About two years ago I was doing my squats on the Intensity Day of the Texas Method program I was on. I was doing singles across at 495 (my memory has always been doubles, but I can’t find it in my training log), and the third and fourth reps looked really ugly. The fourth one was what I like to call a holy grinder (sung to the tune of Holy Diver), and Rip looked at me and said something like, “Well, that was bone on bone. You’re done.” I didn’t like that and said, “Nah, I’ll get the next one.”
So I saddled up for the fifth rep with adrenaline leaking out of my ears and aiming to bounce the shit out of the rep. At the time I remember that I didn’t really remember the rep; but I bounced it so hard and fast that Rip was stunned at how easy I made it look given that the previous rep was so hard. This, my friends, is the difference between going through the motions and attacking the rep.
There are two sides to a successful heavy lift: the volitional violence at a critical point in the lift coupled with a pre-existing shot of adrenaline. This post concerns the former.
It’s easy to get in a habit of merely stepping out with a weight on your back and squatting instead of attacking every. single. rep. This concept is hard to explain, but it’s most noticeable in the Olympic lifts. Many beginning Oly lifters are thinking of so many different things that it almost seems like they stand up with the weight, and then fall into their squat. Ripping through the second pull is the most important part of these lifts — that hip extension should be the fastest, most violent thing that person can generate out of their body. It’s the difference in trying to cut someone with your longsword or cleaving a head off (horse head, not real); the difference in trying to hit someone and knocking them the fuck out.
Lifting isn’t church. It isn’t afternoon tea. It’s a form of controlled rage directed at a barbell. In a squat, you need to attack the bottom position and make it sharp. In a press, you need to attack the bar at the beginning and try to make the entire rep fast. In the bench, you need explode off of your chest. In the Olympic lifts, you have to rip through the second pull as hard as you can. You should be applying the maximum amount of force possible at that moment. I hardly see recreational lifters actively attacking their reps.
There is a learning curve to attacking the bar — you have to be consistent with your technique. Yet, there’s a difference in mindset when you walk a bar out and think, “Man, this feels heavy, I hope we get it…here we go…” and actively wanting to hit the rep and repeating “Bounce” in your head. Hoping to get a rep and punching it in the fucking mouth are two different things.
Don’t sacrifice technique for the sake of intensity. When most inexperienced lifters think “bounce”, they fall into the squat, lose tightness, kill the bounce, and have a bitch of a rep. The person that attacks his squats the best is my friend AC; he maintains proper tempo and tightness in the descent but attacks the SHIT out of the bounce. This video is two years old, but you can see how he rips through the bottom of the squat — particularly on the second rep.
Lift angry and attack the critical part of your reps. You need to volitionally hit the rep as hard as you can. If there was any question to how hard you hit it, then it wasn’t hard enough. Punch through the rep and lift angry.
I insult my reps before attacking them.
“Fuck you, rep number 1.”
“Eat scrotum, rep number 2.”
“Lick my taint, rep number 3.”
and so on, and so forth.
I’m not surprised at your behavior.
–Justin
I’ll kill you, Leonard Nimoy.
Great post, violence is 100% the most important thing. It’s the difference between pressing 165 for 6 and 175 for 8 for me. Kill the fucking bar, don’t let it win.
2 Points:
1. Excellent reminder. I’ll definitely keep this in mind on friday!
2. FIT is awesome. Got it yesterday, and I’m already about halfway through. The Star Trek reference on page 11 had me sold and the content is excellent!
When in doubt draw an upside down crucifix on your chest and tell the first person you see after drawing that on yourself you will sacrifice them to the old gods.
A bleeding weirwood can also be motivating if your keep still has one.
–Justin
At our gym we say bring the devil out cause god doesn’t belong in the gym. Metaphorically of course.
Yesterday going for my intensity day of 5×5 at 325 I felt my lower back tighten up on the third rep of my 1st set, using a low bar technique. I immediately racked the weight, gave myself a few minutes, and tried going again. The first rep was brutal in the hole, and my lower back is still sore today (not unbearable, but pretty tight). Without a video, anything to recommend?
