CST Free Weight Exercises By Scott Sonnon

Rif pointed this out. Look at this guy’s lower back musculature. Absolutely amazing.

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I’ve been thinking about deadlift form and wanted to note down a few things.

There are some good points here, especially Mistake No 10 - Starting with the Hips Too LOW:

This is the king of all mistakes I see. Too many times lifters try to squat the weight up rather than pull the weight. Think back to the number of times you’ve seen a big deadlift and thought to yourself how much more the lifter could’ve pulled if he didn’t damn near stiff-leg it. I see it all the time. Someone will say, “Did you see his deadlift?” Then the other guy will comment, “Yeah, and he stiff-legged the thing.” Am I telling you to stiff leg all your deadlifts? No, not at all.

All I want you to do is look at your hip position at the start of the lift when you pull and watch how much your hips move up before the weight begins to break the floor. This is wasted movement and does nothing except wear you out before the pull. The closer you can keep your hips to the bar when you pull, the better the leverages are going to be.

Once again, next time you see a great deadlifter, stand off to the side and watch how close his or her hips stay to the bar throughout the pull. If you’re putting your ass to the floor before you pull, your hips are about a mile from the bar. You’re setting yourself up for disaster when the lever arm is this long. This is also the second reason why lifters can’t get the bar off the floor. (The first reason is very simple: The bar is too heavy!)

That got me thinking about Pavel’s advice on deadlifting:

Look up towards the ceiling, and *not* at the mirror. This will keep your back from “rounding”.

Reach back with your butt, like you’re trying to sit in a chair that’s too far behind you.

In addition to this, try to imagine your spine stretching out. This will further straighten your back.

Tighten your abs as if bracing for a punch, and *then* inhale. This will protect your back.

Somewhere in Power to the People Pavel also talks about keeping your shins near vertical. So you hinge at the hips, pushing your butt way back.

It struck me that this is like the hamstring stretch position described in Relax into Stretch and which appears at about 1:35 in the video below:

Talking of high hips, Bob Peoples (best deadlifter ever!) lifted that style:

Consider then, Bob’s following statement, made over 20 years ago. “On October 4 I finally made a new world record deadlift record of 700 pounds. At this time I was lifting on normally filled lungs. However, I then started lifting on empty lungs and with a round back - that is I would breathe out to normal, round my back, raise the hips, look down and begin the lift. I feel this is much safer than following the customary advice of the experts. By breathing out you lessen the internal pressure and by lifting with a round back you lessen the leverage - all of which adds many pounds to your lift. I have used the reverse grip and also the overhand hook grip but I have now changed to the palms up or curl grip (with hook) and will experiment with it for a while to see if it helps.”

While I’m on deadlifts…..here is a video of Lamar Gant. If you have realy long arms it makes this easier!

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The full study is available for this one, not just this abstract (which is below) but this is interesting - the effects of a 12 hour fast on physical abilities, specifically balance.

What is not clear from either is whether the participants abstained from all liquids - even water. Anyway it seems that fasting diminished balance skills, which is a concern.

Fasting is always easier if you are on a low carb diet and running on ketones, so I wonder if that would be an issue - the average person running on sugars needs constant topping up or else blood sugar issues can have effects. I wonder if hypoglycemia affects balance?

In any case it is something to bear in mind if you are experimenting with intermittent fasting.

The effects of dietary fasting on physical balance among healthy young women.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The study examined the effects of dietary fasting on physical balance among young healthy women.
METHODS: This study undertaken involving 22 young healthy women (age=22+/- 1.5) using a within subject counterbalanced 2-week crossover study design. Participants were asked to refrain from consuming any food or beverage for 12 hours prior to the fasting trial and to maintain their regular diet for the non-fasting trial. Measures included: a background questionnaire, 24-hour dietary recall, and functional reach and timed single-limb stances. RESULTS: Fasting resulted in significant declines in functional reach (p<0.01), and ability to balance in a single limb stance with eyes open, on both the dominant and non-dominant legs (p<0.01 and p<0.01, respectively), and with eyes closed on the dominant leg (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The findings have implications for athletic performance in younger individuals as well as emphasizing the need for health education for young women to avoid skipping meals

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Years ago in Iron Man magazine (the old Peary Rader one, not the soft pron thing it became) and latterly in McRobert’s Hardgainer there was a great writer called Bradley J Steiner. He focussed on simple straightforward routines. No fluff, jsut progression the basics.

