Tag: form

Build Your Squat Episode 2

Brilliant People.

In this episode, I talk about how to ease into the squat, and what to do with your feet, your knees, and your butt. If this is your first time ever, it’s a good quick intro to squatting. Even if you’ve just been out of practice for a while, or if you’re a hardcore weight lifter, take a second to look at your squat technique.

It takes just a few things for you to maximize your output, strengthen your knees, and use your back correctly with the squat. My priority is to help you do this ultimate human movement the right way. Train with these few simple mental cues and build your squat to enhance your life.

Be gentle, take it slow, and build with care.

Live powerfully!

Steve

Why Your Back Is Hunched

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Do this quick test: stand with feet pointing forward, at shoulder width or less, and get down in a full squat. All the way down, until your knees can’t bend anymore.

Have someone take a side angle photo of you or be next to a full length mirror. Is your back pretty straight? Or is it hunched over your knees? What about your head? Is it in line with your spine, or bent forward or backward?

Make sure your feet are planted from heel to blade to toes. Use your feet’s grip on the ground to support yourself, and try to straighten out your torso. You want your shoulders back and head in line with your spine. Possible? Or not even a bit?

Okay. If you had a lot of trouble lifting up your torso, you probably have stiff chest, shoulder, and bicep muscles. I get this after bench press sessions, lots of sitting, and lots of walking with a heavy pack when traveling. In all these scenarios, I’m straining forward or in a position that gets the front muscles short and tight.

The result is forward hunching. My favorite remedy is shoulder dislocations. Do three sets of ten of these, and feel the crazy tightness loosen up. It will open up your squat, but it will also help with long hours sitting at work and in traffic, standing taller, and easing upper back and neck aches.

When you think of squatting, the upper body doesn’t seem to be involved. But the mobility of your torso actually affects your ability to squat.

It’s not always necessary that you are in the full squat with a straight spine. Lifting something heavy is a different story, but when you’re just getting into a squat, you can have a rounded back without harm to yourself.

The extent to which your back is straight or curved is, though, an indicator of your mobility. If your back is very hunched, it could mean that the tissues of your abdomen, ribs, chest, and shoulders are tight.

If the front of your body is tight, it’s going to pull you forward and make it hard to straighten up. Work on your normal sitting and standing positions. If you’re slouching, get yourself upright. Open up the chest and shoulders, and stretch out your biceps. And squat every day to test yourself.

It’s a constant work in progress for me. The more I’m able to keep my torso aligned, the better time I have living each day free of aches, kinks, and pain.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Mobilizing Out of Inflammation

I was going to the gym today but almost canceled on myself.

I had made the wretched choice of eating a donut last night. When I do such things, I didn’t give enough credit to the consequences. Sure, I get some after effects, I told myself. Little achiness, brain fog. Funny how time befuddles memories.

It was an inflammation bomb. First came the wheat coma. I was reading and had to drag myself to bed, it was so bad. I fell into instant sleep for an hour, and woke feeling hungover and tender. My trap and shoulder blade area were tight in a knot, so I rolled it out on a lacrosse ball.

Did some deep breathing, drank my vitamin C and magnesium mix, and tried to sleep. No go.

My stomach was upset. I got up and had some kombucha. I thought of taking charcoal, but didn’t want to absorb the magnesium that I had already taken. Lesson learned next time.

It took me a few hours of reading to get to bed. When I woke this morning, I still felt hungover. Butter coffee and some eggs helped. I was determined to go to the gym today, and I gave myself a couple of hours to warm up.

Well, when I went outside to check my squat position, I was surprised to find myself so kinked up. Thus it was:

 

This was class one tightness, inflammation to the max. Everything felt rusty and I could barely get down into the squat and hold it.

Feet splayed, torso wrapped over my knees. And really, really tight in the hips. It was time for some major mobilization.

Hip Mobility

First the hips. I’m jamming down with my pelvis to get into the tight areas and loosen them up. I also extend my front leg to get in deeper on the tissue near the knees. Try and you’ll feel it:

Ankle Mobility

Ankles flex through the calves. So I work on the calf and achilles tendon. Keeping my leg rigid at the knee and hip, I lean hard and hold for a minute or two. Sliding over to either side helps to mobilize in more directions.

