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Quoted message said:I just did these yesterday for the first time. Used very light weight
(just the olympic bar) My main question is about back arching during
this exercise. I understand that you are supposed to push you chest
out, shoulders back, head up, have the weight above and behind your
head and then squat down. When I do this I get a noticeable arch in my
back both at the starting position and all the way down. My torso
remains quite upright throughout the movement.
After a few reps of this I start to get a discomfort in my mid back.
It
feels as if someone is pushing their knuckles into my spine.
Am I doing something wrong or is it just that I'm not used to this
exercise. Thanks for any advice.
Welcome to the OHS. After playing around with these a little on and off
for a few months, I recently added them to my program. They are one of
those "you can't hide anything from me" exercises. Just take your time
and slowly work your way into them. If your midback is uncomfortable,
as is mine, I'll hazard a guess that it's a flexibility issue, like
mine. I'm also using light weights but I'm a couple of steps ahead of
you - lately I've made it up to 80-100 lbs, and yesterday was my first
sets of 5 reps ever, with 85 lbs.
I suggest you follow the guideline a lot of Olympic lifters follow -
keep the sets short. I typically work on only singles and doubles. Now
that I'm finally finding a groove for this thing, yesterday's set of 5
was just to help develop some strength and some confidence to up the
weight.
Finally, I'll make one suggestion that I'm sure someone will disagree
with - vary your grip width. I found the best way to work on the
flexibility issue was, with an empty bar, gradually moving my grip in.
I'm not very big, and I was able to get it at first with my index
fingers on the rings, and I've worked up to getting my pinkies on the
rings. So instead of cycling weight, you can stick with the empty bar,
cycle the grip width, and when you come back to start again, you'll
hopefully find you can handle more weight with the wider grip because
you're no longer at the fringes of your flexibility. I got yesterday's
85 lbs. x 5 with my ring fingers on the rings, and that's been where
I've settled in to add weight for now. I've got a training log you can
look at if you follow the link in my sig below. If you look at the last
six weeks or so, you'll find the OHS in 2-4 days a week.
I'm as far from expert as one could be on these, so this is more a "I
feel your pain" response than anything else, but I think if you stick
with them, you'll get them. It sounds like you're basically doing them
correctly to me.
-S-
http://www.kbnj.com
