Thread: Need a better lower routine.

Instead of lunges you could do split squats - they are basically a static lunge, you get into the lunge position, squat down, come back up, squat down etc etc without bringing your legs back together.

As for the deadlifts - no, i lower the weight all the way to the floor, re-set, then pull again. No dropping. What videos have you been looking at? What specific part of the deadlift is causing you problems - ie what stops you from lowering the weight to the floor?

Deadlifts should be controlled, no dropping.
Can't feel it in your legs? Then you should be going heavier. How many sets & reps are you doing for each exercise. It's also possible that you're performing your other exercises incorrectly as well.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

Then you should be going heavier.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but i don't think adding more weight is a good idea seeing as this thread is about a problem with his form. If anything i would suggest using less weight until he gets it perfect.

Originally Posted by Gazhole

Not sure if this is what you meant, but i don't think adding more weight is a good idea seeing as this thread is about a problem with his form. If anything i would suggest using less weight until he gets it perfect.

Was referring to his squats not deads. If his form is good for squats and he's not feeling it enough in his legs then he's going to light. If his form is bad than he needs to correct that and then add more weight later on(agree with you there), but even if you have bad form and are going heavy, you should be feeling it somewhere.

Sorry.. I was using the word "drop" figuratively.
I don't actually drop the weight. lol
After I've lifted the weight, I bend at the hip like a romainian dead till I return to my knees. Thats the part I'm not sure about. Do I then bend my knees and lower it to the floor or stiff leg it to the floor?
Also, I am feeling the movements, again, I was speaking figuratively. Meaning I wasn't feeling satisfied with the workout due to getting an excellent feel from everything but the lunges.
I do like the split lunges you suggested Gaz. I'll try those and see if they work better.

So Gaz, you reset after every rep on the deads? So basically, you setup, perform the lift, return the weight to the floor, reset again, right?
Unlike, romainian deads where you go up, then down and repeat without the weights ever touching the floor between reps.

Originally Posted by FMJ

Also, I am feeling the movements, again, I was speaking figuratively. Meaning I wasn't feeling satisfied with the workout due to getting an excellent feel from everything but the lunges.

You're obviously not training hard. "Excellent feel" from deads and squats, gimmie a fuckin break. Going hard and heavy on squats alone kicks yours ass as does deads, so don't tell me you're hard and heavy on deads, squats, and whatever else your adding and claiming you're feeling unsatisfied at the end of the day. You should have been totally wore out from the deads and squats alone. "Excellent feel" my ass, have fun with your pilates.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

You're obviously not training hard. "Excellent feel" from deads and squats, gimmie a fuckin break. Going hard and heavy on squats alone kicks yours ass as does deads, so don't tell me you're hard and heavy on deads, squats, and whatever else your adding and claiming you're feeling unsatisfied at the end of the day. You should have been totally wore out from the deads and squats alone. "Excellent feel" my ass, have fun with your pilates.

You're obviously not thinking hard enough. You know what I meant, genius. Excellent feel, as in feeling satisfied I worked hard enough. Maybe I didn't type slow enough for you? Everything else was fine but the lunges. Does that clear it up for ya?

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

Was referring to his squats not deads. If his form is good for squats and he's not feeling it enough in his legs then he's going to light. If his form is bad than he needs to correct that and then add more weight later on(agree with you there), but even if you have bad form and are going heavy, you should be feeling it somewhere.

Ah right, yeah thats fine. It looked like you were telling him to add weight to his deadlift with that post, haha.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

You're obviously not training hard. "Excellent feel" from deads and squats, gimmie a fuckin break. Going hard and heavy on squats alone kicks yours ass as does deads, so don't tell me you're hard and heavy on deads, squats, and whatever else your adding and claiming you're feeling unsatisfied at the end of the day. You should have been totally wore out from the deads and squats alone. "Excellent feel" my ass, have fun with your pilates.

Also, chill the hell out.

We're not talking about getting a "br00tal workout" here, he hasn't said anything about the difficulty, just the form.

Originally Posted by FMJ

So Gaz, you reset after every rep on the deads? So basically, you setup, perform the lift, return the weight to the floor, reset again, right?
Unlike, romainian deads where you go up, then down and repeat without the weights ever touching the floor between reps.

