STRENGTH OR TECHNIQUE: HOW DO WE KNOW?

This post comes by way of my brother-from-another-mother Will Ruth, who commented on one of my earlier posts

I think most of us are past "form," as the pursuit of aesthetic ideals, and get "technique," as the pursuit of performance ideals. However, I get easily stuck on how to know when a problem is technical vs. physical. I find it easy to get spun around on "is this something I'm doing wrong (technique), or do I just need to get something in the system stronger to get past this?"

This clean is awful...but this continental is fantastic!

This becomes something of a chicken and egg thing here, and it’s fun to chase it down.  Ultimately, we once again have to ask “what is our goal?”  And people get frustrated whenever I ask that question because goals SEEM obvious at first, BUT, typically, as we examine them further and further, we learn more about ourselves through the process.

Technique does not exist in a vacuum.  You fans of Plato need to listen up.  There is no one perfect technique.  Bring some Machiavelli into your life and understand that the “right” technique is the technique that GETS YOU TO YOUR GOAL.  In turn, sometimes, the technique that allows you to move the most weight is NOT the most ideal technique, NOR is the safest technique necessarily the most ideal technique.

A personal example.  Last training cycle, I had taken it upon myself to run the Grace WOD with a 155lb keg, doing 1 motions (which is probably more like Isabel, but I digress).  The GOAL/reason I was doing this was to get in some extra volume in my shoulders and back, as it was a hypertrophy block.  There was, of course, a conditioning benefit as well.  My goal was NOT to do the workout as fast as possible, or was it to set time PRs.  I cared about maximal strain/pain and effort.  I needed to push as hard as possible AND at the angles that impacted the desired muscles.  This meant employing INEFFICIENT technique as far as moving the keg went.  I was intentionally muscling it up and setting up each press from a disadvantageous position.

Despite my constant explaining of this, outside observers kept commenting “you’re so close to 2 minutes!”  “I bet you can just taste that sub-2 minute time!”  Etc.  I appreciated the enthusiasm and support, of course, but again: it wasn’t the goal.  I kept explaining that, if a sub 2 minute time was my goal, I’d get it done…until, finally, on the final workout, I decided “f**k it” and went and used the very technique that would have gotten me that time, and ended up crushing my previous time by 17 seconds and getting it done in 1:45, which is faster than even my best time with a straight bar.

And also a strong argument against people who "don't have time for conditioning"

With this, I demonstrate how the “best” technique was not the “right” technique.  There was a technique to the keg that could get me a faster time (setting it up better on the eccentric, setting my grip better to roll it up my body, etc), but employing it would NOT get me my desired training effect of getting more volume into my intended muscles.  This is similar to what I’ve written about many times in the past as well regarding the benefits of touch and go deadlifts, partial ROM lifts, not locking out lifts, etc etc.

All this just to lead us into tackling the actual question: how do we know when it’s a question of technique vs a question of lacking strength?  Well, we have to ask ourselves “Are we doing the movement to develop strength, or are we developing strength to do the movement?”  If it’s the former, then technique isn’t going to be a concern UNLESS what we’re observing is that the movement is NOT strengthening us in the manner that we desire (“I keep benching and my chest isn’t getting ANY stronger!”  well yeah: your grip is too close).  So this relegates us to the instance of the latter: there is a movement that we spend our time strengthening ourselves in order to be able to be better AT this lift.  For powerlifters, these are the big 3, for weightlifters it’s the snatch and clean and jerk, for strongman it’s going to vary from competition to competition, etc.  

And for you USAWA folks...

From here, it can STILL get a bit complicated, as these key lifts can be both tests AND strengthening tools.  Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 is actually a fantastic example of this.  You can go for a PR on the main work sets and then use that same exact movement on the supplemental work to strengthen that lift, and, in turn, the technique used for the PR sets might be different than what is used for the supplemental sets.  But let’s put all THAT away so we can get to the question (which I’ve yet to answer, and have taken almost 800 words just to lay down some background).  From here, we need to have a clear understanding of WHAT the best technique would be to be the most successful at the lift (in this case, defining success as moving the most weight, or getting the most reps, or succeeding in whatever metric success is defined at) in order to determine IF there is a technique issue or not.  There’s various ways to approach that: direct one-on-one coaching, studying lifters with builds similar to our own to see what they do, analyzing our own movement on video, etc etc.  Reference, again, my Keg Grace story: I had awareness of what the technique was that could get me a faster time and was intentionally NOT employing it…but it meant I KNEW what to do IF my goal changed.

