Week 2018.12.10
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Events: To see upcoming events, please select the "Events" option in our menu or simply click here.
Week 2018.12.03
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The 3rd annual Testify Christmas Classic weightlifting meet is in the books, and it was a great meet! As always, a huge thank you goes out to all of the referees, loaders, officials, and those who helped set up and tear down – we could not have done this meet without you. Thank you so much!
- 2019 Testify Leprechaun Lift-off Weightlifting Meet
- Date: Saturday, 03/02/19
- Location: Concordia High School (click here for map) - practice gym
- Registration: Click here (registration is online only).
- Registration Deadline: Regular registration ends on 02/09/19, so register soon to save some money and get that shirt! In addition, we completely filled up for all of our weightlifting meets in 2018 and had to turn some people alway, so again, please register soon to reserve your spot.
- Other Information: If you’re interested in helping, please let Phil or Barb know – we would love to have the extra help!
- 2019 Omaha Strengthlifting Challenge
- Date: Saturday, 04/13/19
- Location: Concordia High School (click here for map) - practice gym
- Registration: Click here (registration is online only).
- Registration Deadline: Early registration ends on 02/23/19, so register soon to save some money and get that shirt!
- Other Information: If you’re interested in helping, please let Phil or Barb know – we would love to have the extra help!
- 2019 Testify Barbell MAYhem Weightlifting Meet
- Date: Saturday, 05/11/19
- Location: Concordia High School (click here for map) - practice gym
- Registration: Click here (registration is online only).
- Registration Deadline: Regular registration ends on 04/20/19, so register soon to save some money and get that shirt! In addition, we completely filled up for all of our weightlifting meets in 2018 and had to turn some people alway, so again, please register soon to reserve your spot.
- Other Information: If you’re interested in helping, please let Phil or Barb know – we would love to have the extra help!
This Week's Conditioning
Lifters' Corner: Antonio and the Deadlift
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Do you know about the Italian physician and anatomist Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666 - 1723)? Probably not, and that’s O.K., but every time you lift, you perform a maneuver - the Valsalva maneuver - that is named after him. To Valsalva is to hold your breath against a closed glottis, or perhaps more simply, to take a big breath and “bear down.”
You Valsalva instinctively when you are trying to push a stalled or stuck car, you Valsalva when you’re constipated and trying to poop, and fighter pilots Valsalva as part of their Anti-G Straining Maneuvers (AGSMs), which are performed to avoid passing out when subjected to high G-forces in the cockpit.
Now, let’s chat about the Valsalva maneuver and the deadlift.
You’ve been coached on the setup for the deadlift, so you’ve got the 5 steps down pat:
Stance - take a relatively narrow stance with your shins about 1” from the bar.
Grip - take a narrow grip on the bar (DO NOT MOVE THE BAR).
Shins - bend your knees to bring your shins into contact with the bar (DO NOT MOVE THE BAR).
Chest - squeeze your chest up to set your back in rigid extension (DO NOT MOVE THE BAR).
Pull - drag the bar up your legs.
Most people will Valsalva right before (or during the process of) squeezing the chest up. Excellent. They will usually hold that Valsalva all the way up to the top of the lift - the lockout. Excellent again.
And right here - right at the top - this is where we tend to see a hiccup in the process. Some lifters (especially newer lifters) have a tendency to release their Valsalva at the top of the deadlift, i.e., they blow out their breath at the top. If you are one of these lifters - if you tend to release your breath at this point of the deadlift - there is only one thing to do.
Stop. That. Now.
The Valsalva, the holding of your breath against a closed glottis and with tightly contracted abs - provides stability to the lift. Put simply, breath is stability, and stability is a wonderful thing to have when pulling heavy weights off the floor and setting them back down again.
So, if you tend to release your breath at the top of your deadlift, work on fixing it. Specifically, start by focusing on keeping your Valsalva while warming up the deadlift. The weight is lighter at this point, so you can spare some extra mental energy for this endeavor. Breath only when the bar is on the floor - not while loaded.
And be sure to thank Antonio the next time you complete a successful set of deadlifts.
Week 2018.11.26
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- 3rd annual Testify Christmas Classic Weightlifting Meet
- Date: This Saturday, 12/01/18!
- Location: Concordia High School (click here for map) - practice gym
- Registration: Registration is closed, but please come on out and support your fellow lifters!
- Other Information: If you’re interested in helping, please let Phil or Barb know – we would love to have the extra help!
- 3rd annual Testify Christmas Party
- Date: This Saturday, 12/01/18! (after the meet - roughly 6:30 p.m.)
