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Messages - steven-miller

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16
Article & Video Discussion / Re: Joint by joint vert
« on: August 10, 2012, 06:43:45 pm »
When your squat gets stronger, so do the muscles around hips and knees. Therefore you have the potential to jump higher.
If one muscle group, that is needed in a compound exercise, happens to be underdeveloped, then it will develop faster than other muscle groups if you do that compound exercise correctly. So if you are "quad dominant" this will take care of itself if you increase your squat utilizing correct mechanics. That is because a given weight on the bar during squats will be a more severe stress for the weak hips compared to the quads IF you happen to squat correctly and not compensate for your muscular irregularity.

Therefore one can forget about the diagnostics and focus instead on learning and executing exercises properly, in a way that increases hip and quad strength rather evenly for most individuals, and make the weight on the bar go up. The rest will take care of itself.

17
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: a fast and explosive donkey!
« on: August 10, 2012, 08:50:48 am »
Congrats to the PRs at 305 and 310! You are having a bit of a rough time with the training because of external circumstances and I know as well that this can be hard to deal with.

But in regards to what you can do right now: focus your energy toward the goal of making those 5 lbs jumps in the squat every time. If resources are rare you have to prioritize. In your situation jumping/plyos before squatting will kill your PR. That is just the way it is. Under optimum circumstances they might not, they might even help, but not here. If you want to get the jumping volume in, do them afterwards. You will jump lower probably. But you know what? You want the squat to help your athletic events, not the other way round. So you might as well have the priorities of your training reflected in the order of exercises with the most important thing done at first.

Regarding recovery, I know that in some jobs you cannot just go and eat something when you should (from a training perspective). But that is not an excuse for failure to gain weight. You might have had your fun making fun of it, but lots of whole milk could save your training right now. I don't care how much protein you get and how high quality your nutrition is, the matter of the fact is that your body lacks a sufficient surplus of fuel. You can have access to the best food in the world, you still won't grow if the quantity is too low. Believe it or not, people like you profit the most from GOMAD and your situation demonstrates perfectly why it is legitimate nourishment for certain kinds of athletes.

18
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: deadlift start position vs squat
« on: August 09, 2012, 07:48:38 pm »
Quote from: LanceSTS on August 09, 2012, 06:42:29 pm
definitely. I remember Stephan Fernholm on the old  bfs group saying he attributed a ton of his gains in athleticism to that exercise.  They called it a sldl,  but what he was actually doing in his videos was much closer to an rdl elevated for extra rom.   He was 6-1  and around 275.  At one of the seminars he continuously hit his cheeks against the  backboard, and had a 39 inch standing vert, 4.3 40yd dash.  

completely off topic,  but he had a wrist sprain, so instead of a power clean, he did a reverse grip power clean with 390 lol.  Literally power cleaned the weight to his shoulders with a curl grip, got very little to no arm help in the lift.

Reverse grip power clean? That's neat, especially with close to 400. People should notice that he still powercleaned, not jump squatted :).

Edit: I just noticed the 40 time at 275 bw, that is nasty.

19
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: deadlift start position vs squat
« on: August 09, 2012, 05:49:56 pm »
Quote from: LanceSTS on August 08, 2012, 08:46:39 pm

  Steven, I wasnt mocking your reply there I was referring to standard dogma that comes up when this topic is discussed.  The rdl has a greater rom for the hamstrings, and if that is what youre trying to train, they win out there.  Agree with deficit deads and your points there.

Yeah, I know you were not. For the hamstrings hip extension function the RDL seems to be one of the best exercises.

20
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: deadlift start position vs squat
« on: August 08, 2012, 08:05:22 pm »
Quote from: Raptor on August 08, 2012, 07:38:46 pm
It would be great for me to do deficit deadlifts, knowing as I can't maintain a straight back in a normal deadlift let alone a deficit one.

Cool!

It's pretty much the same as saying everybody should do high bar ATG squats because everybody should be able to squat like olympic lifters, right?

I did not suggest that anybody should do deficit deadlifts. But only doing what you can do already is a great way to never learn anything.

21
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: deadlift start position vs squat
« on: August 08, 2012, 06:40:08 pm »
I do not think that the height of a standard deadlift has anything special to it. But it has a larger ROM compared to the RDL and involves a mechanically harder position at the bottom. One might argue that deadlifts from a deficit are even better because they involve an even greater ROM. The optimal degree of the deficit for building lower back strength would be determined by individual anthropometry. The bar would be placed at the height that puts the hips on shoulder level, so that the back becomes horizontal to the ground. The lift would then start, from a dead stop, at the mechanically hardest position and would have the largest useful ROM, having the back angle go all the way from parallel to the ground to completely upright. For many people a standard height deadlift is actually not that far from that model and using bars with a diameter available everywhere is certainly convenient. But I am not saying that one arbitrarily determined diameter is optimal for everyones training. I just think that for lower back strength specifically a strong argument can be made in favor of the deadlift over the RDL. Whether the latter is superior in regards to athletic events less depending on a strong back I cannot comment on.