IF we do not know or understand WHAT the “right” technique is, we have no way of knowing if we are struggling with a technique issue.  And, with that, I’m going to suggest something that trainees HATE to hear: experiment.  Try a BUNCH of different ways to do a lift and see if one of them best suits your body, set-up, and strengths.  Stuart McRobert wrote about this in “Brawn” and it made so much sense that everyone ignored it for decades.  Where’s the drama?  But simply put, the technique that allows you to succeed according to whatever your metric is for success is the “right” technique for you.

Add it to your library if it isn't already there

Once you have figured out WHAT the right technique is, you have to determine WHY you’re not using it.  If the “right” technique for your deadlift is to deadlift with a neutral lower back and yours keeps rounding, WHY is that happening?  What’s funny about this is, despite me typically beating the “just get stronger” drum, most often trainees decide to chase after that as the solution and TOTALLY fail to solve the problem.  Johnny Roundback decides he’s going to engage in an AGGRESSIVE lower back strengthening block with reverse hypers, hyperextensions, good mornings, atlas stones, kettlebell swings, pull throughs, etc etc…and is still pulling with a rounded back.  Why? Because his set-up is absolute garbage!  The bar is too far out in front of him at the start of the pull, which is preventing him from setting up with any sort of decent leg drive and forcing him to round back the lift off the floor with nearly stick straight legs.  And sure, his lower back is now REALLY strong to lift that weight…but it’s rounded as hell too.  

I had a similar instance with squats when I was a newer lifter: my knees kept collapsing inward.  I had “learned” that this was because of weak hips, so BOY did I spend a lot of time strengthening those hips.  And my knees kept collapsing.  Until one day, I decided that I was just going to STOP letting it happen…and it did.  I had to consciously focus on pushing my knees OUT, because, left to my own devices, they’d collapse in.   Could that be physical weakness?  Possibly, but it was DEFINITELY lack of intention that drove it.  Getting strong is cool, but if you’re not USING the strength, what’s the point?

Granted, your local bar owners might appreciate your show of restraint

BUT, maybe you find yourself in a situation where you KNOW the right technique to use, you know what you WANT to do, but when you try to actually do the thing, it doesn’t happen.  Go back to my squats: what if, DESPITE my best efforts, when I tried to push my knees out during the squat I just simply couldn’t?  THEN we have identified an issue of actual muscular weakness holding us back on the lift.  And from here, we can specialize, do weak point training, bring up what is lagging, and continue on.

Boy, in truth, that is WAY too damn complicated.  I’ll be honest: I’d rather just lift.  But ON that, what’s cool is, on a long enough timeline, these things kinda sort themselves out.  If anyone has really been reading from the beginning of this log, you’ll know that I was a very solid deadlifter and that I squatted pretty much just like how I deadlifted: rounded over and ugly.  As of the past year or so, my squat has suddenly become more upright and technical looking.  Consequently, in that same time, I’ve done a LOT of front squat based conditioning work and included belt squats in my training.  This has meant that my quads have been getting a LOT more training, while my posterior chain has been de-emphasized.  Surprise: we found a weakness and we fixed it.  In turn, I’m suddenly absolutely DEMOLISHING squat numbers.  I finished up the final squat workout of Deep Water Beginner with 70+lbs more than the first time I ran it, and I did it WITHOUT having to lay down on the floor between sets, and keeping LEGIT 2:00 rest times.  But did I mean to do any of this?  

Nope.  It just happened.  I had run out of things to do and decided to do something else.  And these days, my new hotness is Tabata KB front squats every day.  And before that, I had that Keg Grace thing going.  And in the middle of that, I was doing that “20 rep squat straight to 20 rep deadlift” workout.  Over time, so long as we’re not locked into just ONE way to do things (which is dumb), we’ll end up tackling all sorts of lagging areas and weaknesses.  And in the interim, we’ll STILL get strong somehow someway.  If you’re putting in the effort, there’s no way you won’t.