Obsessing over Technique: A Spectrum Approach
TLDR; If you are new to this, you should be very vigilant about technique. If you are not, you don’t and honestly should not worry as much. Find technique that works FOR YOU, you will make progress.
Although I have not been in the game as long as some of my contemporaries, I have seen a few trends in approach to powerlifting technique over my time and wanted to offer a fresher perspective, in case you find yourself in a similar position to one or a many of these dilemmas I will touch upon in this article.
As customary on Team Hogan blogs, I want to preface that this is my opinion and I have a feeling I will come off as very, anti-technique, which is very far from the truth, however, let it be known that I think this is something we as athletes focus on a bit too much, AT TIMES.
Over the years, I have been exposed to what I call, the “Technique Spectrum”, in which I have seen both a hyper-awareness to technique and then the pendulum swung to technique doesn’t matter much at all. In reality, the truth is most likely in the middle, as are most polarizing issues.
When I entered the sport as a competitor back in 2018, I will say the landscape of who was popular and who we were consuming info from was VASTLY different than the sources we tend to use now.
I feel the community as a whole was more scientific, less anecdotal and there was a premium on doing things with the optimal volume/frequency/intensity and then of course, optimal technique.
I remember seeing a new cue every week, “clamp ribcage down”, “root the feet”, “internally rotate”, “externally rotate”, “sit back”, “don’t sit back”, “stack your joints”, I can go on and on here.
Although I think everyone who published or posted about this stuff, did so in good spirit. I will also say, these cues by themselves are phenomenal, but when they are blended all together, all the time, the shift went from getting strong to lifts “looking better”.
Now, I get it, doesn’t lifts looking better lead to more strength?
Well, in short yes. However, the longer answer is not that simple.
When we focus so much on technique, if and when things break down a bit because of:
Fatigue
Over-shooting
Poor recovery
Misgrooving
Differences in training atmosphere and training location
We tend to limit ourselves in what the ultimate goal of this sport is, to lift the most weight possible.
As individuals, we all have different limb lengths, body sizes, and are better suited for certain positions than others. That is fine, however, we see the people on Instagram who do it a certain way and either wish we could do it THAT way (setting up a negative mindset) or force the issue and actually perform in that manner, which could be like fitting a square peg into a round hole.
I tend to see this a lot in the deadlift and the squat.
X person has limb lengths that allow them to be upright in the sumo deadlift, essentially a standing wide stance leg press, we don’t, we force the issue and one of two things happens.
We don’t actually make any progress because our body continues to default to the positions it is actually meant to be in, but we mistake it as poor technique because of the examples we are exposed to, limiting us from pursuing heavier and heavier weights because of supposed form breakdown.
We progress, however, we never enjoy the success but it doesn’t “look” a certain way.
With all that said, maybe not now, but recently, we have encountered the, “technique doesn’t matter”, crowd in which we are made to think optimizing technique is not a valid concern when trying to gain strength.
This school of thought usually promotes dose as the driver for injury and that there is not inherent injury risk in any position, but rather the loads you are exposed to, dictate the outcome.
I am 50/50 on this.
I agree, really fully, that dose is important for injury prevention, however I think it is only a piece of the puzzle.
You see, we are getting into smaller details here, but there is an optimum way to lift a barbell, based on your own leverages.
You can dose a position all you want, but if the goal is getting stronger, at some point you will have to embrace some form of appropriate technique.
For reference, if you have a very narrow hip structure, you can load and volume-dose sumo deadlifts and wide stance squatting all you want, you will most likely not have the strongest deadlift or squat you possibly could because you are either embracing the “wrong” technique, or you don’t care enough to change it.
As I often do, I will highlight my own experience with technique and offer my perspective on logical technical progression within the sport.
When I first started, I was a technique nut. If the lats weren’t engaged, feet not externally rotated to the exact degree, one foot slightly in front of the other, I would chalk it up as a loss and essentially gaslight myself into thinking I was putting myself into an inherently injuries position, even though till that point, I had never actually had a powerlifting injury.
I benched and the bar was slightly diagonal led to: I must have an imbalance in my chest/shoulders, single arm pressing will fix this. It didn’t and when the bar got straighter, I did not get any stronger.
I deadlifted and my upper back had a bit of rounding off the floor led to: I must have a weak back, I need to do more back work to avoid this from happening. I did more back work, my back got bigger, however I am here to tell you I cannot keep a perfectly straight back with over 500lbs on the bar, despite doing it multiple times by now, with no injury to speak of.
I squatted and the bar was a bit crooked led to: my hips or shoulders are misaligned, I need to focus on symmetry so I don’t get hurt and I will probably squat more weight. Again, the bar got straighter, my squat did not improve, I still got quadriceps tendonitis.
