I meant to include this in my “cycle 13 – squat 3” entry, but was pressed for time.

Over the Labor Day weekend I read this article on visualization and it contained this video about setting up for the squat:

I don’t know why I always end up finding, watching, reading things about changing technique just before my heaviest lifts of the cycle… but here I go again. 🙂

I am happy I found this video tho. It helped me a great deal. I found myself paying more attention to my squat during that session, and I do think it paid off.

One of the biggest things that helped? Grab the bar and squeeze it to death with your hands. It was hard to remember to maintain that death grip on the bar the entire set, but I reckon that’s being new to it and that will come. But it did help. Plus you can watch Suzy (Suzie? Sioux-z? Suzanne Hartwig-Gary either way) grab the bar then basically slam her body and shoulders up into the bar. Funny thing… I didn’t set out to do that, but when you grab the bar like that, you can’t help but just slam up in there and set the bar where it needs to be across your shoulders. Interesting.

I focused on 3 steps, which I basically do, but it’s a little tougher at times in my gym due to the type of rack used (not a power rack or simple uprights), to ensure I get back far enough. But do-able.

Then squat. Keep head driven back into the bar. Keep that death grip. Big gulp of air and press like hell into the belt.

And from the visualization article, I read to treat every rep as a single. I kept that in mind and did that very thing. Let the bar settle. Just take the time. In the article the author speaks about treating it like reloading a rifle. Well, in my pistol dry fire practice it’s like the press-out after the reload — treat it like a single, don’t just smear one action into the next.

Somehow this all helped.

And it kinda blows my mind that, if the diet/fat-loss doesn’t get too much in the way, I will be squatting 300# in 2 more cycles… before the end of the year. That seems crazy to me. Exciting.

I want to keep this video in mind tho, and probably rewatch it a bunch of times. It’s one of the more useful videos I’ve watched.