USAWA

Wanted to update this one after the Worlds

Hook grip test with Leoko 29mm powerlifting training bar

Wish to hear comments about my one arm DL technique.

[b]Quote from chadul79 on November 24, 2013, 08:41[/b]
I can’t find any issues with your technique timo. Looks great!

Thanks Chad,

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 27, 2013, 10:33[/b]
[quote]

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

Timo, that was a great video to watch. I’ve been working on my 1-armed dl, too, and hope to go over 400 pounds as well next year. We’ll see…

I think that in order to answer your question, we should first determine what the limiting factor is in you lifting more weight. Is it holding on to the bar and the hook grip or is it the actual amount of weight you attempt to lift. The actual range of motion is less of a concern for various physiological and biomechanical reasons.

If it’s holding on to the bar, then I wouldn’t worry too much about whether your feet are wide or narrow and I’d recommend you do it the way you did in the video. But if holding on to the bar is not the limiting factor, if it’s your strength in lifting the bar off the ground, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at your technique. But that would have to be done by considering your specific body levers. Put another way, it would have to consider the length of your torso, arms, thighs, and legs. But before doing that, I would actually look at your training routine. That’s where most athletes mess up the most and that’s the place where you can get the most benefit from. That, therefore, would be my suggestion for a first step.

-d[/quote]

Thanks Dan,

my hook grip has been getting stronger in no time and feeling it was already harder to lift off the floor than hold the bar.

I just wonder is one arm DL getting stronger when two arm DL is rising? perhaps that’s my limiting factor, at the moment my two arm DL is same 200kg as my one arm DL.

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 29, 2013, 14:47[/b]
Timo, I wish I’ve had your hook grip experience. For me, the pain is the main issue. I don’t think my hook is limited by strength, but by the pain I experience. But I’m getting used to that…I suppose.

There are to things I’d like to caution you agains. First, you mentioned range of motion (ROM) in an earlier post. Many lifters believe that whenever you can reduce the ROM, that means you’ll be able to lift more. That is simply not true because when it comes to lifting, you have to consider biomechanics, anthropometrics (individual body dimensions, proportions, etc.), the muscles involved, the type of exercise, etc. It’s far too simplistic to think that just because you move the bar a lesser distance with a certain technique, that this automatically will translate into more weight lifted.

The second thing I would like to caution you against, is believing that related lifts will show related gains because the lifting is similar. The exercise science law of specificity is very strong and meaningful. It basically means that if you think you can do barbell strict curls and db concentration curls, then stop training the cc’s but they’ll remain strong because you’re continuing to do bb curls, you’re very, very wrong. Similarly, the 1-armed dl and dl are not similar enough for you to think there will be much of a relationship between them in terms of pulling prowess, training gains, etc. The reasons for this is complex and related to mechanical stresses placed upon the neuromuscular system that are just dissimilar enough to make a big difference between even related exercises.

So, after having said that, and after having watched your video again, my recommendation would be that you stick to this technique and that you focus on properly manipulating your training variables over time so that you can maximize your body’s training gains while not exhausting its recuperative abilities.

Oh, and one more point. In USAWA you only have to lift the barbell to a position above the knees for the 1-armed dl. If that’s the same thing in IAWA, then you don’t have to lift the weight to complete lockout, which might be helpful to you. Personally, I don’t care about that and feel as though I’m cheating if I don’t lock it out.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stray off topic a bit. I need to tell you that I’m HIGHLY impressed with your lifting, your technique, and your approach. Overall, my experience has been that Europeans don’t seek shortcuts in their lifting like Americans do. Kirk Karwoski and I competed together at IPF worlds and my first worlds was also his. So the day before our lifting, we hung out and watched the meet. We just looked at each other with utter disbelief about how deep all of the Europeans squatted. It was incredibly impressive. American powerlifters always seemed to have this mind-set of squatting as high as possible while having it still be legal. The Europeans, however, would friggin’ BURY their squats leaving no doubt about the legality of their depth. Man, that left an impression on me and Kirk both that we incorporated into our competitions, too.

Anyway, you very much remind me of that experience and I’m just so impressed by your detail to technique. KEEP IT UP, TIMO!

-d

Thanks Dan,

after reading your post, i just remembered my bench when i was younger and training for it (bench is most popular in Finland). I used to lift my index fingers 27″ apart with my very long arms, maximum width 32″ was much weaker.

Perhaps, wide leg position is not working with one arm DL, also first four inches from the floor seems to be my issue. Even my hook grip experience started at last year in Glasgow, but my general hand strength is higher than average lifters, seeing lower body strength is only issue.

I think i will keep mixing one arm DLs with two armed, because MFDL is still my biggest challenge.