Q&A – 9

Happy PR Friday. Let’s get down to biznezz.

ngalfano13 Says:

quick question for Justin and anyone else: i have been training for about 2 months now, and my press has just stalled at 125 for about a week now. i can’t seem to get it. i am 18 years old, 155lb power clean, 205 squat, 170 bench. can anyone tell me why this is?

Dear ngalfano13,

Short answer: I’d have to see your program. Let’s assume you’re taking care of recovery (nutrition/protein, sleep, etc.). Are you doing a linear progression? How long have you been training? I’d have to assume it isn’t terribly long. Keep toiling away with 3×5 for at least a couple more months and I’d almost guarantee your lifts, including the press, will go up. If not, then switch to a 3×3 set up for a few weeks and return to the 3×5. If you weren’t doing a 3×5 to begin with, then learn what a linear progression is. Also, adamwathan said this in the comments, which is true: “A 125 press is actually pretty good when you are only benching 170. It’ll go up as you get bigger and stronger at everything else.”

LargeRobert Says:

Why do the Oly lifters (eg Julia Rohde, Maria de la Peuente) make it a point to yell “Heh!” right before they bend down to grab the bar? I assume it’s some requirement by the judges…

Dear LargeRobert,

Is your name referencing King Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm?

The girls do it as a psyche up. Having a routine in “event sports” (or hitting in baseball, free throws in basketball) is standard for World and Olympic competitors. The routine is often combined with imagery in which the athlete images a successful lift, or perhaps a portion of the lift to cue. You’ll see this with high level athletes. An example is Pisarenko standing in front of his bar before he goes. Sport psychologists can teach that kind of thing, but I bet the Euro coaches teach it regardless of whether they were formally taught or not.

Also, from a psychology perspective, females aren’t aggressive as males. The shout may be a way to heighten arousal (from a psychology perspective, pervert) in order to stimulate the system as part of their routine or mental prep. I talked a little bit about routines in this post, but I’ve been meaning to do another post (I studied sport psychology briefly in grad school).

tiny Says:

Justin,
What are your thoughts on ketogenic diets? I have been reading up on your protein intake ideas, and contrasting them to ideas about ketosis. I really have no opinion, but I’m working on a chemistry paper on ketosis, and your thoughts intrigued me.

Dear tiny,

I’m not a fan of ketogenic diets, or diets that have a weird, inconsistent feeding. Diets like that aren’t conducive to being strong, powerful, and fast. I’d have to check the chemistry/physiology, but I would rather eat quality food throughout every day to support muscle growth and recovery (being anabolic). More importantly, it’s a giant pain in the ass, and few people will ever fully commit to doing it. Diet is behavior driven, and I’m not going to support something that is a pain in the ass. High quality food diets (Paleo) are much more simple. Eat well and the food takes care of you. You can even tweak the macros to support your training style (since training will dictate the optimum macro requirement). I love this article that Gant wrote about food.

My homie Mark Marotta asks on the Facebook fan page:

1. Once someone can do a mob to it’s full range of motion for a reasonable amount of time how do they further progress mobility?
And
2. What are the female equivalents of Todds, Gordons and Melvins?

Dear my son,

That first question is an excellent fucking question. As I learn more from Kelly Starrett’s MobilityWOD, I see how to diagnose and treat different mobility issues. In my opinion, the key to improving function and mobility after the basic ROM stretches is joint approximation. Joint approximation consists of using bands to shift the joint. It can pull the head of the humerus or femur anterior, posterior, or laterally. You can then you implements or the ground to approximate the joint in two direction. For example, lying on your back with a dumbbell or kettlebell in your hand (arm extended vertically) will drive the head of the humerus in the back, or posterior aspect, of the glenoid fossa (the socket of the “ball and socket joint”). Then, when you have the band around the proximal humerus applying lateral tension, you have pushed the femur back into it’s joint while pulling it out from the side. Then you externally rotate the shoulder. That is what Brent calls “The best shoulder mob ever”, and it’s great at improving overhead positioning. In this case it’s a perfect example of joint approximation in two directions.

Joint approximation can be more simple. It can pull the femur forward when in a lunge or in a couch stretch. Joints can also be approximated longitudinally, or down the line. This recent mob had longitudinal approximation at the knee, and you can do the same thing at the elbow. As soon as I finish this fucking book and update the site, I’m going to do more posts on mobility because improving it is a game changer.

As for your second question, “Sally” and “Nancy” could be some, but those are usually used for guys that are acting like a Nancy. I’ll have to think on this one.

Adam Wathan asks on the Facebook fan page,

Form check for the Q&A? I know the angle isn’t the recommended one but knees out isn’t my big problem, back angle and bar path however is. This is my best set of squats formwise in recent memory, still light (225) though. Have always shot my hips back way too far and good morning’d my squats instead of squatting them so this is my attempt to squat down instead of backwards.

Dear Adam,

I could clean most of this up in a couple minutes in person. Your toes are probably pointed out a little too far, but I can’t know for sure. But two main things: 1) the timing if funky and 2) you’re fucking talking during the set.

1. Timing? Huh? That’s just a concise way to say that you’re sticking your ass back before you start. Imagine if I had 500 pounds on my back and I stuck my ass back without bending my knees. What would happen to my torso? It would angle forward. Where does the bar go? It moves forward, in front of the middle of the foot. Can you understand why that would make a forward squat? You should, because before you even really start the squat, you’re putting the bar forward.

Remedy cue: “Knees out first”. We need the knees and hips to bend together, but that’s the conceptual, and nobody really does it correct if you think that. Instead, you think “knees out first”. I developed that cue cause when someone is doing the fault that you have, they need to think about bending their knees first (an exaggerated cue fixes an exaggerated fault). When they do, it syncs the knees/hips together. However, the person is thinking “knees FORWARD first” instead of “knees first”, so it dicks up the “knees out thing”. So I had to use “knees out first”, and it works in at least 75% of cases (good cues will work with at least 3/4 of the population, and then the other 1/4 may need additional work because they are silly).

2. You’re fucking talking. It’s not bad that you’re talking, but the fact that you’re talking tells me that you aren’t tight. Dick. It also tells me (although I can see it) that you aren’t pulling your chest up into the chin. You’re also relaxing your torso enough to chat, so you aren’t maintaining the pressure.

Remedy cue: “Chest into chin”. I’ve been meaning to do a post on this, but you should actively be contracting the upper back muscles to pull the chest into your chin from the lift off to the re-rack. IT SHOULD NEVER DROP. You aren’t even doing this contraction, but if you did, you would drop it because you’re Chatty Cathy. Take a big breath before un-racking the barbell and only have small breath resets in between reps. This will maintain tightness and intra-adbominal/thoracic pressure throughout the set. If you’re losing pressure and tightness, then subsequent reps will be affected since you can’t get as tight under a load as you can before un-racking it. Be methodical.

There is one or two more things I could say to clean it up, but these are the most important things to address in the triage. Your stubbed toe is irrelevant if you have a sucking chest wound.