Technique -v- Weight

Hanley

This is a bit of an ongoing discussion I’ve been having with a few people over the last couple of weeks, but essentially the question is:


For a strength sport athlete/athlete in general, which is better (using a deadlift as a point of reference here because it’s the most obvious one):
-pulling 100% any way you can - round back, stiff leg etc
-pulling 85% of that with “good” tekkers, no back flexion, good hip extension, emphasis on the p-chain etc


My position would be that from an athletic perspective especially (and from a general population standpoint too) that injury prevention precedes weight lifted, and improved sporting performance precedes absolute weight. So you should be lifting with tekkers designed to minimize your chance of getting injured, and maximize your chance of getting better at your given sport.

Discuss.

the drifter

Hanley wrote: »

My position would be that from an athletic perspective especially (and from a general population standpoint too) that injury prevention precedes weight lifted, and improved sporting performance precedes absolute weight. So you should be lifting with tekkers designed to minimize your chance of getting injured, and maximize your chance of getting better at your given sport.

Unless of course your aiming to break a world record and your tekkers ( god i hate that word) may slip just a small bit?

Thud

the drifter wrote: »

Unless of course your aiming to break a world record and your tekkers ( god i hate that word) may slip just a small bit?

yeah, not quiet world records but i find my form goes to crap when going for a new max but once i've done it once (with dodgy tekkers) i can focus more on the tekkers the next time....prob a dangerous game to play though

Red_Wake

You work on your technique to improve the amount of weight you can lift without injuring yourself, IMO.

mushykeogh

An injured athlete will win feic all. Technique first.

Edwardius

Depends on whether you can get away with **** technique. I can't, so I have to sacrifice weight (on squats anyway).
I guess if your strongest positions are the "correct" ones you don't have to resort to crappy technique. If your 99.9999999% squat looks very similar to your 85% then you're golden. The question is, can you take someone who moves badly under heavy load and make their maxes look like their 85% in an acceptable timeframe?

Nervous Wreck

I would say I put more emphasis on technique. Obviously, I like to chase bigger numbers for myself but I find that when someone tells me my form is off, I tend to pull back on the weight and try to fix whatever's wrong with my technique. Mostly, cos I just presume that if I fix my technique, the weight will progress almost on its own. For example, my best squat so far was a triple @ 150. Then I looked back and was told that my depth was bollocks. So I haven't tried the triple again, have pulled back the weight a bit and worked more on getting proper depth.

Scuba Ste

Technique, technique, technique.

Aside form injury prevention I think in the long run good technique will serve you better than crap technique and you'll just reach a point where crap technique won't let you go any further.

I don't deadlift much so take it or leave it but it's a full body movement with legs, hips and back working together to lift the bar, if your not moving optimally then your losing kilo's surely. I always thought there was a leveraging advantage too to pulling with decent technique and if the hips shoot up you lose some of that.

I do think a max deadlift will not look like an 85% effort but I think training with decent technique will mean a max effort is pulled with the same or similar movement pattern giving you higher numbers than pulling with poor technique.

But I've deadlifted once in the last year so what do I know.

deadlybuzzman

for me poor technique=poor progress especially in the longer term. if you have to ugly up a single in a competition fair enough but otherwise youre ignoring things that are holding you back and potentially going to injure you, for example coming up ass first when squatting.

kevpants

It's not a straightforward question. My answer would be go with weight. I'll expand on it slightly but just to qualify that teaching the lift should obviously be done at submaximal weight. I presume though that we're talking about is a general training weight.

The reason I saw weight is because the objective is to move more of it. That defines strength and if you compete in a strength sport it's the ultimate goal.

I think the technique focus can be counterproductive and I'll take two examples from replies.

Dead Ed wrote: »

Depends on whether you can get away with **** technique. I can't, so I have to sacrifice weight (on squats anyway).
I guess if your strongest positions are the "correct" ones you don't have to resort to crappy technique. If your 99.9999999% squat looks very similar to your 85% then you're golden. The question is, can you take someone who moves badly under heavy load and make their maxes look like their 85% in an acceptable timeframe?

