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entropy

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some questions
« on: September 07, 2012, 03:19:24 pm »
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I've been waiting for the right time to make a thread on your Q&A and always held back because I wasn't sure if it was a good enough question but i might have one now.

1. Tell me about the SSB. You are aware of my issues with squatting (fwd lean out of da hole, squatmorning tendency, trouble making it a quad dominant exercise rather than my stronger hamstrings etc). I've been reading about the safety squat bar. Could it help me? I tend to lose good position coming out of the hole, and according to what i've read the SSB allows you to be strongest in the weakest position (bottom) of a normal squat which is where I am having trouble

2. I made the change from LBBS to HBBS recently and it helps with the issues above but my squat is still very hamstring dominant. I have hamstring soreness postworkout even if I haven't done any specific hamstring exercise and no sprinting. In fact if you didn't know where I was putting the bar, it would be hard to distinguish it from my LBBS. I also think the imbalance btw hamstrings and quads is part of the reason why i've got problems coming out of the hole. Anything I can try to fix the imbalance? Because it seems if I just try to push my squat up, my hamstrings just get stronger, and my quads not so much.

2. I have a friend who is about  25, 6' tall, a good athlete in his day and weighs a fat ~90kg/200lb (maybe a few kilos less than this). He's got a wicked first step and very quick to accelerate from stationary even though he's fairly overfat. How does this work? Is it just genetics? I ask because he's far from the 10% I would need to be athletic, he's probably closer to 30% and yet the excess (dead) weight doesn't seem to stop him from being able to accelerate quickly when guarding him
Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat

LanceSTS

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Re: some questions
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2012, 03:54:39 pm »
+1
I've been waiting for the right time to make a thread on your Q&A and always held back because I wasn't sure if it was a good enough question but i might have one now.

1. Tell me about the SSB. You are aware of my issues with squatting (fwd lean out of da hole, squatmorning tendency, trouble making it a quad dominant exercise rather than my stronger hamstrings etc). I've been reading about the safety squat bar. Could it help me? I tend to lose good position coming out of the hole, and according to what i've read the SSB allows you to be strongest in the weakest position (bottom) of a normal squat which is where I am having trouble

The safety squat bar is great if you have one, there are so many things you can do with it, and yes, it makes a back squat a "higher" high bar squat.  If you have trouble staying upright in the squat, yet you can front squat upright, the safety bar can be that "tweener" that gets you to a more upright, squat.

The other thing about it is, you can turn it around and use it for front squats, wrapping the arms under and over the pad.  This is by far the most comfortable front squat for most athletes, and really allows you to fatigue the legs without any issues with the rack position.

The other thing you can do with a safety squat bar is, keep your hands on the rack as you squat, making sure you are in a solid position in the hole and on the way up.  You can gradually reduce the arms involvement as you groove and train the movement pattern, and eventually end up with a similar squat that you were only able to achieve via holding the rack previously.

One thing to remember though, if you try and "good morning" with a safety squat bar, it will rape your low back due to the higher positioning on the traps.


Quote
2. I made the change from LBBS to HBBS recently and it helps with the issues above but my squat is still very hamstring dominant. I have hamstring soreness postworkout even if I haven't done any specific hamstring exercise and no sprinting. In fact if you didn't know where I was putting the bar, it would be hard to distinguish it from my LBBS. I also think the imbalance btw hamstrings and quads is part of the reason why i've got problems coming out of the hole. Anything I can try to fix the imbalance? Because it seems if I just try to push my squat up, my hamstrings just get stronger, and my quads not so much.

yes, you have a similar problem as many with your torso/leg length ratio that have been low bar squatting, youre much better at driving your hips up, than driving the chest and shoulders up first.  The single best way to fix this imo is to front squat until that movement pattern becomes dominant.  If you got a safety squat bar, holding the rack lightly as you pull yourself into a solid bottom position, and driving out upright would help this as well. 