 

I did a squat retest at this point, meaning I got down in the squat to see if there was any difference. The first photo shows me holding my hands up overhead. I’m doing this to test my shoulders, to see if they are mobile enough for me to hold this position. Pretty tight here, as you can see I’m not holding them in line with my torso:

 

My hips were feeling smoother, and I was able to get down with feet straighter forward. My torso was more upright, but there was still a bit of tightness holding my midback in a curve.

Shoulder Mobility

I addressed my shoulder mobility to open up the chest and torso. This can help with keeping the upper body straight during the squat. I’m doing an exercise called shoulder dislocations here:

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Geez was I tight. At this point I was about to push my training session back one day. With bad mobility, heavy lifting is not advantageous. Better to wait until I’m able to get into good positions. Squat retest after shoulder dislocations.

Functional squat depth for weight lifting, side and front:

 

And a full squat:

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I wanted to test my weightlifting position, in addition to the full squat. I don’t go all the way down when I’m loaded with weight.

You can see I’m able to get down with my feet pointed forward. My torso is not perfectly upright, but it’s much more mobile and no longer glued to my knees.

After much tweaking, I actually freed myself up enough to train.

Add me on Snapchat to hear about the training session. Yea, the picture’s silly.

Snapchat The Brilliant Beast Blog.jpg

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Mobility in lieu of strength training

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Brilliant Friends!

We’re back in Jakarta for a few days. Bali was an incredible experience again, five years after the last time I was there. Now it’s time to rest. Some quick thoughts on maintaining strength during travel.

Basically, I don’t have the luxury of strength training in a gym as I travel. Instead I have the luxury of travel. No desk to sit at, no car to commute in, and lots and lots of walking and moving. Still, mobility exercises are key to staying limber and keeping my tissues “flushed” with fluid. With a single exercise band and some creativity, I maintain a full range of movement practices on the road.

The points of interest for me are the hips and shoulders. These joints get tight the quickest and they’re the biggest foci of movement. This was true at home as much as during travel. Sitting all day at work and home and commute caused major stickiness there, and it was super important to mobilize with that sedentary lifestyle. However, regular walking was not a part of everyday life for me until about three months ago. So at the end of a long day of moving about on my feet, my joints and muscles start to tighten up. They want to return to their comfortable, remembered range of motion and elasticity. I’m training them to grow beyond that.

The exercise that really hits the sweet spot for me is the hip mobility stretch. By getting down in the squat position on one leg, and keeping the other leg back, I can isolate the tight points within each hip joint. Here’s an example from Las Vegas:

A variation is the table top hip stretch. It’s like the hip mobility exercise but focuses more on the outermost edges of hip range of motion. One leg is placed up on the table like a hunk of mutton, crossed in front. The other leg holds me up, foot forward and close to vertical. The stretch is initiated by pushing back with the butt. I move my torso from one side to the other, keeping it straight, to lean into different areas of tightness.

To get the shoulders freshened up, I utilize the arm dislocation exercise. It’s a silly name that doesn’t represent the actual movement well. A stick, pole, or exercise band can be used for this. Simply hold the pole with a wide double overhand grip, or palms facing down, and bring the bar overhead and backward. Don’t let go. If it’s too hard, widen the grip. You will be bringing the pole all the way back and down to your butt behind you without letting go of your grip. Then, reverse.

On the road, I have my band. It’s slightly trickier than a sturdy pole, because it stretches at the point of greatest tension. This is when my arms are in the upper back position. It can actually make it easier to do the movement, since there’s some give, but I have to make sure that my grip is consistent and I keep my wrists rigid. Otherwise, I won’t get the proper shoulder rotation. If I do it properly, I can feel a great stretch in my pecs, front shoulders, and biceps.

The big question in all this for me is, how strong am I after such a long hiatus from weightlifting?

Well, I’ve yet to test myself in the lab we call “the gym”. When I do I’ll be sure to report the results. I feel reasonably strong. I don’t know if I can shoulder 300 lbs. and squat it at the drop of a hat, but I’m pretty sure I can warm up to it within a few days.

Mobility exercises and body weight training every two or three days is keeping me fairly limber and capable. Eating as much good fat as I can afford and find helps too. This was quite manageable in Bali, where pigs are raised by farmers and are all domestic. The strict attention to preserving the breed and the largely vegetable feed produces an unparalleled pork. Whatever the various reasons that Bali is called a paradise, the luscious pork is a top marker for me.