- Location: Testify Strength & Conditioning
- Theme: Ugly Christmas Sweater, of course!
- Other Information: We'll provide plates, cutlery, napkins, and cups, and there is a sign-up sheet you can fill out by clicking here to bring either a main dish, side dish, or a dessert. Beyond that, it's BYOB, and we'll see you there!
This Week's Conditioning
Option 3
5-10 rounds:
10 sledgehammer strikes (5R, 5L)
50 yd farmer carry (25 yd down-back)
Rest 1 minute
Compare to 2018.10.15.
Option 4
For time:
500m row
5 x 80m sled push
500m row
Rest 1 minute after the first row and after each sled push.
Compare to 2018.09.24.
Lifters' Corner: Looking Down in the Squat
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Loren looks at a point on the floor a
few feet in front of him.
When we teach the squat, we teach people to look at a point on the floor about 3-6 feet in front of them. In other words, we look down (and forward, but I digress). But why?
Let's chat . . .
If you lifted in high school, you probably heard some “coach” tell you to look up when squatting. “You gotta look up to go up!” is the loud refrain heard throughout high school weight rooms and powerlifting meets ‘round the world. Rarely is any type of rationale given for this advice, but if pressed for a reason, people might offer something like “ . . . your body follows your head, so to stand up, you should look up.”
This might sound reasonable at first, but let’s think about it. Do you look at the ceiling when you get up out of bed in the morning? What about when you get up out of a chair? I’m going to guess your answer is no. Considering this, we can see that the body doesn’t necessarily follow the head, but it is true that your chest typically does.
Loren looks down . . . to go up.
Therein lies the major problem with lifting the head while squatting - lifting the head typically causes the lifter to lift the chest. When the chest comes up (i.e., the torso becomes more vertical), the knees shift forward. When the knees shift forward, so do the hips (since the hips and knees are connected by the femurs), and in this “knees forward/hips forward” position, we have now asked the knees to do more and the hips to do less, which is rather silly of us since the hips are the larger of the two joints and are surrounded by more muscle mass than the knees. Without diving too deeply into the physics and anatomy of the situation, we use both the hips and the knees when squatting, and since we want to use them in the most efficient manner possible, that means asking the larger joint (i.e., the hips) to do its fair share of the work.
With this in mind, you look down when you squat since it’s an effective way to keep your hips (and knees) right where they are supposed to be, and this allows you drive upward efficiently with your hips.
Lifters' Corner: Enter the TUBOW
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(reposted from our June 2018 newsletter)
What on earth is a TUBOW?
So glad you asked! A TUBOW is a Terribly Useful Block Of Wood. Many of you have seen us use 2-foot lengths of 4 x 4 lumber when people squat from time to time - these are TUBOWs.
Why would one use a TUBOW?
We use TUBOWs in the squat, and there are a couple reasons we might use a TUBOW. The most common use is to fix the knee's forward position on the way down.
becky’s knees are so far forward that parker refuses to watch.
Two common errors that we see when people squat is either (a) the lifter's knees travel forward all the way down, or (b) the knees travel forward at the bottom of the squat.
We would like to see the knee establish its final forward position about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way into the descent of the squat, and touching the TUBOW with the knee at this point provides excellent tactile feedback as to whether or not the lifter is doing that correctly. If the lifter accidentally knocks the TUBOW over, it provides excellent negative feedback that the knee has traveled too far forward.
becky touches her knees lightly to the tubow during the descent.
Another use of the TUBOW is to fix the knee's lateral position in the squat, i.e., is the lifter shoving the knees out (to the side) far enough, or perhaps even too far? The TUBOW gives the lifter something concrete (well, lumber, actually) to aim for, and very often, this will help solve the issue.
One of the great side effects of fixing the knee position is that it will often fix the back angle in the squat as well. If the lifter's knees can only travel "so far" forward on the descent, then the hips will have to travel backward (since your hips and knees are connected by your femurs . . . you know . . . the leg bone). If the hips have to travel backward, the lifter will have to lean over during the descent to avoid falling over backward and stay balanced on the midfoot, and that leaned over position is precisely what we want in the low bar squat. Pretty awesome.
Are you one of those people who is deeply, intensely, spiritually, emotionally, and morally opposed to using the TUBOWs? If so, you're probably the type of person whose squat would benefit most from using them. And if your squat benefits, then you benefit, because you'll get stronger - faster.
Where do I get a TUBOW?
You can go to your nearest lumber supply store and get a 4 x 4 (and they'll often cut it to size for you), but if you'd rather just order a 2 foot section of 4 x 4 online and have it show up at your front door, then just click here.
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