Quote
2. I have a friend who is about  25, 6' tall, a good athlete in his day and weighs a fat ~90kg/200lb (maybe a few kilos less than this). He's got a wicked first step and very quick to accelerate from stationary even though he's fairly overfat. How does this work? Is it just genetics? I ask because he's far from the 10% I would need to be athletic, he's probably closer to 30% and yet the excess (dead) weight doesn't seem to stop him from being able to accelerate quickly when guarding him


Can be a number of different things, his timing, high rate coding/excitable cns, and even with the extra weight he may still have a fairly decent strength/bw ratio.   but to make your first step lethal, watch where the defenders weight is.  The second you get them back on their heels, or too far forward, make that step.  It will appear 208% faster to the defender, even though its the same speed as your usual steps, its how you timed it.  Also, 98.576 % of statistics are made up on the spot.
Relax.

entropy

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Re: some questions
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2012, 05:06:54 am »
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Thanks lance. I appreciate the information, from your description the SSB sounds promising and 'll try find a gym which has one so I can test it out before I think of ordering one. Here is what I understand from what you have described about my issues - which I am grateful for because it's cleared up the picture in my head.

Basically - from a long time of LBBS squatting, i've got ingrained issues with driving hips out of the hole. This is only a problem because in the hole my back is inclined the greatest amount. In this inclined position that my back is in at the bottom, the additional factors of a)the weight bearing down, wanting to push my chest lower, rotating my torso to the ground, and b)my hips driving up hard, making the rotation i described even more likely. The SSB helps here because at the bottom, I can self-spot myself to stay upright, and all the while pushing hard against the floor with my legs - making it a leg dominant exercise because i have addressed the desire of the torso to rotate towards the ground. This is what you've described and it sounds spot on.

I just realised something now. When I first got my WL shoes, I hated them because the high heel would make it easier to tip forwards out of the hole in my low bar squats. But what I didn't know then was that was because I was driving hips first out of the hole and combined with the forward lean causing lower back placement, it made the whole situation worse. But i'm wondering now is if I put the bar in a high bar placement and then use WL shoes with a normal high heel, if that will help rather than hinder with staying upright. I wish I hadn't had my WL shoes modified now. I should have rather modified my squat to high bar.

Quote
Quote
2. I have a friend who is about  25, 6' tall, a good athlete in his day and weighs a fat ~90kg/200lb (maybe a few kilos less than this). He's got a wicked first step and very quick to accelerate from stationary even though he's fairly overfat. How does this work? Is it just genetics? I ask because he's far from the 10% I would need to be athletic, he's probably closer to 30% and yet the excess (dead) weight doesn't seem to stop him from being able to accelerate quickly when guarding him

Can be a number of different things, his timing, high rate coding/excitable cns, and even with the extra weight he may still have a fairly decent strength/bw ratio.   but to make your first step lethal, watch where the defenders weight is.  The second you get them back on their heels, or too far forward, make that step.  It will appear 208% faster to the defender, even though its the same speed as your usual steps, its how you timed it.  Also, 98.576 % of statistics are made up on the spot.

great tip, can't wait to try it out! i forgot to mention when I weighed ~30kg more than I do now, Lance my standing vertical was still around 22" .. which is where it had been since my teen years when i was about 40kg lighter.  I would have expected it to have gone down but it never did.
Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat

Raptor

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Re: some questions
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2012, 12:52:07 pm »
-1
The last thing I would've thought about was Lance being hyperdunk's son. Boy that explains a lot!

LanceSTS

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Re: some questions
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2012, 03:10:03 am »
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Thanks lance. I appreciate the information, from your description the SSB sounds promising and 'll try find a gym which has one so I can test it out before I think of ordering one. Here is what I understand from what you have described about my issues - which I am grateful for because it's cleared up the picture in my head.

Basically - from a long time of LBBS squatting, i've got ingrained issues with driving hips out of the hole. This is only a problem because in the hole my back is inclined the greatest amount. In this inclined position that my back is in at the bottom, the additional factors of a)the weight bearing down, wanting to push my chest lower, rotating my torso to the ground, and b)my hips driving up hard, making the rotation i described even more likely. The SSB helps here because at the bottom, I can self-spot myself to stay upright, and all the while pushing hard against the floor with my legs - making it a leg dominant exercise because i have addressed the desire of the torso to rotate towards the ground. This is what you've described and it sounds spot on.

I just realised something now. When I first got my WL shoes, I hated them because the high heel would make it easier to tip forwards out of the hole in my low bar squats. But what I didn't know then was that was because I was driving hips first out of the hole and combined with the forward lean causing lower back placement, it made the whole situation worse. But i'm wondering now is if I put the bar in a high bar placement and then use WL shoes with a normal high heel, if that will help rather than hinder with staying upright. I wish I hadn't had my WL shoes modified now. I should have rather modified my squat to high bar.