I haven’t been strict with avoiding wheat and other sweets in the last couple of weeks. Temptation is great, and living out of inns and hotels that provide breakfast greatly distracted me. I could have had higher energy levels with a better diet, but I’ve maintained body fat and muscle composition. Keeping up the fat intake has helped.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Shoulders

My Brilliant Friends,
The bench press is a complex exercise. It is critical that you learn the correct shoulder placement to use the full potential of your anatomy for this movement.
Spine alignment
First things first, stand up straight and get in the ready position for the squat. Butt tight, feet spreading the floor, and pillar torso. This aligns your spine. See here for details.
Screw in your Arms and Shoulders
Hello again, torque.
Put your arms out in front of you. Turn your palms up, and keep turning out until you reach the max outward rotation of your arms. This gets your shoulders in external rotation, meaning your shoulder blades are squeezed back and down.
Keeping your shoulders locked and back muscles tight as fuck, make fists and turn your palms back down. Your upper arms should stay in the same position, externally rotated. Look how my elbows do not turn down.
This simulates what your shoulder blades should be doing during the entire bench press movement. Make fists and see if you can pull the imaginary bar in to your chest without loosening up your shoulder blades. Difficult?
Now try this. As you push out, rotate your fists so that palms face up. As you pull in, rotate them face down. This allows you to feel what your elbows should be doing. When using the bar, your hands will be gripping the bar and obviously face down the whole time. You should be applying the outward twist as you push the bar up, to maintain torque. This is the same in the pushup.
Above, I have my shoulders in correct placement. On the right, I demonstrate incorrect position, with the shoulders pulled out to the front. This is a common cause of grief and despair on the bench.
Squeeze Shoulder Blades
As you pull in and push back out, focus on keeping your shoulder blades squeezed tight. Your shoulders should not be moving back and forth at your sides. They should be locked back and in, at the back of your shoulder capsules. The only things moving are your arms.
Pecs Taut
In conjunction with a pinched upper back and locked shoulder blades, your pecs should be pulled taut across your chest.This maintains muscle tension both on the down and up movement in your chest. As you push out and pull in with your arms, notice how squeezing your shoulder blades back pulls your pecs taut through both movements.
White-knuckle Grip
When applying these cues, make the white-knuckle grip a constant throughout. It helps to keep the back tight and shoulders locked back.

Hope you enjoyed the flowers on my wall.

Next I’ll talk about how to get yourself on the bench and apply these cues while on your back.

To powerful living,
Steve

Ankle Mobility

What’s up brilliant friends!
A lot of the grief I experience in obtaining proper squat position is from my limited ankle mobility. My feet turn out in order for me to get to proper depth in my squat.
At first I thought this was something I could look past, and eventually fix through gradual repetition with my feet pointed more and more forward. But I eventually realized that it’s going to take a lot more attention than that.
So, of course, this is now my obsession.
There’s a set of instructional videos made by JagRoop on YouTube that hit gold for me recently. Here’s the one for ankles I just watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2eDhjxq1G4&feature=em-subs_digest
Lowering down into the squat properly, with feet forward, knees out, and back flat, requires mobility in all key areas:
  1. Shoulders
  2. Spine and ribs
  3. Hips
  4. Knees
  5. Ankles
  6. Feet
This is why the squat is the greatest diagnostic movement for us humans, and the greatest exercise for strength and performance.
By being able to squat properly, we can demonstrate that we have ample mobility and strength to perform normal, daily movements, and of course athletic movements.
It’s rare to have good mobility. The irony is that the more you have been involved with sports and body building, the more likely it is that you lack sufficient mobility.
I’ve been able to lift a lot of weight compared to the average Joe. However, it’s time for me to get serious about the long game. I’m going to focus on mobility and proper positioning, scrapping the heavy weight for now until I can just get into the right positions.
Squatting 400 lbs. by age 30 would be great, and I want to go beyond that at age 40, 50, and 60 without blowing out my knees.
I’m several weeks into my second Madcow session, but I’m going to drop it to pursue this new endeavor. I promise myself I will surpass my strongest self when it is time.
I encourage you, whether you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate, or advanced in strength, to gain mobility before stacking on any more weight. Start with the ankles.
To powerful living.
Steve

