Answering Your Questions

We’re answering more of your questions this week. Specifically, we’re talking about squats and how to warm up for powerlifting. We’re also sharing news and our results from the last survey. (Results at the bottom).

This Week’s Resources

• The Full Guide to Warming Up for Powerlifting

• Iron Bull Strength Pro Knee Sleeves Review: Pros & Cons

• Special Olympics Gold Medalist’s Story Inspires Many (WAPT)

• Pause Squats: How-To, Benefits, & Muscles Worked

• Reverse Band Squat: How-To, Benefits, Why Do It?

• Wake County Senior Ascends in Powerlifting World (WTVD)

Answering Your Questions

Each week, we ask what you’re working on. And each week, you answer. Some of you also mention specific issues. So, we asked our coaches for answers.

Remember, you can always book a consultation with our coaches.

Question 1: Strengthening Squats

For this, we asked Joseph Lucero from Harvesting Strength.

“To strengthen your squat, you need to understand where you lack in your performance first.

If you struggle at the bottom of your squat, you want to try the pause squat. If you struggle to load your hips, you want to try the box squat.

If you struggle with posture, you might want to try the reverse band squat. This is a very interesting variation that many athletes could benefit from, as this lift allows you to overload your squat at the top, but by the bottom your squat gets much lighter due to assistance from the bands.

I would program this as a secondary movement. Perform it for a heavy triple, and try to add more weight each week. 

Before we dive into the next question, let us know what you’re working on. As always the team at Powerlifting Technique loves to hear from you.

If you’re finding our newsletter helpful, please consider sharing it! We’re always looking for more readers.

Question 2: Shoulder impingement issues?

Lucero answered this one, too.

“In order to warm up for powerlifting training and or competition, you want to consider a warm-up that includes mobility, potentiation, and barbell-specific movement.

For example, if you want to warm up for the bench press, do some movements like ‘arm circles’ to help get the shoulder joint to move in a very high range of motion.

Once you begin to warm up with the barbell, treat each rep very explosively so that your body wants to explode into each rep as you anticipate lifting heavier loads.

This idea of explosiveness is what we term as "potentiation" which is the potential for our bodies to be more actively engaged especially with performing movement.

Keep this mentality, especially as you get to higher percentages that mimic your first working set or first attempt in a powerlifting meet. Give yourself about 10-15 minutes to warm up before beginning a session or competition at the least.

In other instances, it is important to challenge the rotator cuff to strengthen that shoulder joint and keep it from having any other imbalances.

Try lateral raise holds with lighter weight, perform cable or band internal and external rotation exercises, and lighten the load for a few weeks just to give the shoulder joint a chance to recover. “

Survey Results

Here are the results from last week’s survey on competitors. We’ve got a good mix, but a majority of respondents have competed and look forward to competing again.