In the 13 years that I have been competing, I have been given some great advice. Therefore, I wanted to nail down the single best nugget of wisdom and put it in a short article for you...but I can’t decide on only one. So, I decided that I would put together a series of short articles detailing some of the best advice I have ever received.
The first one that popped into my mind came from Rick Hussey. Rick is no longer with us, and I only had a few encounters with him, but he seemed to be a really genuine guy. When he gave me the following advice, I was competing against a couple of his guys. I missed my opener and second attempt on the squat badly and was just one attempt away from being no threat at all. However, Rick told me that he had been watching my warm up and noticed a few things that he thought could be affecting me on the platform. I took two things away from that statement. First of all, it was very generous of him to be helping me out when I could possibly take the podium above one, or even two, of his own. Secondly, he was watching his guys' competition, and that made him a great coach to have come meet day. In other words, he would have an idea of what his guys would need to do to beat me.
His Advice:
I was wide with my hands—all the way to the collars. I was also allowing my upper back to get loose and that was causing me to round over. My erectors were weak and the rounding made the weight feel like 1,100+ pounds rather than the 865 pounds that it was. He broke down what I should do, taking it step-by-step, and then followed me to the platform to watch me do it.
Rick wanted me to set up wide with my hands, like I was doing already. He then wanted me to press my traps into the bar hard and get settled in. Once I was there, he had me bring my hands in as tight as I could. The key was to use my upper back to bring them in—not my elbows. It’s simple when you see it: just squeeze your upper back together and bring your hands in only the distance that squeezing your back together allows. When you do it right, your traps will squeeze into the bar. Without weight on the bar, the bar will leave the rack with just the motion your traps are forced to take. With that done, he then explained that I needed to keep my chest out and high—like a gorilla. If I could holds those things on the platform, he thought I would get the squat.
Since I had been crushed twice, I was really nervous. Still, I took the platform and set up. However, when I took the weight out of the rack, I knew there was a huge difference. Everything felt right. I was so excited that I destroyed the weight, but without paying attention to Brian who was calling my depth... and I bombed on depth! Oh well, I moved the weight—the weight that had crushed me twice before. Ever since that moment, I have squatted using Rick’s method and have set several PRs.
If you’re having issues with a loose upper back or rounding over, give Rick’s setup a chance. You might set a PR.