If your max looks like your 85% you're not lifting enough. It not your true max it's your "max with perfect technique". Which is probably a weight you could grind a triple out of.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

I would say I put more emphasis on technique. Obviously, I like to chase bigger numbers for myself but I find that when someone tells me my form is off, I tend to pull back on the weight and try to fix whatever's wrong with my technique. Mostly, cos I just presume that if I fix my technique, the weight will progress almost on its own. For example, my best squat so far was a triple @ 150. Then I looked back and was told that my depth was bollocks. So I haven't tried the triple again, have pulled back the weight a bit and worked more on getting proper depth.

What I'd do there is keep lifting the weight but actively try and correct the technique. Where has anyone proven that backing off will improve technique under near max weight?

5/3/1. Do we all forget the lessons? Everyone nails their reps in the 75%-85% range and sets new rep PRs and then pees their pants under anything over 90%. I gave a year at it and hit a 2.5% increase in my squat. I could get that from a good nights sleep!

In my opinion you're either pusing the weights or you're trying to create a thing of beauty. Technique breaks down when you're hitting the reps that you get most benefit from. I know Dan John talks about perfecting technique in everything you do but he also thinks overhead squats are the best lift anyone can do so you can't leave everything even a proper expert like him says unchallenged.

Thud

sorta what I said....but with more words

The obvious caveat on this is if your form is exceptionally s***e and your risk of injury is high.

Mildly crap from with low chance of injury to hit new max : yes
totally crap with high chance of injury : no

Hanley

Thud wrote: »

sorta what I said....but with more words

The obvious caveat on this is if your form is exceptionally s***e and your risk of injury is high.

Mildly crap from with low chance of injury to hit new max : yes
totally crap with high chance of injury : no

Agree.

...but what about in training?

Kev M

Technique in the gym should always be perfect for an athlete no??
Can't see the point in compromising it for anyone other than a strength athlete, who even in training could need to grind out some crappy form to hit prescibed numbers for the day e.g. like you say on max deads for weight or reps. There's also probably an element of learning how to fight a max weight with crap form that the strength guy needs to go through.

Edwardius

Yeah I guess you need to know what point to call time on it (where "mildly crap" goes to "totally crap"). Suppose I'm using the squat as assistance rather than an end in itself so that probably changes things a little seeing as a ****ty one probably won't carry over as well.

ray jay

Hanley wrote: »

Agree.

...but what about in training?

I did a cycle of high volume/low weight work and afterwards found my 5RM had gone up a few kgs, so I decided to check my 1RM. According to the exrx calculator, it should have been 17.5kg over my 5RM, but I could barely squeeze out a single rep at 5RM+7.5kg. Coincidentally, shortly afterwards I read about force generation in muscles coming from muscle fibre recruitment and neural rate coding, with rate coding kicking in around 80-85% of max. It seems that by training well under the 85% level, I wasn't going to do my maximums much good.

As to how this relates to the original 85% vs 100% question, I'd imagine you'd need to find some way of dealing with the rate coding issue if you were sticking with 85% lifts but wanted to hit a good 1RM.

gymfreak

Scuba Ste wrote: »

Aside form injury prevention I think in the long run good technique will serve you better than crap technique and you'll just reach a point where crap technique won't let you go any further.

Kinda think I might be a prime example of this one. I pulled 115kg for the first time last February and the most I've gotten since was a once of 120kg in September.

I'm pretty sure that I'd just hit the point where my technique wouldn't let me progress any further and no matter how hard I trained or tried nothing was happening. I've since stripped back the weights, got Hanley to help me and I'm much happier with my pretty-ish light DL than any of the previous higher numbers!

kevpants

gymfreak wrote: »

Kinda think I might be a prime example of this one. I pulled 115kg for the first time last February and the most I've gotten since was a once of 120kg in September.

I'm pretty sure that I'd just hit the point where my technique wouldn't let me progress any further and no matter how hard I trained or tried nothing was happening. I've since stripped back the weights, got Hanley to help me and I'm much happier with my pretty-ish light DL than any of the previous higher numbers!

You pulled 115kg x 3. That is absolutely savage. Your back was pretty round so it needed work. But it was still savage. Now you're doing sets of 80kg. That's somewhere between 60 and 65% of what you could pull. Sorry for being critical but that's doing f-all for you.