22
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: on the toad to elastic greatness!
« on: August 07, 2012, 04:32:15 pm »
I can tell little from this video angle but what I see is:

- your lower back is probably fine; it might round very slightly, but this will go away when you fix other things in your form

- your depth is good in those two reps

- you sit back with the hips fine, but you do it to the point where your weight is too far back on the heels

- you need to focus on keeping the weight over the mid-foot; this requires that your knees go forward more at the beginning of the squat; hips and knees need to initiate the movement simultaneously (not hips first!); hips begin to lead after the knees have established a position very slightly in front of the toes

From what I can tell there is nothing physical hindering you to learn to squat correctly. Lance has a pretty similar idea about a good squat as me from what I can tell. So listening to him is a good idea. Listening to everyone at once is a bad idea, since some people have a very different definition of a good squat (not always a sensible one).

23
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: deadlift start position vs squat
« on: August 07, 2012, 04:10:05 pm »
I believe that the conventional deadlift with a flat back is a better builder of lower back strength than the RDL. The position of the lower back at the pull off the floor is very, very hard mechanically and that, in my opinion, is precisely the reason why it is so useful. In the RDL the lower back gets trained, but the position and the shorter ROM make it a lot easier to keep the lower back flat during the entire lift. At least for weight training beginners, for which recovering from "heavy" deadlift work is not that hard to do, I would advise to rather learn to deadlift correctly, than to only do RDLs. For some people this is very hard, i know that from my own training, but I feel like my lower back strength profited a lot from doing technically precise lifts with less weight and progressing conservatively from there than anything else I ever did to increase my pulls and erector strength.

24
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: [x] 5 x 255 x 3
« on: July 31, 2012, 08:28:24 pm »
Quote from: hyperdunk1 on July 31, 2012, 07:47:20 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on July 31, 2012, 03:23:28 pm
Why do you want to do box squats? And why are you "cutting" going into an important tourney? Are you attempting to get worse?

To get my full back squat form on point.  I am cutting because i was more mobile on the court at 155lb.  The last few sessions, I felt like Oliver Miller on the court (though I felt real strong) as to where before I felt like Derrick Rose, and seems like the weights been giving my feet problems.  Please explain why it is bad to cut prior to a basketball tourney (a game where it is imperative to have low body fat)

To get better full squat form you should a) know what you are doing and b) perform full squats instead of other movements. Squatting to a box might only get involved when the box helps you anticipate when proper depth is reached. There are much better ways to do this, but if that was your thought process and the box is low enough, it might help in your situation.

About the other thing, games are not won by lowest body-fat. They are, looking at the contribution of an individual player, won by a combination of skill and athleticism. Skill is determined by practice, talent and motivation, not body-fat. And athleticism is determined by talent and training. By "cutting" you are decreasing your capacity to train effectively. By training correctly you will consistently increase your relative strength and power despite staying the same in bodyweight or even increasing it. And when you are stronger and more powerful it is entirely irrelevant whether that is due to an increase in muscle mass or an increase in water and fat.


25
Olympic Weightlifting / Re: MDUSA Tryout (Pendlays new Gym)
« on: July 31, 2012, 04:41:21 pm »
Thanks, Lance. Lots of power, but unfortunate misses. Do you know if he is committed to weightlifting now? I remember him doing some powerlifting and VJ training before.

26
Olympic Weightlifting / Re: MDUSA Tryout (Pendlays new Gym)
« on: July 31, 2012, 03:46:59 pm »
Which one is Rutgersdunker?

27
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: [x] 5 x 255 x 3
« on: July 31, 2012, 03:45:51 pm »
Quote from: LBSS on July 31, 2012, 03:32:32 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on July 31, 2012, 03:23:28 pm
Why do you want to do box squats? And why are you "cutting" going into an important tourney? Are you attempting to get worse?

shhhhh, steven-miller. shhhhh. just let him be. let him be. it's okay. shhhhh now.

:-X

28
Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: [x] 5 x 255 x 3
« on: July 31, 2012, 03:23:28 pm »
Why do you want to do box squats? And why are you "cutting" going into an important tourney? Are you attempting to get worse?

29
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: my routine as of late
« on: July 30, 2012, 02:14:36 pm »

30
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: new workout routine
« on: July 25, 2012, 07:23:09 pm »
Quote from: chrisbro1 on July 25, 2012, 05:27:55 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on July 25, 2012, 03:50:43 pm
And why would you have him do something ineffective and unproductive that most don't succeed with rather than something that works well for most people?

Your "something that works well for most people" is to lift weights and get stronger.   My "something ineffective and unproductive that most don't succeed with" is to to use BW for as long as it provides enough resistance to make the movements difficult.  In my experience working out w/teenage basketball players w/similar thin frames, BW is sufficient resistance.  Not to mention more convenient than relying on mom or dad for a ride to the gym and coming up with $ for gym fees.  Hence my recommendation.

It is certainly more convenient, I will give you that, and it is also a waste of time. BW will stop to appear as sufficient resistance once you work with a group of people that do not automatically get stronger by maturing. Otherwise players in my former volleyball teams would actually have improved their verticals over time - which obviously never happened. And those coaches thought they were doing strength training...

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