Five Tips For the Primary Lifts Series

I’m writing this series to share five basic tips for improving the squat, bench press, deadlift, row, and lunge.  These tips aren’t any super secret Bulgarian voodoo method, but they’re a few simple things that have worked for me to lift bigger, safer weights.  Lifting bigger, safer weights will translate into more muscle mass, strength, increased calorie burning, muscular balance, and overall athleticism.

I am operating under the assumption that you, as the reader, are already familiar with these lifts.  If not, then seek out a qualified source of information or qualified professional to work with you on learning them.  It’s better to learn them right the first time rather than have to try to undo bad habits.

#1:  The Squat

The Squat is regarded as the King of Lifts by most weight trainers.  That may be debatable, but it certainly is one of the most important natural movements that humans perform.  Loading the squat movement strengthens the whole lower body, teaches power transfer through the midsection, and reinforces good posture.  Overall it is a tremendously valuable lift for athletic performance and overall health.

1.  Point your toes out slightly.  Too often I see trainees trying to squat with their feet straight ahead.  Unless you’re a very narrow-stanced squatter this is a recipe for disaster.  As the legs bend to squat the knees are going to twist slightly.  The straighter your feet are the more the knees will twist.  Keep your knees in their natural line of motion by pointing your toes out.

2.  Bull your neck and flex your traps.  Often with a heavy weight athletes will start to round forward on the squat.  One of the primary reasons for this is because their upper back is loose and it allows the bar to bend them over.  Flex your trapzius muscles and bull your neck into the bar to keep your upper back tight.  The bar will feel lighter and more stable.

3.  Push the hips back to squat.  Too many people think of squatting as a vertical lift.  Instead, the primary movers should be the hips.  Try to keep the bar, your knees, and your feet all in a vertical line.  The joint that will move out of that line as you descend into the squat will be the hips.  As you push the hips back, allow the knees to bend until you hit satisfactory depth.  Even if you’re squatting with a deep, narrow Olympic-style of squatting you’ll still want to push the hips back.

4.  Lead with the head and shoulders coming out of the hole.  As many lifters start to ascend from the hole it’s common to see the head and bar stay low while the hips come up.  This is a dangerous position as it forces the lifter into an unplanned and unsafe Good Morning.  One of the keys to overcoming this is really pretty simple.  Lead with the head as you come up.  The first movement out of the bottom should be to push the head and shoulders up and back.  This will get the bar moving and start the squat in a good position.

5.  Force your knees out.  In line with tip number one, it is important to keep the knees out while squatting.  It’s a common tendency for lifters to pull their knees together as they start to come out of the hole.  This will put them in a weaker position.  Instead they should focus on keeping their knees out both on the way down and back up while squatting.  This will allow for a stronger and more stable biomechanical position.

There are five simple tips to get you started on improving your squat.  Perhaps you’re already doing some of them, which is great, but maybe there’s a little tweak that you missed.  Start working on them one at a time and before you know it your squat will be greatly improved.
 

#2:  The Bench Press

As I said in the previous article, the Squat is often thought of as the “King of Lifts”.  However, a trip to most any gym in the United States on a Monday would call to question whether the Bench Press might be in the running.  While a bench press isn’t as important as many gym rats would like you to believe, pressing is still an important movement for humans.  Give these five tips a try and see if you can rattle off a bigger number the next time someone asks you “How much ya bench?”.

1.  Lock your feet in place.  How often do you see someone struggling under a bench press while his or her feet are kicking like a bug on a pin?  Do you really think that this helps you get the bar up?  No, but it’s a good way to get hurt in a hurry.  Lock your feet securely underneath you.  This will increase your stability as well as allowing you to drive through your heels, which will translate into more power on the press.

2.  Tighten your grip on the bar.  When pressing you should seek to crush the bar in your hands.  The tighter you can manage your grip the more activated the muscles in your hands, forearms, and triceps will be.  This will increase your stability and improve your lockout power.

3.  Drive your neck and traps into the bench.  An important key to a big bench press is a secure launch pad.  This can be accomplished through focusing on really driving your neck and upper back into the bench.  This tightness will allow you more control of the bar and increase your pressing power.

4.  Tuck your elbows as you bench.  This is one of the most common mistakes I see.  The old style of “bodybuilding” benching involves pressing with your arms out at about 90 degrees from your body.  Not only does this decrease the amount of power you can put into the press, it puts the shoulders in a lot more danger.  It does put more focus on the pectoral muscles, but contrary to popular belief it’s not the only method out there to build a big chest.  Instead focus on keeping your elbows tucked to about 45 degrees from your body.  This puts you in a biomechanically stronger position as well as being a lot nicer to your shoulders.

5.  Push yourself away from the bar.  This one is a little bit of a mind trick, but it works.  As you begin to press, don’t focus on pushing the bar back up.  Instead imagine that the bar is a solid wall and that you’re pushing yourself away from it, through the bench.  This will keep you tight on the bench as well as help you engage your upper body more efficiently.

There are five simple tips to get you started on improving your bench press.  Perhaps you’re already doing some of them, which is great, but maybe there’s a little tweak that you missed.  Start working on them one at a time and before you know it your bench press will be greatly improved.
 

#3:  The Deadlift

No movement is as useful in everyday life as the Deadlift.  The posterior chain muscles are used constantly for stabilization, movement, and balance.  How do so many say that they hurt their backs?  By picking something up with bad form.  The Deadlift and its variations build that strength and teach proper form for picking up an object from the ground.

1.  Look slightly upwards and pick a spot to stare at.  One of the common Deadlift concerns is back injury and one of the biggest risks for it is deadlifting with a rounded back.  I’ve found that looking downward, which is common, makes the lifter tend to bow their back whereas a slightly upward look throughout the motion reinforces a straight or arched back.

