Don't Make These Workout Mistakes! | Technique Tips 002

YouTube, what is going on? Welcome back to Technique Tips. This is the second official video of Technique Tips ever created. If you have not watched the first one, I will link it here in the description of this video below. And remember, this is your opportunity to send me your technique videos so I can go over them for you, give you some feedback, and hopefully help you In your journey, if you want to submit your technique videos, just use the link in the description. I'm going to write if you want to submit your videos, use this link right here. Just give me the video, the amount of weight, the amount of sets, the amount of reps, any other comments, and I will do my absolute best to look over them for you. All right, so let's dive in. All right, first we got Stella going over some rear delt flies, and I don't know if you'll be able to hear it in the video, but Stella. Stella has some Lil Wayne playing in the background. I just, I absolutely love that. It spoke to my heart. Um, okay. So rear delt flies, and she kind of mentioned, she was like, she can never seem to get the form right with this movement. I completely understand where you're coming from. So the rear delt fly can be, um, it can be a tough movement, I think. So there's a few things I like here. Um, number one, I think she said she was doing 8 pounds on this movement, which on this movement, 8 pounds is actually really heavy. So great job. Number 2, I can tell you are trying to lead with your elbows and your hands, which I think is a very good job on your part. The few slight corrections I would make are number 1, I would probably get in a little bit more of a bent over position with this movement because right now you're kind of at this like 30, 45-degree angle. If we can get a little bit more bent over, I think that is going to target our rear delts a little bit more. And then what I want you to think about doing is most people, when they do this rear delt, they try to come, they do exactly what Stella just did right here, which was they come up way too far and they end up raising their chest. Right? So as you can see right here, look from where she started in the bent over position versus how much she came up. She's almost kind of like standing upright almost at this point. Right? We want it to be—we want you to stay in that bent over position, right? So if she's in this position right here, again, slightly more bent over, but stay there. And how you stay there is you don't have to come up as high. If you were to come up, let's say you were more bent over and you were to come up about right here. Don't think about coming back with the weight. Think about pushing. The weight out almost kind of like to the side of you and a little bit in front of you because that way you won't have to end up moving your upper body so much to get the weight up higher because eventually you're going to have to move your upper body to get the weight up to a higher position. You don't have to get the weight up to a higher position. Just simply think about pushing out almost kind of like to the walls beside you. Lead with your pinky and your elbow, and I think if you do that in a slightly more bent over position, you'll be perfect. So many people try to do extra credit with this movement by trying to go way too far up. Just decrease the range of motion a bit. Stay in the bent over position. I mean, you already look like a freaking beast as it is. That's what I'd say, Stella. All right. All right. Next up, we got Haley and her squats, and and Haley is doing I believe 105 pounds on the bar for I believe eight reps, and she mentioned in her in the comments she's. Started with 65 pounds and she's up to 105 pounds, which is just like, let's go, Haley. Massive congrats, man. Um, so many things I actually love about this squat. Number one, the depth. If you remember in our last technique tips video, we talked about at the bottom of a squat, you are trying to hit 90-degree parallel, right? You basically want your hip joint in line with your knee joint, right? Or Hip joint, knee joint. Um, you want these 2 joints in line. Her, the middle of her hip joint is probably about right here. Her knee joint is right there. She is hitting proper, perfect depth and range of motion in your squat. So great job, Haley. Number 2, what I love is you are keeping a strong, uh, a strong braced lat and upper back, because I can tell because your elbows aren't flaring up and out. Notice how her elbows are kind of like pointing down, kind of tucked close to her body. Your elbows don't have to be completely pointing straight down, but you don't want your elbows flared out to the side. You kind of want them pointing either a little bit back or down to the side, depending on what your shoulder mobility is going to allow you to do. But she's doing a tremendous job of that right here. Also, I want you to look at her stomach very quickly. Notice how before she takes her squat and she goes down, she is going to take a big breath into her belly. You see that right here? A big breath from right here into her belly and then brace her core. And then she goes down. Literally perfect. Please make sure you are doing that before your squat. You want to get a big breath into your belly and brace your core down. Again, act like somebody is going to punch you as hard as they can or act like you got to take a big old deuce. Now from here, there's not much I can really correct Haley because you're doing a tremendous job. I think the one thing you may have some room for improvement on is I want to look at the start of the movement. And then when you come out of the bottom of the movement, notice how when you start the movement right here, you're throwing your hips back a little bit, but your upper body isn't going with you. You're kind of doing this like Kim Kardashian thing where like you're kind of throwing your butt back just a tad bit too much and you're kind of sticking her on out there. And then I want you to notice, cause this goes right in conjunction with the bottom of the squat. Notice how when you stand up from the bottom of the squat, you kind of lean your torso forward a bit. What I want you to do is just when you send your