#1: Stop Wearing a Dri-Wicking Shirt to Squat In.
These shirts are slick to begin with, so the bar slides down your back, but then they push the sweat to the outside of the shirt and making it even slicker.
Heavy Bar + Slick Shirt = Moving bar
#2: Use Dumbbells or Pushup Handles Instead of Hands Flat on the Floor for Pushups.
Putting the hands flat on the floor puts a LOT of pressure on the wrists and is uncomfortable as hell, so quit doing it.
Use the damn pushup handles or dumbbells (especially if they’re the hex kind).
Using handles allows you to keep the wrists straight and crush the handles. This takes pressure off of the wrists and elbows and fires the rotator cuff helping to keep the shoulders healthy.
#3: Keep Your Head on Straight.
Quit moving your head all around, especially when an exercise gets hard.
The body wants to follow the head. When you flail around you’re telling your body to move also.
Pick a spot and stare at it.
#4. Pull More Than You Push.
Everybody wants to bench and look good in the mirror…..
But you’re not going to get there if you have some jacked-up shoulders.
We ALL spend too much time in front of a computer and most guys have pressed far more than they’ve pulled.
This means unbalanced shoulders and a ticket to shoulder impingement and injury.
A good ratio of pulling to pushing is 2:1.
For every set of pushing you do make sure you do 2 of pulling.
#5: Upper Back, You Need Some More.
This goes hand in hand with #4.
You NEED more upper back, you don’t have enough.
Muscles up front are for show….muscles in back are for gooooo! From t-nation.com
The upper back is crucial in benching, squatting, deadlifting and just about every other exercise.
It provides a platform to push-off of, stability for the bar and helps to keep the arms/ shoulders in the correct place.
And no, ladies, training your upper back won’t make you into a She Hulk..
From a web search, but it belongs to Marvel
But it will improve your posture and probably put an end to your neck pain.
#6: You Need to do More Preventative Maintenance on Your Body.
Find 10 minutes everyday and knock it out.
Foam Roller, lacrosse ball, The Stick, stretching, make it a habit.
Just get things “open and active”.
Foam Rollers should be your best friend
#7: Row Through the Ribs
When doing rowing exercises think about pulling through the ribcage.
This will help keep the arm in the correct path and the shoulder packed down into the joint.
#8: Don’t use the “Joe Weider” Weight Belt.
That fake leather black thing that you see in the gym that has “Weider” or whatever plastered on it.
Don’t use it, it’s next to worthless.
It won’t provide enough support to actually do anything and you may end up relying on it, which is the fast track to 5-6 visits to the chiropractor for a back adjustment.
The belts that do something are much thicker/ heavier uncomfortable as hell and are not just lying around most gyms.
#9: Break Long(er) Sets Into Manageable Pieces.
I HATE rep work….but it’s a necessary evil.
Especially as you get older and you need the hypertrophy response to keep the ligaments and tendons healthy plus build or at least keep some “body armour”.
For me anything over 5 reps is cardio a long set….and I want to pack it in.
The best way I’ve found to stay focused during this hell is to break big sets into several small ones.
For example a 10RM set on the squat is:
3, 3, 2, 1, 1
It’s not that I rack the weight at any time.
This is only a way to THINK about the set as you suffer through it.
It’s difficult when you’re dying for breath at rep 6 to think about 4 more but 2 more is doable and within reach, then singles after that.
This has made hitting heavy higher rep sets much “easier”, if you could call it that, for myself.
This video is a good example of this in practice from Jason Pegg and Jim Wendler, they are VERY strong fellows and the language used here is in no way safe for your office but is almost certainly necessary to squat almost 500lbs 10 times…..you should put headphones on NOW or be at home, away from the kids if you’re about to watch this…
#10: Elbow Pain= Wraps and Fat Bars.
Elbow pain from the weight room, in my experience, is almost always a result of bent wrists, especially when performing pressing exercises.
Here’s what happens:
Wrists bend while being loaded—-> wrist flexors get stretched—-> elbows start hurting.
The simple answer is Don’t Bend Your Wrists….
Your wrists shouldn’t be bent back like this….from the Diesel Crew.
But if you have small hands, are handling heavy weights or are super fatigued it’s really easy to cock those wrists back to help support the weight.
If you do this you need to:
A: Be diligent about stopping this….keep your wrists straight.
B: Wear wrist wraps and/ use a Fat Bar/ Buy some Fat Gripz.
The wrist wraps should be good heavy ones, not the things they sell at Dicks which wouldn’t hold a limp noodle up straight. The wraps should be heavy enough to “cast” your wrist.
Using a Fat Bar or Fat Gripz forces you to use less weight and grip the bar harder, which should mean more forearm activation and less of a chance of you “hanging” off the wrist.
If you’re not already doing these things, give em’ a try and I bet you’ll feel better, move better and have more productive training sessions instantly.
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