2.  Squeeze the bar from the floor as opposed to jerking it.  With practice very heavy weights can be worked towards with the Deadlift.  Athletes who jerk the bar at the start of the movement tend to get pulled out of position on a heavy lift and don’t have the power to keep the movement going.  Instead focus on squeezing the bar from the floor until you have separation and then speed up the lift.

3.  Push your heels through the floor.  Don’t think of deadlifting as picking up the weight.  Instead focus on trying to push your heels through the floor.  Many lifters who just try to lift the weight don’t utilize the bigger muscles in the legs to full effect.  Working on pushing with the heels enables the legs to use their full power.

4.  As the bar crosses the thighs push the hips through.  When the bar crosses the midpoint of the thighs try to push your hips forward hard.  Pushing the hips forward uses the muscles of the gluteals, which are very strong, and makes the lockout portion of the Deadlift much easier.

5.  Lean backwards at lockout.  Think of your body as a seesaw at the Deadlift lockout.  After pushing the hips through try to pull the shoulders back to counterbalance.  This will also help with the lockout and put you in the safest position to hold the heavy weight that’s in your hands.

There are five simple tips to get you started on improving your Deadlift.  Perhaps you’re already doing some of them, which is great, but maybe there’s a little tweak that you missed.  Start working on them one at a time and before you know it your Deadlift will be greatly improved.
 

#4:  The Row

Rowing can be either vertical or horizontal as in a pull-up or more traditional row.  Regardless, the point is to retract the scapula and pull a weight towards your body.  Much like deadlifting, rowing is an oft-neglected part of an exercise program.  Many gym goers tend to focus on the muscles they see in the mirror like the pecs while ignoring those that are hidden such as the lats and rhomboids.  It’s the pull muscles that have more function in everyday life and in athletics, however.  Try these tips to increase the power of your pulling.

1.  Focus on pulling your shoulders back as the first movement of the row.  To initiate a proper row the first movement should be to retract the scapula and pull the shoulder blades back.  This will help engage the musculature of the back which a lot of lifters have a hard time doing.  Many utilize way too much bicep action and turn the rowing exercises into glorified drag curls.  Pulling with the shoulders first will help engage the strongest muscles and promote the most progress.

2.  Imagine your arms as simply hooks.  Here’s a mental trick to keep the biceps out of it a bit.  Don’t think about just pulling the weight towards your body with your hands.  Instead imagine that your arms are just hooks and you’re pulling with your whole back.  It will take some practice to get the imagery, but after a few attempts you’ll feel what I mean.

3.  Push your elbows backward/down into something.  This follows tip number two.  Think of rowing as a reverse pushing exercise.  Pushing is usually easier for people to grasp proprioceptively.  Imagine that you’re pushing your elbows backwards into someone or something standing behind you.  The weight will go with the hooks (your arms) as you push your elbows backward.

4.  Pull the bar in a slight arc during horizontal pulling.  Often lifters pull the bar way too high when they row horizontally which forces the trapezoids and rear deltoids to handle the load while neglecting the big muscles of the back.  Instead of pulling the bar in a straight line (unless you’re targeting those muscles) look instead to pull it in a slight arc towards your midsection.  The lower pull will engage the latimus dorsi more completely.

5.  Look forward or slightly upward throughout the movement.  In a similar manner to the Deadlift, many lifters will have a tendency to look downward.  This will make their back more apt to round, which can cause injury.  Looking forward or slightly upward is a good way to reinforce a straight or arched spine and keep your back injury-free.

There are five simple tips to get you started on improving your Row.  Perhaps you’re already doing some of them, which is great, but maybe there’s a little tweak that you missed.  Start working on them one at a time and before you know it your row will be greatly improved.
#5:  The Lunge

As important as squatting and deadlifting are to developing a powerful and athletic body, I feel that some unilateral (one side) work is necessary for the complete development of athletes and overall health.  Lunging is basically the extension of the natural human movement of running.  I’ve found the primary benefit of lunging and its variations lie not as much in pure strength or size development of the lower body but in fixing imbalances and developing comfort with unbalanced positions.

Rarely in athletics and in life is the upper body perfectly centered over two evenly placed legs.  Usually there’s some form of imbalance.  The key to success is to be as strong and comfortable in these positions and lunging can promote that.

1.  Step out farther than you think you have to.  I see a lot of people lunging and pushing their knees way out over their toes.  This puts a lot of shear force on the knee for most people and promotes falling forward.  The lunger not stepping out very far with their lead leg often causes this improper technique.  Make sure that you step out far enough so that your knee is behind your toe.

2.  Bring your rear knee within an inch of the ground.  Another common lunging issue is that people don’t lunge deep enough.  Make sure you’re coming close to the ground with your back leg, although be careful about hitting your knee on the ground.  If you’re not close to the floor, it’s not a lunge but a big step!

3.  Spread your feet apart.  Balance is often an issue because people lunge like they’re walking on a tightrope.  Interestingly enough they usually don’t walk that way.  Lunge so that your feet are about shoulder-width apart.  This will help your balance tremendously.

4.  Keep your torso upright.  As people lunge forward they often bend their torso down so that their weight is over the front knee.  Instead focus on keeping an upright torso.  This is a more athletic position and helps stretch the hip flexors.

5.  When doing unweighted lunges don’t forget to use your arms.  Try to mimic a natural running or sprinting motion with your hands while lunging.  As your forward foot extends bring your opposite hand to shoulder level with a 90 degree bend in your arm.  Reverse this when your other foot comes forward on the next step.

There are five simple tips to get you started on improving your lunge.  Perhaps you’re already doing some of them, which is great, but maybe there’s a little tweak that you missed.  Start working on them one at a time and before you know it your lunge will be greatly improved.