Do ONE Thing to Get Stronger and Improve All Your Lifts!
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(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 10/06/23)
Let’s cover a cue that will help you with every single one of your lifts. To be precise, this is actually a type of cue, and more specifically, we’re discussing the concept of the overcue.
The overcue (i.e., an over-correction cue) communicates an exaggeration of what we want to happen in a specific lift, and it can be an extremely effective tool to achieve improved technique in any lift. Let’s take a look at a few examples:
Example 1: Squat
From watching video of yourself lifting, you notice you’re consistently squatting about an inch high. The first approach to solving this problem is to simply tell yourself to “squat one inch deeper” - in other words, tell yourself the truth. However, if that doesn’t do the trick, you may have to lie to yourself a bit, and that’s the idea behind the overcue: it’s a productive lie.
With this in mind, you cue yourself to “squat three inches deeper.” You don’t actually want or need to squat three inches deeper, but telling yourself to squat one inch deeper wasn’t doing the trick, so you exaggerate the concept of what you need to do in order to accomplish your goal.
Example 2: Deadlift
You’re raising your chest prematurely on the deadlift, and as a result, you’re pulling around your knees and making things much more difficult than they should be. You know the deadlift begins with knee extension, so you try a few cues such as “push the floor’ or “straighten the knees” to help with the movement.
However, if this doesn’t work, you move on to an overcue such as “hips go up first” or “hips first.” Of course, this is an exaggeration - you don’t want your hips to lead the way in the deadlift, but this exaggeration of the correct technique might just do the trick for you.
Example 3: Jerk
Got soft elbows when receiving the barbell overhead in the jerk? If you are pressing out your jerks and telling yourself to “lock it out” isn’t working, try cueing yourself to “lock it before you land it.” In other words, tell yourself to completely straighten your elbows before your feet hit the deck. This isn’t what actually happens in a correctly executed jerk, but that doesn’t matter - you are simply exaggerating an aspect of the correct movement to help improve your technique.
Example 4: Squat
You’re breaking at the hips before breaking at the knees; in other words, as you start your squat, you are bending at the hips first instead of correctly bending at the hips and knees simultaneously. First, you tell yourself the truth by using the cue “hips and knees together,” but if that doesn’t do the trick, it’s time to try something else.
In this case, an overcue such as “knees first” can be very useful. You don’t actually want your knees to bend before your hips do, but telling yourself the truth wasn’t working, so you introduce the overcue, and this tends to solve the problem quite nicely.
Use overcues judiciously. Remember that you are lying to yourself just a bit when you use one, so be conservative in your approach. First, cue yourself to do precisely what it is that you want to do - tell yourself the truth - but if that doesn’t work, it may be time to move on to an overcue.
We hope this helps you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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