Looking at your vids you upped the weight slightly to 85kg and some of the old form crept back in. Does that not demonstrate my point? You're not really learning anything at those light weights. Being able to lift with great form at <70% and not ever lifting more than that because your form breaks down doesn't mean you have good technique. It means you're avoiding demonstrating your poor technique.

BlueIsland

kevpants wrote: »

You pulled 115kg x 3. That is absolutely savage. Your back was pretty round so it needed work. But it was still savage. Now you're doing sets of 80kg. That's somewhere between 60 and 65% of what you could pull. Sorry for being critical but that's doing f-all for you.

Looking at your vids you upped the weight slightly to 85kg and some of the old form crept back in. Does that not demonstrate my point? You're not really learning anything at those light weights. Being able to lift with great form at <70% and not ever lifting more than that because your form breaks down doesn't mean you have good technique. It means you're avoiding demonstrating your poor technique.

Found myself nodding in agreement at that bold part. Not that I have much of a clue to actually enter the debate fully but from a common sense POV this makes sense!

gymfreak

kevpants wrote: »

You pulled 115kg x 3. That is absolutely savage. Your back was pretty round so it needed work. But it was still savage. Now you're doing sets of 80kg. That's somewhere between 60 and 65% of what you could pull. Sorry for being critical but that's doing f-all for you.

Looking at your vids you upped the weight slightly to 85kg and some of the old form crept back in. Does that not demonstrate my point? You're not really learning anything at those light weights. Being able to lift with great form at <70% and not ever lifting more than that because your form breaks down doesn't mean you have good technique. It means you're avoiding demonstrating your poor technique.

I get what your saying..but I'm still unsure. Reason being, it's not that I'm just tweaking things slightly so that it looks prettier...I actually completely changed how I pull. The entire set up, bar position and my body position is all completely different so it feels like an entirely different lift and therefore the numbers seem irrelevant...if that makes sense???

When we first started playing around with it I actually had terrible trouble getting 60kg off the ground with a flat back. As in it felt like max, max weight for a good few weeks. Now I can break up to 90 off the ground but I actually CANT get much higher. Tried to 1RM test a few weeks ago, and even though I tried to pull it old style..I couldnt really remember old style and as a result couldnt get anything higher than 100kg off the floor.

It's kind of weird cos I'm agreeing with you in then sense that the weights are probably too light and then of absolutely no benefit...but at the same time, I'm disagreeing because if feels like a totally 'new/ separate' lift that I've learnt. It feels completely different and in my mind I'm treating it as a different lift...if that makes sense

I'm interested to hear other peoples thoughts:)

deadlybuzzman

could the arguement not be made that with alot of people that know what they SHOULD be doing, when their technique starts to break down its as much to do with weaknesses that need to be sorted more than the technique itself?

G86

deadlybuzzman wrote: »

could the arguement not be made that with alot of people that know what they SHOULD be doing, when their technique starts to break down its as much to do with weaknesses that need to be sorted more than the technique itself?

I've that issue with my DL. I 'know' what to do and I can adhere to it to a certain point, but I'm pretty sure if I tried to pull my max the way I pull 80kg it simply wouldn't happen. So the question is, do you stick at pulling less than 70% with good form, or continue to lift heavy whilst trying to tackle the tech issues simultaneously? And in that case, how do you know if it is indeed a weakness/imbalance or an ingrained habit... my own conclusion would be surely if it was simply bad tech/habits learned then it would be evident at 50/60% also. The reverting back to the bad tech has to happen for some reason, i.e. weakness/imbalance so it'll keep happening until that is addressed.

Am I talking sh1te or does that make any sense?!

kevpants

gymfreak wrote: »

It's kind of weird cos I'm agreeing with you in then sense that the weights are probably too light and then of absolutely no benefit...but at the same time, I'm disagreeing because if feels like a totally 'new/ separate' lift that I've learnt. It feels completely different and in my mind I'm treating it as a different lift...if that makes sense

I know what you mean. deadlybuzzman has answered with exactly my point:

deadlybuzzman wrote: »

its as much to do with weaknesses that need to be sorted more than the technique itself?