I will say, at this very moment, I tend to not think about technique much at all, and my lifts have never been so sound. However, there is a caveat here.
I have been training since I was 13 and I am 25 now. If we want to extend to competing in sport, that has been since the age of 5. So over 20 years of development as an athlete and around 12 years as a weight trainer. I have literally 10s of thousands of reps that reinforce my positions.
I found technique that works for me and do not conform or look to others as a standard. Once I found technique that felt good, felt right, I ran with it and didn’t change because I saw someone who looked kind of like me do it differently. Again, reinforcing the same positions over and over again.
I focus on 1, maybe 2 cues, a session. Early on, I was paralysis by analysis and my movements would be very robotic. Probably because I spent all my time looking at insta lifters and their cues and tried to incorporate every single one into my training. If I feel like my bracing is off, I will focus on just bracing for an entire session. I won’t worry about bar path, about bar speed, about tempo, just bracing. If something else comes up along the way, I will address it AFTER I take care of the lowest hanging fruit as sometimes, taking care of one thing will knock out 2-3 other faults.
I play to my strengths. I know I will never have the quadricep strength to high bar squat 450+, so I don’t try to squat overly upright. I know I will never have the optimal levers to pull with a very vertical shin in the deadlift, so I don’t try to force that.
So, I gave you all this information, but where do you stand? Well, I have a progression I thought of that might resonate with you, or it might not, but at least it is a place to start with how much or how little you should prioritize technique.
Novice: Technique should be at the top of the list of your variables. I heard the notion that the main thing that differentiates novices and beginners from intermediates, is novices tend to miss or falter for many reasons in an individual session whereas intermediates falter for the same reason, over many sessions. If you are all over the place, you should prioritize technique WAY more than loading, you will experience more long term success if you take care of this from the jump.
Beginner/Early Stage Intermediate: Now, this is where I am really just giving you an arbitrary example, because what defines each of these levels, depends on who you ask. That said, if you are making progress, feeling good, but are within the first year or two of training, you most likely don’t need to hyperfocus on technique like a novice should, but you certainly need to focus on nailing certain cues you tend to mess up on. For me, this was always, descend at the fastest speed in which you can control on squat. When things would get heavy, I would default to my weightlifting background and divebomb to the hole and would have very high sticking points. I had to constantly cue the aforementioned and eventually, it stuck, and I don’t have to think about it, really at all, these days.
Late Stage Intermediate/Advanced: For sake of a cutoff, let’s say this is anyone who has been training for 3+ years, is making progress, is not getting hurt, and is of an objectively stronger status. I will make the case, you most likely do not need to worry about technique here and that any further optimization won’t “move the needle”, more than say, programming tweaks will. The problem here is people mis-identify themselves as advanced and think the programming is what is holding them back when it usually is not the case. Now, there are exceptions, but the tweaks made at this point are usually minor. Bring the stance in an inch, move grip out a hair, that sort of deal.
So in closing, I want to solidify my case here with a few examples.
Team Hogan athlete, Andrew Graves. Andrew has very distinct squat technique that works for him. Historically, Andrew was always a high bar squatter with a close stance, despite having longer femurs for his height, which manifests in much more forward knee travel than what you’d see in another person built similarly. When Andrew got to the point where he was not making progress, he moved the bar down his back, that was it. Didn’t switch his stance, his tempo, just the bar position. Now, we move the needle with all the other variables, very rarely do we blame technique (on squat) has a defining culprit.
Team Hogan athlete, Elliot Woznica. Elliot for a very long time, held himself up to unrealistic standard in which he would be highly dissatisfied with PR lifts because they did not look like the people he idolized in the sport. It took a long time, but when he finally embraced how he was meant to move, he set off even MORE progress, particularly on the squat and the deadlift.
1996 200m Olympic Gold Medalist, Michael Johnson. An interesting case here, Johnson was not built like most pure sprinters. He had short arms, short femurs, with a very distinct, short-stride pattern that was offset but extreme frequency of strides. He looked more like a piston than a gazelle, however his results were better than his contemporaries who ran, “by the book”. You can make the case, if Johnson was self-conscious about his running form and conformed to the style of his peers, he would have limited himself in the main goal of the sport, to run the fastest time possible.
Top 75th Anniversary NBA player, Rick Barry. One of the most accurate free throw shooters in league history, shot the ball underhanded. Players like Shaquille O’Neal, stated they’d rather shoot 0% than shoot that way. To me, this is indicative of our resistance to embracing technique that can and will work, because of ego and pride.
These are just a few examples, but the spectrum lies true.
Find technique that works for you, embrace it, and pick out 1 thing at a time to fix and over the span of several years, you will carve out a style that is unique to your own and has the reps to back it up.
To Utopia,
Erik