Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

Just because of the chicks?

There were two super hotties there this afternoon. But fuck if I wasn't irritated at the lack of equipment (only 1 incline bench).

No my gym only has 1 squat rack, 1 smith, and 1 incline with two flats. I want to fucking kill myself.

Oh, you meant (my) gym with a line of power racks. I swear, there should be more places like Westside.

For some weird reason full squat racks give me a uneasy feeling. Almost like a touch of claustrophobia. My gym has Two half racks and I fucking love them for what I need to do. They are really heavy duty and have like 30" long spotting arms.

My gym has 2 squat racks and a full power rack, plus 8 bench press benches. I'm surprised at how well equipped it is considering it's a shitty chain gym (LA Fitness).

That said, I can only squat in the full power rack because the squat racks don't have adjustable heights. I'm 6'1 and the highest bar on the squat rack is too high, but the one just under that is too low. Both feel awkward, causing me to either get on my tip-toes or go too low when starting/ending my squats. The power rack's adjustable height lets me set it to just the right position--basically between the two top holders on the squat rack--so I can comfortably start/end my squats.

So I'm retarded and didn't pay attention to where the bar was in correlation to my feet and proceeded to deadlift and lose balance since the bar wasn't over my feet. Right calf is really fucking strained, just going to skip legs this week and hope it heals soon lol.

Pretty dumb, but I guess 295 on one leg strains the calf somehow.

I had a similar thing at this Gold's Gym this weekend, McCheese (since my normal gym I know exactly what height to set the bar at). The height that their power rack was at seemed really low to me, so I decided to go up one. Fucking big mistake, since it was basically high enough where I had to tip one end slightly to clear the lip and then tip it the other to get it all the way out. By the time I finished my warmup I was already up to like 255, and I wasn't about to strip it all to set the pins back lower. But it really fucked with my set. I should've just left it on the lower and done a partial squat to unrack it every time.

My school gym has plates that are 10-sided instead of round. I have to readjust my feet after every rep of deadlifts or power cleans.

My gym is the worst. I win (lose)

Mexican worker told me, in Spanish, "you can't bang the weights on the floor." First thing I did on my next set of deadlifts? Bang them as loud as I could. You have rubber floors for a reason dumb fuck, eat shit.

The reason this pissed me off is because his steroid buddies do it all the fucking time, and he would never dare say a word. But because I don't socialize at the gym (like seriously?) and suck this dude's dick like everyone else he's going to give me shit? Lol. Ridiculous. And yes, I'm the dude who puts his headphones on and doesn't talk to anyone or look at anyone, unless they ask for a spot or how many sets I have left, etc.

I really need to learn how to squat and dead lift properly. Same thing always happens to me when I start squating. I use shitty technique that catches up to me when I get to around 185 lbs for sets. Then the back soreness/pain starts and I get discouraged and quit squatting.

Just started reading Starting strength and am going to finish the squat section before I go to the gym tonight. Sucks not having anyone at the gym to ask for help. I've only seen someone else squat there twice in the two months I've been going. Bunch of shit stains that only do bi curls and bench. I'm thinking about taping my sets on my iphone so I can atleast analyze them from an outside perspective.

I see plenty of people squatting, but almost none of them doing anything more than quarter squats. I think I've seen maybe one or two who get to parallel, and NONE below it.

As far as getting your form down, I'd say you just need to drop the weight a bit. Your form will change with weight that isn't challenging; it allows your body to be "lazy." When you get a decent load though, your form is closer to natural. It's when you get closer to your 1RM that your form will start breaking down and go to shit (body panics and does whatever it has to do to lift it).

So I'd say drop down to like 155-165 and stay there until you can hit some clean squats. Concentrate on breaking at the knees and keeping them pushed out (keeps your hips open) and also breaking at the hips (sitting back as opposed to going down). Also, chest up and back tight. Oh, and push through your heels. So those 5 things. Get those down and it should clean up most of your issues. It'll take a lot of reps to get the muscle memory for it. I also recommend you do all your warmup sets as if they're heavy as shit and use perfect form. That's the best way to build the muscle memory for it.

I see plenty of people squatting, but almost none of them doing anything more than quarter squats. I think I've seen maybe one or two who get to parallel, and NONE below it.

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This is me to a T. I've tried and tried going parallel or even below and I just cannot do it. I don't know if I have some kind of innate inflexibility or if I'm doing something wrong, but I've watched so many videos and read so much yet still can't manage it.

It's either an ankle, hamstring, or hip flexibility/mobility issue. More than likely, assuming you're like everyone else who sits in a chair for work all day, it's shortened hamstrings and tight hip flexors. Try foam rolling your hip flexors and use static stretches on your hamstrings prior to lifting.