The Secret to Effective Running is Torque

Brilliant Friends,
I totally rediscovered the joy of sprinting, thanks to an old buddy of mine.
My friend had asked me the other day if I could still run at a sprint. We had been talking about mobility the past couple days so it wasn’t as random a question as it might seem.
I said, “Yeah”, but with a little hesitation. It had been a long time since I did a full on sprint, and I don’t jog at all. Jogging doesn’t help with my performance in any way except for when jogging, in my experience. So I don’t do it, even though it does give a great “high”. Sprinting, on the other hand, has always proven to be beneficial.
So I went for a testing session two days ago to see if I really could still run at a sprint. I went out with my Earthrunner sandals and gave a couple tries on the sidewalk and street. Sure enough, it felt awkward and I got some stabbing knee pain. I knew I wasn’t doing something right.
I went on a stretch of grass and took my sandals off. I took a few easy strides back and forth, feeling out my alignment between my feet, ankles, knees, hips, head, and shoulders.
Eventually I got the sweet spots and graduated to several very good sprints back and forth. No joint pain at all, just fast, quiet, agile running.
Key Elements of Effective Sprint Running
The core of the running motion is that it is a continuous series of twisting. We propel ourselves forward by cranking up the torque in our abdomen and torso, swinging our elbows in opposition to our legs.
  1. Arms are rotating torso counterclockwise, legs are rotating hips clockwise. These opposing forces create torque in the abdomen. Running Secret Torque 1
  2. Torque in abdomen is released through the left leg into the ground and propels a brilliant beast forward. Rotation begins in the opposite direction for both torso and hips.Running Secret Torque 2
  3. Arms and shoulders rotate torso clockwise, and legs rotate the hips counterclockwise. Torque is again created in the abdomen, this time in reverse. Running Secret Torque 3
  4. Full twist acting on the abs. The right foot is about to touch ground and translate force into the ground again, continuing forward locomotion of a brilliant beast. Running Secret Torque 4
It’s an ingenious product of evolution that we two-footed creatures have mastered. Here is the breakdown:
  1. Absorb and release twisting power from your abs. Run with your abs, not your legs. Running is powered by the twisting mechanism of your shoulders and arms in opposition to your legs and hips. The center of that twisting torsion is your abs. Your midsection builds up torque from that twist, then releases it into the ground when your foot touches down. The mechanism then repeats in the opposite direction.
  2. Pillar Torso. If you follow my powerlifting newsletter, yes, this is the same concept as with squatting and deadlifting. A solid, quiet torso locked down by tight abs. I found this to increase the amount of torque in my abs. The more torque, the more power you can put out with each stride.
    • Flex the lats
    • Keep your shoulder blades down and back
    • Pull back your pectorals taut, and keep your ribcage down.
  3. Fists. Keep hands gripped tight into fists. This generates radiating power up to the shoulders and into the tension of your abs. Principle of kettle bell godfather Pavel Tsastouline applied to the sprint!
  4. Minimal movement of the elbows. No wild swinging. Just enough backward pumping to generate torque through the shoulders into the torso down to the hips.
  5. Knees forward. Pull your knees forward so that you are touching the ground with your feet directly under your center of mass on every step.
  6. Springy feet. Your forefoot should touch the ground first, not your heels. If your heels touch down afterwards, usually during slower pace running, then so be it, but the initial ground contact should be with your forefoot (the balls of your feet).
  7. Head in line. Notice when your head bends down too far to look at the ground, or tilts up when you are tired. Keep it in line with your spine, straight so that you can see ahead and slightly down when you need to track the path in front.
  8. Landing foot places directly beneath your center of mass. This is the tricky one. In the third frame below, you can see my foot actually lands just in front of my center. This is something I’m going to try to improve.