You need to easily and progressively rehab it; you clearly did something abnormal. Long term you may want to employ some of these assistance exercises to help your back. Use light resistance rotational work to help rehab.
–Justin
I also believe that owning a helm in the shape of a pissed off squid and driving your large long ship iron victory to the gym definitely helps with intensity.
YES! If I ever catch myself doubting my ability to hit a lift, I always think about something that really angers me. Sometimes it’s something that happened long ago, but more often it involves an asshole I encountered on the subway that morning. Then at some point between unracking and descending into the lift, I think about what I would do if I could turn back time or if I was trapped in fucking Groundhog day or something. I also have taken to pinching and flicking my ears really hard right before a heavy one. I think it helps distract me from the discomfort of the lift and focus the Rage. I read somewhere about the Russians doing this stuff.
Justin- what do you think about sniffing ammonia packets before a big lift? I tried it for the first time in my training before my first powerlifting meet and then did it before a my 3rd attempts at each lift. I don’t know that it made a difference but it certainly was aggrivating and cleared my sinuses. I saw one dude bite his packet to break it open. That seemed a little excessive.
I’ll try this “bounce” cue.
The bounce cue is the primary cue to use with lifters who have the other technique subtleties on lock down. I’m surprised you haven’t used it before. Oh, and it’s also primarily reserved for the low bar, since the stretch reflex off the posterior chain is more inherent in this lift.
As for ammonia, I’m not experienced with it nor have I tried it, but Brian Drescher loves it so it must be good.
–Justin
I know dive-bombing your squat is bad policy because you lose all your tightness, but the principle of getting some momentum before bouncing is still valid. A fast, controlled descent allows for proper explosion out of the hole, like A.C.’s video demonstrates.
It takes quite a good amount of time under the bar to develop this intuition.
AC isn’t fast in this video; he has good tempo. “Momentum” is an erroneous term to use since significant momentum downward will increase significantly when trying to generate force in the opposite direction (consider when a kid stands on your back, and then they jump — the amount of force applied to your back increases as they have an equal reaction of force to leap off). No, momentum is not needed, but a good tempo. “Control down, fast up” is what works best for a good stretch reflex in the posterior chain. Don’t get confused.
–Justin
Stroup, I tend to use a polished human skull as a container for my interworkout beverage. It helps with the intensity.
My squatting has improved significantly since i began telling myself to push out of the bottom. Some cues take a bit to establish but that little cue has improved my speed out of the whole significantly. I thought to myself what would Lt. Dan say to me wasting my perfectly good legs?
This could not be more timely. Lately I’ve been thinking I was getting TOO angry while I lift, and I’ve been trying to be a little more zen.
Result: I accomplish more in hulk mode than buddha mode.
Well, acting like a fool isn’t entirely necessary. Look at the professionals; they summon the demons quietly and hit their lifts. Making a raucous show of it some times is a display of immaturity.
–Justin
1. Good post. You’ve been doing this site for what, two years now, and you still come up with enlightening and/or entertaining posts each day. Props to you.
2. Seems a good place to ask, why does K-Star talk about the ‘pain face’ all the time in his mobility WODs? Why is it bad? He mentions it in every video but I obviously missed the first time he did it, so now it’s like this annoying inside reference which I don’t know.
My analysis is that he wants you to avoid reacting to the pain. If you tense up your muscles, then you won’t stretch, tack/stretch, or massage them properly. Relaxing is important for soft tissue work, and tensing up as a result of pain will negate the effect. By mentally acting immune to the pain, you can help your body relax.
At least that’s what I think.
–Justin
If you’ve ever done foam rolling on sore quads, you’ll know what the ‘pain face’ is.
Justin,
Thanks for the reply. Point taken. My choice of words was incorrect (‘momentum’, ‘fast’), but I see A.C.’s descent as not particularly slow. It’s controlled, with just the right speed necessary to explode out of the hole and minimize the amount of time spent there. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I still see that the speed of your descent is a variable there, with a very slow one potentially degrading the force of the explosion.
