devkat

By the way, I think when doing leg work with dumbbells it is to be expected that the leg strength is not the limiting factor. For split squats you can use the barbell. Sometimes I still do dumbbell split squats, but mostly as a full-body / metabolic exercise. I find it very exhausting (I do 4x8 each side with 2 x 22kg/48lbs at the moment, boring but useful to practice keeping a good spinal position under metabolic stress and with increasing fatigue). For lunge squats I'm not sure if using a barbell is a good idea due to the additional stress on your back/knees on impact. I only did barbell lunges with very light weights so far. Maybe somebody else has experience with this?

When you write "arms want to fall off", do you mean your grip, i.e. your forearms? This is totally normal when you begin working with heavy weights. Some hints: * Use chalk. I use liquid chalk (Black Diamond Liquid White Gold, made for climbing but works well for weightlifting). * Do "white-knuckling", i.e. squeeze the barbell / dumbbell as hard as you can before starting the exercise. * With the deadlifts (and most other barbell exercises), imagine trying to break the bar in half. This increases tension in your shoulder joints and arms. * To strengthen your grip, hold the weight as long as you can after the last rep. The more pulling exercises you do (deadlifts/rows/pull-ups), the easier it will get. Eventually the time will come when the limiting factor changes from grip to other ones; for me it is e.g. keeping my spine neutral during split squats (in the beginning I also had to stop when my grip gave out). With the deadlift you can eventually consider switching to mixed grip for the heavy sets, but I would recommend using a double overhand grip as long as you can, and for the warmup sets. It helps to maintain a balanced position and puts less stress on your shoulders.

Hi DapperHusband, some recommendations from my experience: * Rowing is a great full-body workout. It makes sense to invest some time in getting down the technique; do you have somebody to coach you? There are some mistakes to be made, especially regarding the back position, hip angle / knee angle / arms timing, and they might affect your efficiency and the wear on your joints when you are doing it a lot. * If getting flexible is really your goal, then "classic" stretching (especially static stretching) might be frustrating, most people don't improve much. I'd try yoga (I like asthanga vinyasa because of its dynamic nature), apart from increased flexibility you will benefit from getting a better feeling for your body, more strength and better posture. And it's a lot more fun (in my opinion). There are lots of instructional videos to try. Good luck!

As a variation of the handstand pushups I find pike presses (handstand presses with feet on ground or on a platform) very useful since you can start with fairly easy ones and increase the load gradually.

I agree with Dradis that rows are great for a combined shoulder and back workout. For me bilateral dumbbell rows work best for my shoulders (especially rear delts); I prefer them to unilateral ones since you can't cheat by rotating your upper body and the erector spinae gets a good workout too. An additional benefit of bent-over rows is that they are great for posture (chest opens up, rhomboids get stronger, scapulae get better aligned), which in my opinion does way more for perceived shoulder width and overall looks than putting on some mass on the delts. Sometimes I do them after a hard chest workout to get my posture back on track and not leave the gym with rounded shoulders.

My personal experience is that circuit training is a great way to prepare your body for strength training. If you already have good basic knowledge about strength training and good motor control (know how to brace your spine etc.), you might start with strength training right away, otherwise it might make sense to mix it up with some bodyweight training and technique training with lighter barbells. A couple of years ago when I was out of shape I started strength training but noticed that I wasn't quite ready for it yet (lack of cardiovascular fitness and motor control). I did the following workout for about 6 months: 2 days per week metabolic circuit training (30–60 sec breaks), mostly body-weight (pull-ups, single-leg squats, push-up variants, some core training) 2 days per week metabolic barbell training: 5 sets of the following exercises with the same weight on the bar (6–16 reps, depending on exercise), no breaks in between exercises, 2 min break between sets: overhead press, squat, deadlift, row, push-up. After the 6 months I felt that I could start transitioning to strength training. I had a better feeling for my body, was able to focus on form, and was not fatiguing so quickly anymore. As a neat side effect, I lost 14 kg (30#) in the process.

Did he explain why you should drop the weight a lot faster? I can see that this might save energy and help you do more reps, but wouldn't it increase the risk of engraining a not-yet-perfect form? From what I learned, I try to do the downward motion in a controlled manner (lowering the bar, not dropping it) so that I can still focus on my technique, I don't think I could do it much faster without losing my form. I'm doing DLs since about one year, and I'm discovering more of my mistakes every couple of workouts.

Some observations: * When you look at the time between 19 and 21 seconds in your video, you see that your knees are already quite bent and the kneecaps are slightly in front of the bar, then go backwards a bit to let the bar pass, and then go forward again. When I did a form check with my physiotherapist for my own DL, she pointed out that I should keep my legs rather straight on the way down until I feel a strong stretch in my hamstrings, which is when the bar has already passed the kneecap. I tend to start bending my knees too early, maybe because my hamstrings and/or erector spinae are too weak. * Like 2ndaccord already pointed out, it looks you could fix your spine a bit more in neutral position before you start the rep, there is a slight flexion in the lumbar spine. In addition to the hints 2ndaccord gave, for me it helps to lock my hip and shoulder joints (externally rotate femurs and upper arms). * I know this is controversial, but I personally find that keeping the head/neck in neutral position (i.e. I look down in the bottom position, don't change the neck angle during the rep, so that I end up looking forward in the top position) feels better.