I reset my grip yeah, especially on a long set. Even if your grip doesn't tire, its good to take just a moment (no need to pause, you don't want extra rest!) and make sure:

1 - You have a good grip on the bar.

2 - Your back is still neutral.

I find when people keep at full deads like they do with romanians the back tends to drift towards being round.

But yeah, start off with legs bent, back neutral, drive the hips forward and straighten your legs, pause, then literally do that in reverse. As your hips are coming forward and your shoulders are coming back, your legs should be straightening at the same time, and vise versa for the way down.

The deadlift is a continuous movement, theres no point where you say "okay, my back is horizontal again, time to bend my legs".

Really hard to explain in text, but does that make sense?

Originally Posted by Gazhole

I reset my grip yeah, especially on a long set. Even if your grip doesn't tire, its good to take just a moment (no need to pause, you don't want extra rest!) and make sure:

1 - You have a good grip on the bar.

2 - Your back is still neutral.

I find when people keep at full deads like they do with romanians the back tends to drift towards being round.

But yeah, start off with legs bent, back neutral, drive the hips forward and straighten your legs, pause, then literally do that in reverse. As your hips are coming forward and your shoulders are coming back, your legs should be straightening at the same time, and vise versa for the way down.

The deadlift is a continuous movement, theres no point where you say "okay, my back is horizontal again, time to bend my legs".

Really hard to explain in text, but does that make sense?

Once I learned to actually pull from my hips from the squatted start position --rather than my back (like so many people think they're supposed to be doing -- the proper movement just came naturally.

If you can learn to feel your hams/hips pulling then the straightening portion comes quite easily, actually.

Originally Posted by Gazhole

The deadlift is a continuous movement, theres no point where you say "okay, my back is horizontal again, time to bend my legs".

Really hard to explain in text, but does that make sense?

Yeah, I think I got you. A smooth fluent motion but you still bend your knees at the end of the movement to get the bar back to the floor right?

Originally Posted by Phineas

Once I learned to actually pull from my hips from the squatted start position --rather than my back (like so many people think they're supposed to be doing -- the proper movement just came naturally.

If you can learn to feel your hams/hips pulling then the straightening portion comes quite easily, actually.

Totally had the same effect with me.

I was half using my back, and half trying to squat it up (shoulders were waaaaay way far back). My boss caught me at it once and set me straight, and my poundage went up, as well as my comfort.

Using your back with those weights really wasn't a nice feeling. Driving with the hips just feels so much "righter".

Originally Posted by Phineas

Once I learned to actually pull from my hips from the squatted start position --rather than my back (like so many people think they're supposed to be doing -- the proper movement just came naturally.

If you can learn to feel your hams/hips pulling then the straightening portion comes quite easily, actually.

Hey Phineas. I know what you mean and I'm definitly not pulling with my back. It's not getting the weight up, I'm actually just unsure of the form on the way down. But I think I get what Gaz is explaining. Just the same as on the way up in reverse. Sounds easy enough.

Originally Posted by FMJ

Yeah, I think I got you. A smooth fluent motion but you still bend your knees at the end of the movement to get the bar back to the floor right?

Correct!

It might feel awkward at first, but the deadlift is a very technically demanding exercise (nevermind its hard just from a muscular sense). Keep practicing, and like Phineas said really try and lift with the hips rather than levering with the back.

Concentrate on driving your hips forward and bringing your shoulders back, rather than lifting it with your back. You'll straighten up automatically. Like i said to Phineas, i've only recently got it right and i found doing a bunch of really really light sets of 10 helped hammer it home (the weight was so light i could have walked around with it, lol).

On the way down where your problem was, just do it in reverse - bring your hips back, keep your back neutral, and you'll bend naturally and set it down.

Originally Posted by FMJ

You're obviously not thinking hard enough. You know what I meant, genius. Excellent feel, as in feeling satisfied I worked hard enough. Maybe I didn't type slow enough for you? Everything else was fine but the lunges. Does that clear it up for ya?

You said, guys i'm just not feelin it on leg day. You must be superman since squats and deadlifts aren't enough for you and need another compound. Try upping your intensity.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

You said, guys i'm just not feelin it on leg day. You must be superman since squats and deadlifts aren't enough for you and need another compound. Try upping your intensity.

