Barbell Medicine Training Camp – 17/2/18

So yesterday I flew over to Melbourne for a training camp with Jordan Feigenbaum and Tom Campitelli from Barbell Medicine. They went through the coaching progression for squat / press / deadlift with us (in that order) and then did a Q & A afterwards (which unfortunately I had to miss, as I had to get back to the airport for dinner and my flight home).

There were about a dozen of us there of varying experience levels. Most of us had been lifting for a while, but it varied a lot – there was a 73 year old lady just starting out (see photo Jordan posted), a guy who was only a couple of months into his novice LP, then there was an 18 year old guy who looked pretty jacked and was pretty easily pumping out 160kg squats like they were warmups, and everything in between – I was one of the weakest there, naturally. But who gives a shit. We got split into 2 groups, I ended up in the group that had Tom coach us on squat and deadlift, and Jordan on the press, and we all worked up to three sets of five at a moderately challenging work weight.

I ended up going much lighter on squats than I planned, as the bar was moving pretty slowly – but then since I’ve only squatted once in the last 4 weeks and I’m still nursing this hamstring, that probably wasn’t a bad thing. The take homes for me were that my upper back is a bit soft and collapsing in the hole (which a few people have already tried to help me with) and I have a tendency to get on my toes coming out of the hole (also true). The cue for me there is to stay really tight and think ‘knees back’ when I start the ascent; I also have to make sure to setup the same way every time and not make adjustments. But even compared to some of the stronger and more experienced guys there, my squat definitely wasn’t the worst going around, which was pleasing considering I’ve never had any in person help.

Pressing was kindof an unknown quantity, as I’ve been pressing mainly 1.0 ever since I started – tried 2.0 a couple of times but never really stuck with it. Jordan coached us on the style he uses now which I think is more like 3.0 – a hip thrust, which drops the bar and gives you a bit of bounce off the chest to start the movement. I was fairly happy with how this went – even though I was only pressing 40kg for sets of five at about RPE9, I seemed to pick the movement up pretty quick compared to some of the others (a couple of guys were really struggling with getting the timing right). I didn’t need a lot of coaching after the first set, so maybe I’m not as much of a motor moron as I thought. The main points for me here were that my grip needed to come in a lot from how I’d been pressing previously, and I need to keep my elbows in tight and forward of the bar. I struggled with a couple of reps that got out in front of me but for a first effort pressing that way I was stoked and I quite like doing it that way. Will probably train that way for the next few press workouts, if it means I might lift more weight it’s worth trying.

Deadlifting was also very light, in fact I bailed on the actual work set as time was running out and my hamstring was getting sore from the last warmup – I didn’t want to risk it further. Going into this day, my deadlift was probably the lift I was most concerned about due to my inability to flatten my t-spine. I bought my Chucks specifically for the deadlift but interestingly Tom got me to change back into my heels for this – I forgot to ask why. Anyway – he said what I’ve suspected for a while, that my upper back is never going to get totally flat. I just have to work on keeping the whole thing rigid during the pull and not letting it flex under load So I guess lots more back work is on the radar (I guess I’ve been doing lots of it anyway) – it will also help my squat. But aside from that, I was managing to get into a good position and looked ok (though I only got to like 55% of my 1RM).

Anyway that was about the end of my day, I grabbed an Uber for the airport just as they were about to start the Q&A. But I left feeling pretty reassured that my form is not terrible, inspired by what some of the other folks were achieving, and glad that I made the trip even though I was maybe a bit apprehensive about it beforehand. Tom and Jordan are both very good, patient coaches, particularly Tom (who had one or two trainees that were struggling to follow directions) and I got a fair bit of good info from it. If you ever have the opportunity to go to something like this I’d highly recommend it.