hips back, you're doing a great job of that. But when you send your hips back, let your torso lean forward a tad bit more because that will keep your, that will keep your core braced and that will keep your spine in a proper alignment. You won't end up arching your lower back like we kind of are a little bit right now, Because you'll lean forward ever so slightly, you'll be able to keep a neutral spine. And then when you get out of the bottom of this squat, you won't have to course correct and lean forward. You'll already be right here. So as opposed to you getting down here and then having to lean forward, you'll already be at the lean forward. So you'll be able to, uh, not waste energy trying to fix the position. The position will be right where it needs to be and you'll just push up and fucking crush it, man. Honestly. So, That's what I'd say for this. Great job, Haley. Just a very small tweak. All right, next up we got my guy Alex and Alex, why am I getting this? Just like absolute, like Dwayne The Rock Johnson vibe here, man. Alex, we got Alex fucking jacked up over here on these one-arm lat pulldowns. He's in like the dungeon gym. He's just fucking pushing himself. One of the things I love about this lat pulldown right here is especially towards the end of this set. I'm just gonna let you watch for a little bit towards the end of the set. My guy Alex is just pushing himself, man. He is just, he's going close to failure. You can see the rep is slowing down on the way down. That's exactly what this is supposed to look like when you push yourself very close to failure. So Alex, great job on pushing close to failure. And again, bro, you look like an absolute beast. Um, all right. So with the corrections to potentially make during this one-arm lat pull, honestly, man, I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing. You're not twisting your arm at the top, which is perfect. You're keeping that nice neutral position, not overextending at the top, which is exactly what you want to do. So great job. You're having this brace position right here. What I would probably say is you might be able to bring that bench a little bit more upright because then I think I noticed at the beginning of the video here, you almost kind of like trying to find where you're going to put your hand and how to brace and so on and so forth. I think because the bench is a little bit too far down, you aren't getting as good of a brace. Whereas if you put that bench a little bit higher, you'll be able to kind of like Either use your forearm or your hand, whichever, you'll be able to kind of like push into that bench a bit more, create some more bracing and stability, which would only take this movement, uh, even more so in terms of how effective it's going to be for you. So I'd probably move the bench up a tad bit. Number 2, man, there's not much else I can say because again, you're bringing the elbow down to the hip and you're not passing the midline of your body, which is perfect. When we're doing this lat pulldown, trying to bias our lats, We do not want to pull our elbow past the midline of our body, right? So you're doing a tremendous job of this right here. The only real thing I would say here, man, is just continue to make sure you are bringing that shoulder with you as you're doing this lat pulldown. Because I think a lot of people, they think about pulling with their arm. They forget the shoulder complex is supposed to depress and come with that shoulder, come with that arm and that elbow, right? And honestly, again, I think you're doing a really good job of this as it is. But when I look at like white space area to potentially improve upon, just make sure you're continuing to depress that shoulder, shoving that shoulder down into your back pocket to activate and really kind of use that lat. And then on the way up, I want to say too, you're doing a great job of slowly eccentric on the way up. It's not really, that's not a verb, but slowly letting it come back up on the eccentric to get a good stretch on That, uh, on that lat at the top there, man. So few slight small corrections, but to be quite frank with you again, dude, like the movement looks great. You're looking like a goddamn animal, man. So just massive congrats and, uh, keep it rolling. All right. Next up we got Vanessa with the kickstand single, I believe single arm Romanian deadlift. Um, so Vanessa, number one, first and foremost, you look amazing. So great job. Um, looking like an absolute beast. I love it. Now there's a few good things I love about this movement. Number one, notice how she's keeping that dumbbell very close to her body. Very, very, very good job, Vanessa. That's exactly what you're supposed to be doing, keeping that dumbbell very close to your body. Number 2, the one thing you could potentially look to improve upon is I want you to notice something. And I think we talked about this a little bit last week in our technique tips video with Nico, I believe is who we kind of went over the stiff leg deadlift with. He was doing a regular 2-leg, 2-dumbbell stiff leg deadlift. Notice how once you get to about this point right here, like somewhere around this point right here for you, I want you to notice how your hips aren't going to go back any farther. You are just going to get lower by, by rounding your lower back. You see that from about this point right here. Once you go past this point, you're not necessarily working any more of your glutes and hamstrings. You're just at this point working your lower back. So what I would personally do is recommend once you get to about right here, The movement's done. I kind of talked about this with Stella with the rear delt flies, but you know, most people go way too far up with the rear delt flies. Most people go way too far down low with the stiff leg deadlift. And so once you get to about this point right here, man, like call it and then come right back up by moving your hips forward, pulling from your glutes, pulling from your hamstrings, moving your hips forward. And if your hips are here, your chest is here. Your chest is going to rise because you are lifting your hips forward. So stop about right there in that movement. And the only other last thing I would add to this is