Running Form Landing Foot 1 Running Form Landing Foot 2 Running Form Landing Foot 3 Running Form Landing Foot 4

Depending on how f’d your running form is, start super slow. Barefoot in good flat grass is ideal. You will be amazed at how quickly your body picks it up from there. And if anything hurts, stop, study, adjust, and retest. Don’t keep hurting yourself.
You may need to do some mobility work to straighten your torso out, get your shoulders functioning, and hips and knees loose. I recommend using techniques laid out by Kelly Starrett in his book Becoming a Supple Leopard. Test out very slow running first and then put some work in where needed.
Do you run? How? When? How often? What does it do for you? Let me know, because I’m trying to build this into my life now that I’ve rediscovered it.
Thanks Eliot for the inspiration.
To powerful living,
Steve

Get Rid of Slack on the Deadlift

Brilliant Friends,

Here are a couple of thoughts on a more effective deadlift.

A common point of energy waste in the deadlift is the initial lift of the weight from the ground. That exact moment the weight comes off the ground should be the first upward movement of your body as well.

You would think this is intuitive. But if you watch deadlift videos on Instagram and Youtube, you’ll notice that a lot of people start their lift with their butts. Before the weight lifts off the ground, their hips have already moved up a few inches. You might notice this about yourself, too.

This is inefficient channeling of energy through the legs, and takes away from upward movement of the weight.

You can develop a better deadlift by minimizing this power leakage from the start. The aim is absolute tension and rigidity before the “pull” (what we call the lifting portion of the deadlift). By doing this, you will be able to maintain good form throughout the lift, keeping your back neutral, knees out, and head aligned. This will minimize and even prevent your upper back from curving forward into a slouch.

Start Position

To create the most effective output, focus on the setup. Once you grab the bar:

  • Straighten your arms
  • Push your feet into the ground
  • Pull up against the bar just short of lifting it to anchor yourself into the ground.
  • Pull back on your shoulder blades, like the wings of a jet folding in after take-off.
  • Flex your butt, think of squeezing your sphincter
  • Spread the floor with your feet (see my squat newsletter  for description)

If someone came by from any direction and pushed you, you would not be budged. No looseness in any part of your body, upward, downward, or sideways. Everything should be rock solid and ready for take off.

Back

Your back should have a straight arrow pointing through it from top of the head through the end of your butt.

Eyes

As you take hold of the bar, focus on one spot on the ground in front of you and do not look away. This helps with keeping the head in a neutral alignment with the rest of your spine.

The Pull

And here goes. I like Mehdi Hadim‘s two-part cue the best:

  1. Push the ground away from you
  2. When bar passes knees, slam your hips forward into the bar

Descent

You now stand upright with bar held at arms length.

  1. Pull in a belly breath and lock it into your lungs for abdominal pressure.
  2. Let down the weight in the exact reverse way. Start with hips moving back, keeping tension in butt, hamstrings, knees and feet.
  3. When the bar reaches your knees, allow them to start parting and bending, maintaining full tension.
  4. Do not drop the weight. It’s sloppy and rude, and it will mess up your back and everyone’s eardrums. Think Batman. Be quiet, be swift, and be gone.

I’ll send one on grip next. Try these with minimal weight first. As in, just the bar. Or a broomstick.

To powerful living,

Steve

 
Copyright © 2016 Steve Ko, All rights reserved.

Barefoot Powerlifting

Brilliant Friends,

I had a great session of strength training this past weekend and I did it all barefoot. Try it! Some things to note when powerlifting barefoot:

  • Have fun! That’s what it’s all about.
  • It’s building the arches back into my flat feet. Don’t let the fact that you have flat feet keep you from trying this, if you have the same problem I do. I have noticed an improvement from just three sessions of barefoot squats.
  • You will realize that your feet are like specialized hands to stabilize you. Use them to grip the ground.
  • If it’s not a barefoot-friendly gym, try gathering the big weights close to your squat rack before taking off your shoes. Don’t want to be wandering the gym without shoes.
  • Minimize the number of steps back you take when unracking the bar for a squat. Doing it barefoot will make you realize how important it is to plan the position of your feet. You don’t want to overdo the backwards steps with all that weight on you. I was able to take just one step back for each foot, without hitting the rack during the squats.
  • Start light. Like any major change in your strength training routine, you want to build up to it, not crash into it. I have been practicing barefoot walking outside for the past six months, and have been very careful with my form when lifting barefoot. I do my mobility and warmups barefoot as well, to get my feet accustomed. So far, so good!

Have you tried this? What differences do you find, if any, between lifting barefoot and lifting with shoes. And, what shoes do you wear for lifting?

To powerful living,

Steve

Flatfeet Arches 1