I can hit depth without doing all that, but I foam roll my IT band, hip flexors, glutes, and lower back, and then do seated hamstring, groin, and hip flexor stretches before I do my leg and back days. It makes a huge difference in how I feel when I squat. I just started doing some hip mobility stretches but haven't squatted since I started, but I imagine that'll help a ton too.

Here's the video for the hip mobility stuff. When I do it, I'm pretty much like the guy in the video. When I do the one leg, it's a freakishly noticable difference from the other.



And it's really depressing seeing other people squat. There are days when I see someone in there and they load up 315 and I'm like, "Fuck yes! Someone who can finally squat." And then I see them quarter squat and I just get sad. Worse than that though are the guys doing less than 225 with god awful form. Saw a guy the other day whose lower back was completely rounded. See lots of knees shooting in too. Also saw a guy doing 185 who failed, but instead of squatting lower and setting the bar on the safety rails, he just bent forward and dumped the weight over his head. My back hurt just watching it.

Lack of yoga pants in home gym.

I've thought about eventually building a home gym. But the costs are just kind of ridiculous. Power cage, barbell, set of dumbbells and a set of plates and I'm already looking at at least $2,000. That still leaves me short stuff like a cable machine, ez curl bar, and really any other machine I may use at some point. Even if I piecemeal it together through other people's old shit, it'd still be at least a grand. Disregarding that my current gym is free (use the base gym), there aren't too many gyms where I'm going to be out $1k+ in anything less than 3-5 years.

I'm paranoid that if I work out at home I'll crush myself with a barbell and won't be found until the stench of my decaying corpse starts to annoy my neighbors.

Julian the Apostate_sl said:

I really need to learn how to squat and dead lift properly. Same thing always happens to me when I start squating. I use shitty technique that catches up to me when I get to around 185 lbs for sets. Then the back soreness/pain starts and I get discouraged and quit squatting.

Just started reading Starting strength and am going to finish the squat section before I go to the gym tonight. Sucks not having anyone at the gym to ask for help. I've only seen someone else squat there twice in the two months I've been going. Bunch of shit stains that only do bi curls and bench. I'm thinking about taping my sets on my iphone so I can atleast analyze them from an outside perspective.

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If you think your form is fucked up on something like squats/deadlifts, do them at a weight you can do the exercise properly. Those are two complex lifts that will fuck you right up if not done right consistently. That being said..what's failing you? If it's your back, my guess is you're core is weak or you're not using it properly. Maybe add supplementary core work in for a while to get stronger there. Also squatrx on youtube is good for a watch(think someone here actually recommended it before). Has good stretching recommendations and digs into doing squats properly. Also includes supplementary work as well.

matsb84_sl said:

If you think your form is fucked up on something like squats/deadlifts, do them at a weight you can do the exercise properly. Those are two complex lifts that will fuck you right up if not done right consistently. That being said..what's failing you? If it's your back, my guess is you're core is weak or you're not using it properly. Maybe add supplementary core work in for a while to get stronger there. Also squatrx on youtube is good for a watch(think someone here actually recommended it before). Has good stretching recommendations and digs into doing squats properly. Also includes supplementary work as well.

Click to expand...

After reading the squat section in Starting Strength it seems my whole squat from start to finish was fucked. Feet started too close together, knees too close together, bar too high. I was the dictionary definition of how not to squat properly.

I switched to high bar squat because my shoulder problem from March/April has never fully gotten better and I hypothesized that the low bar position was hurting my shoulder due to having to stretch the arms back to hold the bar. After 2 weeks, my shoulder is way, way better. But I hate the high bar position. First off, it hurts my shitty knees, whereas the low position make them feel glorious. It also just feels awkward and wrong after doing low bar for over a year. Plus the bar fucking hurts my traps.

So it's either squat shitty and have a better shoulder and worse knees, or squat well and have a worse shoulder and better knees.

As for squat flexibility, stretch your hamstrings twice a day (straight back, not curved back), and squat down as far as you can go without weight, then use your elbows to push your knees out (while keeping back straight). These two stretches have made me incredibly flexible for squat movements.

The only thing my shitty body isn't fully shitty at is power cleans. I'm up to 175(x5x3) now and have been for a while. I can't really go higher because my gym doesn't have bumper plates and it's already hard as shit to drop the bar and catch it. So now I'm upping reps.

Good news is I have insurance now, so I can go and get my knees check out. It's hard to find time when you're working 12 hours a day though, 6-7 days a week.