Quote
Quote
2. I have a friend who is about  25, 6' tall, a good athlete in his day and weighs a fat ~90kg/200lb (maybe a few kilos less than this). He's got a wicked first step and very quick to accelerate from stationary even though he's fairly overfat. How does this work? Is it just genetics? I ask because he's far from the 10% I would need to be athletic, he's probably closer to 30% and yet the excess (dead) weight doesn't seem to stop him from being able to accelerate quickly when guarding him

Can be a number of different things, his timing, high rate coding/excitable cns, and even with the extra weight he may still have a fairly decent strength/bw ratio.   but to make your first step lethal, watch where the defenders weight is.  The second you get them back on their heels, or too far forward, make that step.  It will appear 208% faster to the defender, even though its the same speed as your usual steps, its how you timed it.  Also, 98.576 % of statistics are made up on the spot.

great tip, can't wait to try it out! i forgot to mention when I weighed ~30kg more than I do now, Lance my standing vertical was still around 22" .. which is where it had been since my teen years when i was about 40kg lighter.  I would have expected it to have gone down but it never did.

 Exactly on point with the squat, if you keep your chest and shoulders UP, you CANT turn it into a squatmorning/low back exercise.  The good with the ss is it allows you to use your hands to keep this position, once youve strengthened that movement pattern it will be a lot easier to repeat it without the arms spotting you.

re sv, yea, its a "slower'  jump, so your leg strength to bw ratio matters a lot, compared to a running jump where more fat mass tends to have a greater effect, regardless of strength ratios.  If you had cut weight yet maintained your strength after you had trained, you would have likely seen a nice increase.
Relax.

entropy

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Re: some questions
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2012, 03:14:23 am »
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I always learn something new. I never thought to think of shoulders up. Chest up yes, but I can keep chest tight while moving it up or down, but shoulders up would fix it in place. Thanks!
Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat

LanceSTS

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Re: some questions
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2012, 03:26:43 am »
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I always learn something new. I never thought to think of shoulders up. Chest up yes, but I can keep chest tight while moving it up or down, but shoulders up would fix it in place. Thanks!

you bet.
Relax.

entropy

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Re: some questions
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2012, 12:23:44 pm »
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Hey lance this is about training with singles. I am using your guidelines for ~10 heavy singles (w/ a weight that is the heaviest I can do with good form for multiple singles). So far so good.

Googling around for infos about singles training, it's not easy to google because you end up finding sites about speed dating and stuff. Anyway I came across a webpage where the guy talks about resting 30s btw sets. This seems crazy to me because aren't singles supposed to be harder to recover from than higher rep sets? Is it worth trying shorter rest periods like 30s or would you recommend sticking to the usual 3-5mins rests btw singles

Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat

vag

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Re: some questions
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2012, 01:23:36 pm »
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I know you asked Lance but allow me to interfere , there is a very strong blog post about singles from adarui in here, it is Verkoshansky's MSEM method:

http://www.adarq.org/performance-training-blog/maximum-strength-effort-method/

It covers anything you need to know about singles, including what you just asked.
Target training paces (min/km), calculated from 5K PR 22:49 :
Easy run : 5:48
Tempo run : 4:50
VO2-max run :4:21
Speed form run : 4:02

---

it's the biggest trick in the run game.. go slow to go fast. it doesn't make sense until it smacks you in the face and you're like ....... wtf?

LanceSTS

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Re: some questions
« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2012, 05:11:25 pm »
+1
Hey lance this is about training with singles. I am using your guidelines for ~10 heavy singles (w/ a weight that is the heaviest I can do with good form for multiple singles). So far so good.

