The fun part about strength training is that there’s no finish line. No matter how good you get, you can always get better – whatever better means to you. Stronger, faster, more muscular, and in the case of this article, more masterful in your technique.
Powerlifting isn’t like a video game where you beat the final boss and you’re done. And it’s not like other sports where you age out. You might peak in terms of absolute performance, but that’s why there are age division records. The eternal nature of lifting is what makes it so unique and interesting.
As you progress in your lifting career, you’ll find that your technique will evolve out of necessity. At the start, your technique will improve rapidly as you get familiar with the lifts and, hopefully, you get some instruction from a good coach. You’ll get stronger quickly and start to settle into “your” technique until, suddenly, the gains come grinding to a halt.
What got you here will no longer get you there (“there” being new personal records and higher levels of strength). Something has to change. So you start making small changes. Maybe a slightly different bar position on your back when you squat. Or a wider hand position on the bench press. Maybe you change where your hips start on the deadlift. Nothing too drastic, but enough of a change to move the needle again.
And as it should be. It’s generally a bad idea to make massive overhauls in technique unless you’re a total beginner, in which case you’re not really overhauling but rather learning for the first time anyway. Whenever I coach someone for the first time who has previous lifting experience, I tell them, “Chances are you’re probably doing a lot of things really well.” My job is to find the smallest change we can make to that lifter’s technique that’s going to have the biggest impact.
What’s the hardest part about tinkering with technique? Seeing your strength go DOWN for a bit. Many lifters shy away from what would be positive changes in technique because they don’t feel as strong/stronger right away. But here’s the thing: if a change in your technique instantly leads to a massive increase in strength, you’re probably a novice lifter because you were probably doing something pretty far removed from optimal.
Small-but-necessary changes in technique that lead to temporary strength reductions will often have a slingshot effect: pull back for a bit only to see your strength launch to new heights in the near future. One step back to take many steps forward. It’s hard to swallow your pride and reduce the weight on the bar for a bit, but if you trust the process, know that you’ll ultimately raise your future potential via delayed gratification.
A couple real-world examples pulled directly from our group of lifters:
Hilary’s Squat
Hilary has been lifting with me longer than just about anyone in this group. God bless her for sticking with me as long as she has, because she fell victim to my coaching ignorance early on in my career. Goes to show you that being a nice person can hide your shortcomings…
Hilary has been a solid deadlifter since the day I met her. Squats have proven more challenging for the same reason she’s a great at deadlifts: built to pull, not to squat. Early on, I tried to pigeonhole Hilary into a more upright squat: torso tall, knees forward, ass to grass. This was a square peg, round hole situation. Hilary tried her best and got into the low 200s, but would struggle to keep her knees in position and hit depth with heavier weights.
It wasn’t until we gave in to her strengths that her squat really took off. We finally opted for a more hip-dominant squat, allowing for more torso lean and a more vertical shin angle. We even ditched the squat shoes for flats and Hilary found her squat skyrocketing into the 250s. We still kept a healthy dose of “upright” squat variations in the form of front squats and SSB squats, but we slow-dripped the low bar, hip-dominant squats until it felt like home.
Mary’s Bench Press
Mary had always benched with her feet pulled back and heels off the ground. She’d been fairly successful, getting to the 165-170 range – one of the better benchers in our group of women. But as she was approaching her next meet, we found she was having a hard time keeping her butt on the bench. This is rare, since typically hooking your feet back is the solution to keeping one’s rear end down. So out of necessity, we put her feet flat on the ground with a wide stance – so wide that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift her butt up.
The first session saw a pretty dramatic reduction in strength. Sets of 3 at 135 ended up at 10 RPE and beyond, which is a weight Mary can typically smash with ease. But literally within one more training session, she was back within 5 pounds of weights she was handling for the entire previous training block. It just took a little getting used to. Proof that strong is strong, even with subtle changes in technique.
John’s Deadlift
John was having a hell of a time keeping his hips from shooting up whenever he’d deadlift heavy. There was a lot of unwanted movement of his body between the time he initiated the lift and when the plates actually broke off the ground. In his quest to crack the 400 pound mark, he needed to make a change.
We decided to have him start his deadlifts with his hips higher and a reduced countermovement. This helped him find more hamstring and lat tension so he could take the slack out of the bar instead of the bar taking slack out of HIM.
It was not an easy transition. John lost a lot of his speed off the floor and found himself having to grind through weights that used to move quickly. However, with a steady dose of floating deadlifts (to teach lat tension) and RDLs (to strengthen the hamstrings in a lengthened position), John found himself hitting a handful of rep PRs as he vaulted into the high 300s with much-improved technique.
Small Changes, Big Impact
Don’t be afraid of change when it comes to your technique, even if you’ve been successful in the past. If you’ve hit a stubborn plateau in your strength, remember: what got you here won’t get you there. Don’t change everything all at once – small hinges can swing big doors. Subtle changes implemented consistently over time can be just what you need to keep making progress.