I see where you're going with this bro. And I agree, the squats and deads are plenty intense and believe me, they do kick my ass when I do them but you misunderstand me when I say I wasn't feeling it. Of course I'm feeling squats. I'm 168lbs squating 225 pounds 3X10. Who wouldn't feel that?!? I'm sorry if you find it hard to believe that I do squats, then deads and feel like I need just one more quad move.. but thats the deal.
I do legs once a week so I like to blast the shit out of them and make it count. Thats not superman, thats bodybuilding my friend.
Peace out.

Let me know how your deadlifts go next time, dude!

Maybe you don't feel the lunges as much because you've just done the 2 hardest exercises in BB and so it doesn't feel as straining?

I do squats, deadlifts and calf raises when I know I wont have time in the week to do legs again and they're sore for the rest of the week. But it's not impossible to go over.

Originally Posted by FMJ

I do squats, then deads and feel like I need just one more quad move..

OK, when you're done with squats and DLs, try some front squats and make sure you go all the way down. 3x8 with decent weight should do it.

Originally Posted by Triple Threat

OK, when you're done with squats and DLs, try some front squats and make sure you go all the way down. 3x8 with decent weight should do it.

Good call TT!!

Front Squats will do the trick

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

You said, guys i'm just not feelin it on leg day. You must be superman since squats and deadlifts aren't enough for you and need another compound. Try upping your intensity.

While I agree that the major lifts demand high relative intensity, they shouldn't be performed so intensely that you're crippled after them. Not only should you get through your whole workout, you should finish strong. What's the logic in brutalizing yourself on the first exercise and then painfully pushing through half-assed sets on some "augmenting" exercises?

I always push hard on deads and squats, but I don't push so hard that I can't match or come close to that intensity on my following exercises. While squats and deads may very well be the cream of the crop they're by no means the only valuable exercise. I also want energy and focus for good mornings (very brutal exercise), unilateral DB romanian deads (very tiring due to the stablizing), leg press (pure power), and zercher squats (need I an explanation for this one???).

A good bodybuilder is one who checks the ego at the door and is willing to hold back a few pounds on the first lift because they know that's only the beginning of the day's ass-kicking.

Lift intensely, but smart. Consistency is far more important than how much you force yourself to squat for a few sets. Leave the brutalizing until max lifts week.

I'm not sure what kind of lunges you are doing but there are tons of variations. If you aren't digging the walking lunges you could also try reverse lunges or forward lunges. Splits squats are also a good alternative. Another one I quite like is the Bulgarian squat (Sometimes called Bulgarian split squat). If you can do straight single leg squats, those are awesome too.

With deadlifts, I wouldn't just let it drop to the floor. Control it all the way down. I don't have to reset between each rep, though there is nothing wrong with doing that. I just wouldn't be resetting as a result of losing control of the weight...

Originally Posted by Gazhole

Let me know how your deadlifts go next time, dude!

Well, did them again yesterday and despite following your suggestion of using a super light weight and practising the move, once I got weight on it, I still struggled with the form a bit. I think Phineas was right about getting the lift into my hips. When the bars loaded, I keep trying to pick up the "slack" with my back instead of my legs. A very unusal feeling to get right. Definitly need more practise. In the end, I went with RDL's and took TT's advice to follow that with the front squats which may have pushed me over the limit because I'm immobilized today. Can't even sit down to take a shit!

Are you deadlifting sumo or conventional? Are you squatting with a narrow stance and an upright torso or with a wide stance and a bent-over torso?

There's really no point in training the descent of a deadlift IMO. You may gain some additional grip strength but in the end the only thing you need to do to complete a successful pull is to get the bar from the floor to lockout position. I never do "touch and go" reps on deads - each rep I do is de-weighted to the floor. I reset my stance and my grip.

The descent of a deadlift is somewhat similar to a squat IMO. If you can pull well, then you should be able to descend with the weight. Practice sitting back onto a chair or bench. On the ascent you are driving your hips forward to lift the weight. When you descend, you want to focus on pushing the hips backwards. It's interesting that you find RDLs comfortable (since RDLs require this hip movement) but find the descent of a conventional deadlift difficult.

If you find RDLs comfortable, do those. They'll give you a ton of hip/hamstring engagement and they'll hammer your grip, plus you'll practice descending with the weight and you won't have to lower the weight all the way to the floor since you perform them out of the hang position. Supplement these with front squats and you'll have a well-rounded routine that takes care of the quads and the posterior chain.