how much shear force is too much”. The spine can handle some shear force; too much and you have a problem.

Putting those two ideas together, that gives you a range of angles where the shear force is within the threshold, and a range where it’s not. Hence the “some rounding is ok, too much is bad”.

To the second point, you’re oversimplifying. The weight that’s lifted is not being supported entirely by the spine. There’s a complex system of tendons, ligaments, fascia, muscle, and bone that work together to share the load. On top of that (or, underneath), you have additional systems of gases and fluids that also are able to share the load.

You hold a book out and let it go, and the air doesn’t support it… but if you put that air inside of a container like a balloon or air mattress, it’s capable of supporting quite a bit of weight. This is basically what happens when you take a breath and hold it. It’s also why your blood pressure shoots up when lifting a heavy weight.

So taking all of that and applying it to reality. If you take someone completely inexperienced with lifting, they don’t know how to use (or can’t use) intra-abdominal pressure nor create tightness with the muscle and fascia structure. So when they deadlift with a round back, a lot of that force is actually borne by the spine itself.

But you take someone who has the ability to do all of that, their spine bears much less of that load even with much heavier weights. The spine is still part of the whole system, but it’s not supporting much of the weight at all.

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Fair enough. Disregarding the actual weight lifted, i was rather impressed by the intensity you put into the set so i refrained from picking apart your technique, but instead gave you pointers and some useful stuff you can utilize in the future, if not now. Finding your best lifting style and personal mental cues in the execution of the life is fine. Just give us regular updates on your progress.

Regarding the neutral head position:

See the quote i posted above on how the lift should be executed. In the end you do not have to keep your head in neutral if it’s not your style. But read the post to under stand WHY and HOW it affects the mechanics of the lift.

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[quote]Massthetics wrote:
Lorez, I still don’t quite see how rounding your back can be okay even if your the most muscular person on the planet. Our spines are designed to handle large compressive forces, which is its very hard to injure your back doing squats. However SHEAR forces are what they are NOT designed to handle and its very easy to snap your shit up. This is why dead lifting can be dangerous and you need to keep your spine in a natural position. If you are rounding your lower back, like klokov for example, you are putting an immense amount of shear force on that spine. I don’t care how strong you are, load is load. Correct me if im wrong though but thats my understanding…
[/quote]

What are your thoughts on how this applies to stone loading in strongman?

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I ran into the same problem when doing StrongLifts for the first time. I think this is just weak hips and lower back. This is why your butt shoots up first.

I suggest to deload and try to do every set perfectly ? try to lift as fast as you can and maintain the same angle of your back (~45 deg) throughout the whole lift. After 3-4 times, it should get better.

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