A question: regarding the press, am I correct in assuming that this doesn’t apply completely to the first rep? There is a name for that sort of reflex, which I forgot.
I was just discussing semantics to keep people grounded. The speed of the descent is very important. If it goes slow (like some of Mike’s squats at Nationals…I guess those videos aren’t online), then the bounce doesn’t occur. If it goes fast, then things are too loose for a bounce and the lifter is significantly more susceptible to injury (we all aren’t Shane Hamman).
I think it does apply on the first rep of the press, despite starting it from a dead stop. When starting the first rep, the bar has to explode off the chest and move as fast as possible. With multi-rep sets of ‘touch and go’ (that incorporate the stretch reflex you allude to), the set (and subsequently reps) should be completed as fast as possible. In a touch and go press, yes you can really hit the bottom hard like a squat, but I’m even referring to rep #1 where the lifter will need to punch the rep up instead of giving up on it when it feels heavy through the middle.
–Justin
So Justin, obviously Game of Thrones and A Song of Fire and Ice is a very 70sbig book series/television show, but who is the most 70sbig character? I’d count Drogo out right away, but I think The Mountain, The Hound, Ser Barristan, The Old Bear, Jorah Mormont, and even Hodor are still in the running. What do you think?
Hodor isn’t in the running. And we’ll save this discussion for when we have a forum, because I don’t want to discuss spoilers openly (I hate people who give spoilers).
–Justin
Victarion Greyjoy > A lot of other people. Stonesnake is also kinda cool.
I’m surprised how much you like Victarion. Mentioning Stonesnake shows your noobishness.
–Justin
Great post.
A few times I’ve tried to bounce the shit out of the bar at 200, 205 and 210kg, but i lost tightness in the back and it caused me to round. Been working on my back to fix it because I figure that and timing are the key.
I saw that video a while back and thought “holy fucking samurai!”
If you’re losing proper lumbar alignment, then don’t worry about bouncing until you can do that correctly.
–Justin
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A lot of the time I was still fucking pissed off after training. My old room mate, and now-a-days my wife too, knew not to talk to me for like 15min after training. It actually sucks, just too intense when the intensity needs to be gone.
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I think you’re right about the mindset stuff.
I do however find it hilarious that AC is featured with a bitchin’ chainsaw at the end of the vid but is holding a cute puppy in his vimeo profile.
He wears many faces.
–Justin
Not only attack the rep but attack everything in life.
The Americans just beat the Russians 13-7 in a world cup rugby match.
You think Hollywood’s gonna make a movie about it?
This kind of attitude will get you kicked out of the gym. :)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-14-2011/the-plight-of-muscled-americans
Where’s a Ricky Bruch video when you need it?
Will you be doing a ‘pre-existing shot of adrenaline’ post? Because my local surgery has upped security after last time.
I have no clue what your second sentence means. I will be doing a post on adrenaline, yes.
–Justin
I just learned that I am a lunkhead. At the university “gym” over lunch, a bud and I were just getting our warmup going for deadlifts; we only got up to 275 when a “trainer” stopped us and said we had to use these extra chunks of 4″ soft rubber under the bar to cut down on the noise and to protect the already-rubber covered floor from the already-rubber-covered plates. We weren’t dropping or bouncing the bar, but I guess even minor bar-noise might drown-out the oh-so-important TV’s hanging over the stairsteppers. We either had to deadlift shallow or stand on said pads (which we tried) that felt like standing on an air mattress.
Fuckit, I’ll deadlift at home.
@ Justin
Thanks, I’m working on it now.
I tried lifting angry during my bench work sets today. I found that in a worked-up, agro state my form suffered and I was repping too fast, eventually causing me to miss the last rep of my last set (which I really should have hit OK). I’ve got a wild temper and I think as a novice lifter (up to week 13) I need to stay calm and focus on form and technique cues, rather than unleashing The Beast In Me.
Once good form is a bit more automatic for me, maybe then would be a better time to introduce the Blood & Thunder?
Thoughts anyone?
PS: I realise the post was about Attacking The Rep”, not necessarily about lifting with anger.
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