You're not able to go above 90kg because you're too weak to hold your new shape. The reason your pulls looked so bad was because your weaknesses were being exaggerated and at a certain weight you were so rounded you couldn't lock out the weight even though it probably flew up past your knees.

The key thing is not to stop deadlifting just because your back rounds a bit. It will always happen if you push it. You just need to get stronger so that the cut off point where you can't lock it out moves up from 120 to 130 etc. By all means seek to improve technique, what I'm saying is don't get too attached or obsessed with the pretty deadlifts. The ugly ones are the big ones!

kevpants

G86 wrote: »

I've that issue with my DL. I 'know' what to do and I can adhere to it to a certain point, but I'm pretty sure if I tried to pull my max the way I pull 80kg it simply wouldn't happen. So the question is, do you stick at pulling less than 70% with good form, or continue to lift heavy whilst trying to tackle the tech issues simultaneously? And in that case, how do you know if it is indeed a weakness/imbalance or an ingrained habit... my own conclusion would be surely if it was simply bad tech/habits learned then it would be evident at 50/60% also. The reverting back to the bad tech has to happen for some reason, i.e. weakness/imbalance so it'll keep happening until that is addressed.

Am I talking sh1te or does that make any sense?!

At heavy weights your body will revert to its strongest shape. The weak bits will give up the ghost and you will immediately start looking like you used to. This is why faffing about with light weight with perfect form doesn't work. You only lift as much as your weakest point allows you so you never improve.

If you try a max pull and you immediately go back to the old technique its because, like it or not, that's the strongest way to do it. You need to change that, not demonstrate to yourself how it should look with no weight.

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

You pulled 115kg x 3. That is absolutely savage. Your back was pretty round so it needed work. But it was still savage. Now you're doing sets of 80kg. That's somewhere between 60 and 65% of what you could pull. Sorry for being critical but that's doing f-all for you.

Looking at your vids you upped the weight slightly to 85kg and some of the old form crept back in. Does that not demonstrate my point? You're not really learning anything at those light weights. Being able to lift with great form at <70% and not ever lifting more than that because your form breaks down doesn't mean you have good technique. It means you're avoiding demonstrating your poor technique.

Where to start... If 115x3 ever happened, it was facilitated by bouncing the bar from the floor to her knees on the second and third rep providing the momentum required for lockout. It actually indicates nothing. Add 2.5-5kg to the bar and it wouldn't budge off the floor. What does that tell you?

What happens when you pull with a round back, the bar gets above your knees and doesn't move because the glutes have been completely taken out of it. Hip extension can only occur in tandem with back extension. If you don't have the strength or ability to hold that position off the floor you'll get to a point where you can no longer extend your back to allow forbthat hip extension. Which is exactly what happened. The result? You reach a point, and then never get passed it.

Watch her pulls, there's a fundamental lack of hamstring strength there. The pull had morphed into a position that played to her strengths and masked her weaknesses. And then suddenly her strengths weren't and never could be strong enough to allow for progress.

There's lot of guys out there doing US high school power cleans with loads of arm bend and no hip extension, and they're hitting decent numbers. But that only works to a point and then never get passed that. Your solution would seem to be make them learn what is fundamentally a new technique at that current maximal weight by just repeatedly telling them to do it? C'mon how do you think that would work?!

When you're trying to teach someone something that is fundamentally an entirely different lift, you can't just shout at them and hope it clicks. Esp when they don't have the kinesisthetic awareness to get into the necessary positions in the first place.

YOU might be able to do it, and I might too cos we know our body's well enough. But for most beginners/inters - not a hop.

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

If you try a max pull and you immediately go back to the old technique its because, like it or not, that's the strongest way to do it. You need to change that, not demonstrate to yourself how it should look with no weight.

and what is the fix you propose? Other than trying your absolute hardest just to hold good tekkers? Because that doesn't work.

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

At heavy weights your body will revert to its strongest shape. The weak bits will give up the ghost and you will immediately start looking like you used to. This is why faffing about with light weight with perfect form doesn't work. You only lift as much as your weakest point allows you so you never improve.
.