I recently found out that he is still writing, now on the web and lots of the material is also about reality based self defence.

It is good stuff. Check out Seattle Combatives

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hat tip to Mark

All this for some crap food

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Just spotted this:

Women Who Eat Foods With High Glycemic Index May Be at Greater Risk for Heart Disease

High-carbohydrate diets increase the levels of blood glucose and of harmful blood fats known as triglycerides while reducing levels of protective HDL or “good” cholesterol, thereby increasing heart disease risk, according to background information in the article.

Even the BBC picked up on it. They report:

The British Heart Foundation, said that for women, choosing lower GI foods could be useful in helping them to reduce their risk of coronary heart disease. She said: “They could try broadening the types of bread and cereals they eat to include granary, rye or oat; including more beans, pulses; and accompanying meals with a good helping of fruit and vegetables.

Of course the heresy would be to recommend that people - especially women - cut carbs of all sorts and eat more saturated fat and protein.

Here is the abstract

Dietary Glycemic Load and Index and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in a Large Italian Cohort

Background Dietary glycemic load (GL) and glycemic index (GI) in relation to cardiovascular disease have been investigated in a few prospective studies with inconsistent results, particularly in men. The present EPICOR study investigated the association of GI and GL with coronary heart disease (CHD) in a large and heterogeneous cohort of Italian men and women originally recruited to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

Methods We studied 47 749 volunteers (15 171 men and 32 578 women) who completed a dietary questionnaire. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling estimated adjusted relative risks (RRs) of CHD and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results During a median of 7.9 years of follow-up, 463 CHD cases (158 women and 305 men) were identified. Women in the highest carbohydrate intake quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.16-3.43), with no association found in men (P = .04 for interaction). Increasing carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods was also significantly associated with greater risk of CHD in women (RR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.02-2.75), whereas increasing the intake of low-GI carbohydrates was not. Women in the highest GL quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.26-3.98), with no significant association in men (P = .03 for interaction).

Conclusion In this Italian cohort, high dietary GL and carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods increase the overall risk of CHD in women but not men.

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This is something that I’ve referred to before and frankly something that scares me. I’ve previously mentioned the importance of sleeping in the dark, but this report stresses how important it is:

Artificial light at night disrupts cell division

Just 1 ‘pulse’ of artificial light at night disrupts the circadian mode of cell division — 1 of the body’s mechanisms that is damaged in the development of cancer

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Here is Gray Cook on deadlift form.

He writes about it here too.

Maintain the Squat - Train the Deadlift

Most of his focus is on the single leg version.

I’m interested that his basic motion is really a still legged / Romanian deadlift - the hips are doing the work, not the knees. It is also the same hip hinge movement that Esther Gokhale teaches as a basic safe way of bending over - thrust the hips back. It is also the key to the swing

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I’ve been playing around with these

• Simple
• No equipment needed (just a db)
• Range of motion is consistent with a congruent exercise approach

By the way, I probably look more like the second guy than the first!

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I have been reading Never Let Go by Dan John. It is a great book. Down to earth advice and wisdom from someone who really knows his stuff.

One of the essays in the book talks about the value of a coach, having someone who can work out a programme and tell you what to do. You don’t need to workout what you should do, you jsut do what you are told. You stop dotting from idea to idea and programme to programme. It takes the freedom away and sometimes that is good.

I am guilty of it myself. There is so much information out there as I was saying earlier - that I don’t just stick to something simple and give it time. I remember years ago I would stick at a routine for months - just simple stuff - squats, dips, deadlift - and would grow and improve. Now I know more but do not stick to things….and I get nowhere. Injuries have something to do with it too, but I do get distracted by the new stuff.

Maybe I need to just commit to some programme for a while. Just a simple routine or deadlifts and press I think (while keeping my rehab stuff - TGU, bridge etc - going)

Maybe you just need to commit to a programme for a while. Even something as basic as the Turbulence Training programmes (some free workouts are below) can be useful - warm up, strength work and stretch, with intervals on another day.

Sample Workout

10 Minute Workouts

Bodyweight workouts.

Pick something and stick to it for a while.

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