Googling around for infos about singles training, it's not easy to google because you end up finding sites about speed dating and stuff. Anyway I came across a webpage where the guy talks about resting 30s btw sets. This seems crazy to me because aren't singles supposed to be harder to recover from than higher rep sets? Is it worth trying shorter rest periods like 30s or would you recommend sticking to the usual 3-5mins rests btw singles

 Let the intensity dictate the rest period, when focusing on volume use shorter rest periods, on maxs use longer with less total reps.  Switching the two out frequently works great, especially on exercises like front squats where form is a deal breaker.  This enables good quality volume with a method thats very easy to progress.
Relax.

entropy

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updates
« Reply #10 on: December 21, 2012, 07:25:57 am »
+1
Hi lance .. just to update. I've been front squatting more or less religiously for the last 6 months (maybe slightly less?). Anyway i've also been cutting while doing so and PRs have been hard to come by, sometimes taking months. But in the process my relative strength has no doubt improved while my lifts have steadily gone up with greater depth and form improvement.

So today I went to test my vert by trying to dunk for the first time in around 4 months. I crisply landed my first dunk on the first attempt - no warmup dunks. Felt so strong. I then worked up to a SVJ dunk which I got pretty easily too (!!) which I had previously only dreamt of one day doing.

Now keep in mind I'm still some 10lb too heavy for my lbm and i haven't been jumping at all in the last 5 months or so. So my vert has gone up just by default since then. I am hoping to finish the cut and then i'll be able to increase my strength more easily once I can afford to gain some mass.

Just a thank you .. i'm glad I stuck to the front squats and they've done wonders for my athleticism so cheers for the direction!

 :ibsquatting:

 :ibjumping:
Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat

LanceSTS

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Re: updates
« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2012, 08:41:20 pm »
+1
Hi lance .. just to update. I've been front squatting more or less religiously for the last 6 months (maybe slightly less?). Anyway i've also been cutting while doing so and PRs have been hard to come by, sometimes taking months. But in the process my relative strength has no doubt improved while my lifts have steadily gone up with greater depth and form improvement.

So today I went to test my vert by trying to dunk for the first time in around 4 months. I crisply landed my first dunk on the first attempt - no warmup dunks. Felt so strong. I then worked up to a SVJ dunk which I got pretty easily too (!!) which I had previously only dreamt of one day doing.

Now keep in mind I'm still some 10lb too heavy for my lbm and i haven't been jumping at all in the last 5 months or so. So my vert has gone up just by default since then. I am hoping to finish the cut and then i'll be able to increase my strength more easily once I can afford to gain some mass.

Just a thank you .. i'm glad I stuck to the front squats and they've done wonders for my athleticism so cheers for the direction!

 :ibsquatting:

 :ibjumping:

 I  just saw the video... looked easy as hell man, really nice work!  Great work and progress since youve  been here man, way to stick with it!!
Relax.

entropy

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Re: updates
« Reply #12 on: December 24, 2012, 04:47:18 am »
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Hi lance .. just to update. I've been front squatting more or less religiously for the last 6 months (maybe slightly less?). Anyway i've also been cutting while doing so and PRs have been hard to come by, sometimes taking months. But in the process my relative strength has no doubt improved while my lifts have steadily gone up with greater depth and form improvement.

So today I went to test my vert by trying to dunk for the first time in around 4 months. I crisply landed my first dunk on the first attempt - no warmup dunks. Felt so strong. I then worked up to a SVJ dunk which I got pretty easily too (!!) which I had previously only dreamt of one day doing.

Now keep in mind I'm still some 10lb too heavy for my lbm and i haven't been jumping at all in the last 5 months or so. So my vert has gone up just by default since then. I am hoping to finish the cut and then i'll be able to increase my strength more easily once I can afford to gain some mass.

Just a thank you .. i'm glad I stuck to the front squats and they've done wonders for my athleticism so cheers for the direction!

 :ibsquatting:

 :ibjumping:

 I  just saw the video... looked easy as hell man, really nice work!  Great work and progress since youve  been here man, way to stick with it!!

Thank you! Very easy, almost effortless. Not bad for my very first dunk (literally not even warm ups prior) in so many months. In the past i'd have to do some warmup attempts and then go max effort to land one but now it's submax. which feels so good like I could actually dunk in a game without needing space/run-up etc.

I can't wait to get to an actual gym (with a legit 10" rim - this one is slightly higher) with a bouncy floor and try some max effort dunks!!  i've got the happy and bizarre new problem of not knowing what sort of dunks to attempt so i'm a bit lost since I only know one or two and kinda stand there confused not sure what dunk to attempt. 



Goals: Cutting to 6-8% bodyfat