Umm by forcing your weak link to do the most work, is that not the eh "training" thing we always do?!!!

And you're assuming that the weak link is muscular and not technical. If you've never established the correct motor patterns to force your body into its strongest position, all you see with breakdown at heavy weights is reversion to chronic compensation patterns. Not any true sign of muscular weakness.

kevpants

My point is the weight is too low to reinforce the technique. It is totally possible to continually change, experiment and update your technique with proper weight.

In no way am I saying to try and learn it in the 90% range. But its equally as wrong to learn it in the 60% range.

531. I can't stress it enough. Improvements made at less than 80% are illusions.

I like our new fractious relationship by the way . Its exhilerating!

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

My point is the weight is too low to reinforce the technique. It is totally possible to continually change, experiment and update your technique with proper weight.

In no way am I saying to try and learn it in the 90% range. But its equally as wrong to learn it in the 60% range.

531. I can't stress it enough. Improvements made at less than 80% are illusions.

I like our new fractious relationship by the way . Its exhilerating!

No no no - ignore the bad tekkers DL for the purpose of comparison. It has absolutely no bearing on matters. To the point I'd consider it an entirely different lift.

I'm going all Crossfit on this now, but mechanics > consistency > intensity

Learn the correct patterns at a weight that facilitates it, get the reps in, up the weight to the point if breakdown, pull back and go again

You don't break 18 months and thousands of bad reps in 8 weeks. It's simply not possible.

Srsly, propose a viable solution as to how to fix things in this scenario without significantly reducing the weight!

Hanley

As for 5/3/1 - totally different scenario IMO. Lower intensity lifting is fantastic for learning the correct movement patterns to a point, but once that basic ability to hold good, safe and efficient tekkers with max weight is achieved then training in those lower percentages may not be beneficial. But that point hasn't been reached yet

Inspector Coptoor

I'm in a real catch 22 here.

I agree with Kev a lot about the 5/3/1 %ages thing. I know, I've been there & got nothing out of it except a bigger press.

I also agree with him
About pushing the envelope in terms of training percentages & all that.

BUT, I know that if I had continued "back squatting" the way I was when the weight went over ~140kg I was probably gonna face plant & do some damage. My technique was so bad that going into high percentages was becoming potentially injurious.

So from that point of view, I agree with Hanley.

At the moment, I don't know what my max back squat is, I haven't tested it since gpcs in July when I got 140 & failed 152.5. They probably weren't squats anyway!

As a result, I feel I'm in unchartered territory now as I'm actually starting to get my technique sorted & every week I'm adding a little more but the technique & form are still there, I just don't know what the %ages are yet as I haven't tested it in a while.

I'll leave ye to sort it out, then come back & hopefully I'll be able to take an answer!!

kevpants

Hanley wrote: »

kevpants wrote: »

My point is the weight is too low to reinforce the technique. It is totally possible to continually change, experiment and update your technique with proper weight.

In no way am I saying to try and learn it in the 90% range. But its equally as wrong to learn it in the 60% range.

531. I can't stress it enough. Improvements made at less than 80% are illusions.

I like our new fractious relationship by the way . Its exhilerating!

No no no - ignore the bad tekkers DL for the purpose of comparison. It has absolutely no bearing on matters. To the point I'd consider it an entirely different lift.

I'm going all Crossfit on this now, but mechanics > consistency > intensity

Learn the correct patterns at a weight that facilitates it, get the reps in, up the weight to the point if breakdown, pull back and go again

You don't break 18 months and thousands of bad reps in 8 weeks. It's simply not possible.

Srsly, propose a viable solution as to how to fix things in this scenario without significantly reducing the weight!

Now you're talking about how to teach someone to perform a lift. That wasn't the original question. Nor is it gymfreak's issue. You say the old deadlift was an entirely different lift, it kinda is but there's huge carryover . I learned to sumo at heavy weight. That's a lot more different to my convo than gymfreak's 2 convo variations.

My solution if were talking about coaching would be to coach. Reinforce the good technique at challenging weight. A 2min YouTube video could teach someone the right way with an empty bar.

I'd disagree with the backing off once the breakdown in form emerges at a higher weight. I'd see that as an opportunity to practice.