when you are going down, just be sure to kind of do what I just talked about in Alex's last video. Pull your shoulder down and back into your back pocket. Just make sure we're not rounding the shoulder forward because we think like, because the weight's in front of us, we tend to kind of like do this rounding thing with our shoulder. Just make sure to pull your shoulder down and back into your back pocket there. And this movement will literally be perfect after that, man. So great job. All right. We got Brianna doing a 240-pound deadlift. And I'll be quite frank with you, Brianna's form is pretty much spot on. So there's not much, not much corrections I'm going to make. I just want to let her know, dude, she's almost deadlifting 2 times her body weight. So this is 240. She's going for a 250 deadlift. She did this for 1 rep and she just absolutely Smoked the rep. I want you to quickly just watch her do this rep and watch her reaction here. Smoked it. She said in the comments it was just too easy. It moved way too smooth. Dude, Brianna, this is just amazing. I believe she's going into a powerlifting meet as well. You're going to absolutely crush, dude. I cannot wait for you to crush it. Again, there's not much corrections I'm going to make here. The only real thing I would say is potentially once you get to about this point right here, it's very minor. But once you get to about this point right here, notice how you kind of like lift your head just a tad bit. It's probably because you're trying to transition the movement from that like pushing to that pulling. And you're trying to make sure your chest kind of rises throughout that range of motion. If you wanted to focus on just keeping your chin tucked just a tad bit more, Not looking down, but just keeping the chin tucked just a tad bit more to not arch that cervical part of your spine. You could, but I'll say as well, if that's going to like throw your lift off, I really wouldn't worry too, too, too much about it. Um, so that's the first thing. And the second thing I would say is just, I love the reaction, man. Um, the second thing I would say is just remember, just make sure to keep those lats braced as hard as you possibly can. Remember I talked about shoving your shoulders down in your back pocket. Also remember, think about putting a tennis ball between your armpits and squeezing the air out of that tennis ball. You want to make sure your lats are as braced as humanly possible, especially with you lifting just ungodly amounts of weight. So those are only 2 real things I could say, Brianna. Um, great job, man. All right. And the last one I want to cover deadlift again, because we had one more coming from Sunam. I believe, I believe you pronounce the name Sunam. If not, I apologize. Um, but We got deadlifts here. And so I believe she is doing 125 pounds for 8 reps, which is just number one, a lot of weight. And number two, a lot of reps. So massive congrats on the amount of weight you're lifting for the, for the amount of reps you were doing. Um, that's tremendous. And so listen, her deadlift once again is looking very, very good. You guys are submitting some very good form videos here. Um, deadlifts are looking very good. I don't see a lot of like hip hiking. I don't see a lot of like chest moving up too fast. That bar is staying close to your body, which is exactly what we want to see. You're also, I believe, doing a very good job of trying to brace your lats beforehand as well. Notice how again, she's going to kind of like pull her shoulder. You see that right there? She kind of like pulled her shoulders down and set her lats right there. Think you're doing a tremendous job of doing that. Um, there, there's so many good things with this movement. If I had to kind of like critique something, it might be a few things and they kind of, They kind of go hand in hand. Um, 8 reps for a deadlift is, in my personal opinion, a lot of reps to be doing for a deadlift. I typically don't program the deadlift above 5, maybe 6 reps, only because once you get past that like 5 or 6 rep mark, it's very fatiguing and you're going to start to accumulate a lot of just total body systemic and central nervous system fatigue. Which can then lead to form breakdown over a period of time. And I say that because like, you know, Sunam, your first couple of reps, I really saw no form breakdown. Like I really didn't. Once you got to about that like 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th rep mark, I started to notice some slight things. And those some slight things were you were kind of like locking your knees out and pushing your knees back a bit too early. Notice how in this rep right here, you kind of shot your knees back, Just a tad and shot your hips up just a tad bit too early. I think that's due to fatigue though, because you're lifting close to, you know, your 1RM and you're doing it for a lot of reps. And so that would be potentially one thing I would look at is maybe doing a tad bit less reps on this movement, which would then allow you to honestly bump that weight up. You're lifting a tad bit more, but notice towards the end of this set right here, you kind of like, Almost lost steam a tad bit, almost kind of like shot your hips up a bit too high. Didn't necessarily brace your lats maybe as well as you were doing in the previous number of reps. And again, you're— I can kind of see your knees kind of locked out and you kind of like shifted back a bit too early. Again, I think it's due to fatigue. So that's— and again, over here, these reps look fucking spot on, man. There's not much I can correct, but if there's one thing for you in particular to potentially look at, I think it would be that. All right. And guys, that's it for the technique tips. All right. If you enjoyed this video, please feel free to let me know below. Give the video a thumbs up. If you have any extra comments or questions, feel free to drop them below. I'd be happy to help you with them. And again, if you want to submit your form video, head to the link in the description of this video. I will put it there. You can submit your video and have your chance to be on the big screen, having your form checked by yours truly. Hope it helped you guys, and we'll chat soon.