I decided to cut down on my calories by around 400cals during my study break and it felt terrible especially when I study, I will go on for 4-5 hours straight.
Planning my workout schedule was one of my major concern during the semester because classes can start at 8-9 am to late evening around 6 with little breaks in between. I will save this for another article on how I managed to maintain my strength and my grades ;) ;)
Today was the first day after my exams that I trained my legs and I always incorporate major compound movements like Squat in my workout regime.
The Squat requires great strength throughout all the prime movers and great technique. Great squatters have tremendous strength from head to toe; the quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, core and entire back must be well developed for a successful lift.
Key technical points in the squat are:
1. The closer you can put your hands to each other on the bar, the easier it will be to have a tight setup. Make sure your elbows are inside your hands to maintain tightness. Using a thumbless grip often improves the comfort of a close hand position.
2. Squeeze your elbows towards the middle of your body to enhance upper back tightness in the setup . Once you squeeze them towards your body as hard as possible, force them forwards under the bar. There will be very little movement of the elbow forward if you are doing a good job of squeezing them in.
3. Get some air into your midsection by focusing on breathing into your low back, this will eventually create 360 degrees of pressure. Besides that, get air before you bring the bar out of the rack with your hips.
4. The walkout should normally be achieved in 3 steps max and it also can be achieved in 2. Step back with your off foot, set your dominant foot and then make any re-positions of your off foot necessary to find your stand.
5. Once your feet are set, take more air into your midsection by breathing into your low back before descending, while also flexing your glutes hard to neutral your spine and squeezing the bar hard in your hands.
6. Focus on maintaining 3 even points on contact at your feet throughout the lift. Weight should be evenly distributed through big toe, little toe and heel. There will be some forward movement on the knees in the lift and that is fine.
7. Focus and commit to the descent of the lift. Going down as fast as possible is critical to take advantage of the stretch reflex and avoid expending unnecessary energy on the way down. This doesn't mean you should drop the weight in an uncontrolled manner. You need to descend as quickly as your TECHNIQUE can hold up to.
8. Keeping the knees in line with the toes or slightly outside is valuable to create torque in the hips. "Knees out" though is often not the proper cue to achieve this as it causes the lifter to shift the weight to the outside of their feet and lose the 3 points of contact.
9. The last thing to move during the descend is the lift, so it should be the first thing to move on the way up. Keep your chest up out of the hole by driving your head and shoulder back into the bar. Also drive your elbows forward under the bar as you initiate the drive out of the hole.
10. Focus on accelerating the bar throughout the concentric movement all the way to the top of the lift. The bar doesn't need to actually jump off your back but the intent should be there.
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