If your hamstrings are not the limiting factor for extending your spine in the bottom position, you could try externally rotating your femurs (push your knees out until they press against your arms) to open up your hips more and rotate your pelvis forward (this is what helps me). In my experience it is very hard to focus on keeping the back straight during the deadlift, especially when the weight starts to get challenging. I would even go so far as saying that the cue to "keep the back straight" doesn't help me at all, since I can't really tell if my back is straight at any given point during the lift without checking the mirror. Furthermore, I find it hard to focus on my back position during the last reps of the last set. What I do find helpful is doing the "bracing spine in neutral position" sequence, or core bracing sequence; once before I start the exercise and before every rep in the bottom position (I hope it will become an automatic thing eventually). I take care to put my spine in neutral position in the bottom position, lock it there and not change it during the lift. I also find the term "neutral spine" more helpful than "straight back" since the goal (as I understand it) is not to keep the spine as straight as possible, but as close to the natural (neutral) s-curve, with evenly loaded discs, as possible. Are you doing the valsava maneuver, or do you breathe out during the upwards motion? I know it is controversial, but for me breathing into my stomach, breathing out and holding my breath until the lockout position helps me keep my spine in neutral position during the lift. I do a quick gasp in the lockout position and hold my breath again on the way downward. I'm still working with quite light weights though, with heavier weights it might not be possible to breathe anymore during the rep. That being said, during the last couple of workouts I felt that is getting increasingly hard to keep my spine braced during the last reps and that there might be some flexion in my lumbar spine in the lower part of the motion. I have to double check if I keep the bar close to my shins. If I can't fix it I will start a thread.

It's the same with me; I used to be significantly less strong in my right leg and balancing on the right leg was harder. Somebody (I think a physiotherapist) once told me it is like this with many people who do sports that involve single-leg jumping (I used to play basketball) as right-handed people tend to jump with their left leg. Maybe this could be the reason for you too? Additionally I used to have some issues with my right knee which probably caused me to unknowingly put less load on the right leg than on the left one. I have good experience with asymmetric leg exercises, since this way the stronger leg can't compensate. I used to do single-leg leg press, but stopped due to all the drawbacks of machine training, and because it didn't feel good in my lower back. My right leg caught up with the left one pretty quickly though. Now I'm doing split squats (dumbbell / barbell) in addition to barbell squats, and I feel that both my legs have pretty much the same strength (or lack thereof) and stability.

Hi TMedina, hi SpecialSundae, I understand that it was wrong of me to reply to SpecialSundae's comment in this way. I assumed that she was looking for a magic bullet to improve her performance, without verifying this assumption by asking about the background. I apologize for my comment.

Yes, you are right, but now I already know a bit more! Thanks for clarifying, now I understand better what you meant. The only thing that comes to my mind is consulting some trainers who are successful on international level, but I'm sure you already thought of that.

Hi SpecialSundae, I'm sorry if I have offended you. The purpose of my post was not to suggest that you haven't been working hard – I felt your frustration and wanted to give some support. I'm still surprised that you would take another 40 kg overnight from some magic secret … what would be the benefit? Not feeling inferior when you compare yourself with your mates? Do you feel that you don't get the adequate gains in relation to the work that you put in?

Imagine you lift 40 kg more tomorrow. Would you rather attribute it to some magic secret, or to the months and years of hard work and dedication that brought you there, and all the experience, confidence and inner strength you gained in the process? What would you enjoy more, lifting 40 kg more tomorrow or the sixteen little moments of satisfaction and excitement when you put two 1.25 kg discs more on the barbell? The 40 kg mean nothing without you becoming the person who can lift 40 kg more than today!

Definitely. It is explained for instance here: http://www.kneestrength.com/keep-thighs-externally-rotated-squat/ or in the Supple Leopard book.

The "screwing the feet into the ground" cue is supposed to help minimizing slack and thus maximizing stability in the hip joint by rotating the femurs in the hip sockets, and to increase tension which tells the nervous system that it can exert maximum force during the exercise. I have to focus on my femurs though; when I just screw my feet I do it mostly from my lower leg.

Boolean, you're not the only one. I also get it in my lats, but usually in the evening after a pull-up or deadlift day. It is basically a fast rhythmic twitching (fasciculations) and can occur after exercise, particularly combined with a lack of sleep. You could also check if you have a lack of magnesium. I'm not sure if it is the same thing though, since yours occurs during and mine after the exercise.

Until very recently I had also felt that my lower back is the limitation for my deadlift. My lower back was sore after training, and sometimes during the last reps I felt that my lower back was not stable and I could not hold the weight with a straight back. After reading some of the basic literature I discovered that the cues I was using didn't help me to achieve proper form, and that I was lacking tension which lead to overuse of the lower back in relation to other muscles. Cues which are not helpful to me: * "Keep your back straigt", especially in an exercise with dynamic hip angle * "Push your knees out" Cues/advice which helped me a lot: * Bracing the spine using the valsava maneuver (breathe out hard against my diaphragm, hold breath). This way I automatically keep a straight back and I don't have to focus on it during the rep. * Don't breathe during the rep. This helps me keep the tension. When I have to, I do a quick gasp in the locked-out position. * Locking my hip joints by screwing the femurs into the pelvis. "Pushing my knees out" didn't help me to achieve this. * Locking my shoulder joints by screwing the humerus outwards into the shoulder joint ("breaking the bar"). This also improves my grip (I use chalk and a mixed grip in my work sets, not strong enough for double overhand yet). Since I'm mentally applying all these cues before each rep, I don't have any back issues anymore and have better consistency progression than before. Still not as much weight as I'd like to lift, but at least I have the feeling that I can get there without ruining my back