This last few months I have had to train at a few different gyms (due to work) and also had the pleasure of watching the local college rugby club join us at the powerlifting gym to workout
This has reinforced a few things I have long suspected…
Firstly people simply don’t understand depth intuitively on squats and what they think is level is in fact a quarter squat, and what they think is ATG is in reality level (almost). This means that when someone tells me they squat x y or z I am highly sceptical and unless I actually see them squat I simply don’t believe them, its not that I think they are making the number up its that in my 15 years of lifting I can count on one hand the number of people outside of a powerlifting club who actually have hit parallel or lower in the squat…….And I hold my hand up here as one of the accused…. I thought I was squatting parallel for years before moving to a powerlifting gym….and I lost 130 pounds off my squat overnight when I realised what breaking parallel actually means
Secondly no two people actually bench the same, you have those that bounce the weight so hard off their chest you fear they will break a rib, and you have those that don’t even touch the chest at all but only half bench and those that fall somewhere inbetween, again this makes me highly sceptical when talking numbers on the bench and if you haven’t benched under competition conditions its simply impossible to say with certainly what your bench is.
And finally we come to the deadlift…the only lift you take peoples work on because its hard not to do this lift correctly: you only have to stand up with the bar…there’s no bouncing, no cheating depth you either make the lift or you don’t.
SO when people say they are squatting this or that I say great but what about your deadlift………