Powerlifting Technique - Squat, Bench, and Deadlift Seminar Recordings

Improving your technique is the fastest way to get stronger. Training adaptations to build muscle and strength are slow and gradual, but making technique improvements can be done in a day. In addition, good technique allows you to lift as much as you're capable of rather than be stopped short by a glass ceiling created by inefficient movement.

If you want to improve your technique, the first step is to understand what the goal is: without something to aim towards, it'll be hard to move in that direction. If you want to learn the principles of efficient technique and how they apply to different body types, check out the recordings of some of my seminars on squat, bench press, and deadlift technique that I have linked below. In these seminars, I tried to cover all relevant components of technique, starting from a beginner level and building up to the fine details of advanced powerlifting technique.

I recommend watching the seminars from start to finish rather than skipping around, since the topics were ordered intentionally so they would flow and build upon each other in a logical order. However, if you are looking for one thing in particular, sections of the seminar are labeled below each video (and the YouTube descriptions contain clickable timestamp links).

Squat

https://youtu.be/PftSVC1B_g4?si=sEiUZugqS8z91v1N

https://youtu.be/PftSVC1B_g4?si=y6dYDpYcjktTWFMq

Sections

0:00 Intro

1:44 Overarching concepts

2:56 Rack height

4:40 Upper back

12:12 Grip width & styles

17:38 Arm pain

23:37 Bracing & belt position

30:15 Head position

32:42 Walkout

43:18 Hips & knee cave

47:12 Stance width

52:28 Knees

53:01 Foot pressure

55:10 Ankle mobility

57:35 Squat shape

1:01:30 Pre-hinging

1:05:30 Knee wraps

1:16:52 Knee wrap programming

1:19:19 General programming tips

1:22:05 Variations for breakdowns

Bench Press

https://youtu.be/88jJzCzb3I8?si=OGvoXRrDEBJXgAix

https://youtu.be/88jJzCzb3I8?si=QEtV78dUeIf0a8XJ

Sections

0:00 Intro

1:22 Shoulder position

3:50 Arching

6:45 Breathing/bracing

9:28 Belts

11:35 Soft touch vs sinking

17:13 Leg drive

32:34 Setup

33:40 Unracking

37:23 Losing shoulder position

40:12 Tucking/flaring

42:34 Soft elbows

43:46 Elbow depth

45:24 Hands & wrists

46:58 Wrist wraps

51:21 Grip styles

54:48 Ideal grip width

57:43 Bar path

1:00:00 Conclusion

The second half of the bench seminar, covering programming and the Q&A, was split off. It can be found here: https://youtu.be/3GJoYacZyFQ?si=BJsKm_KSnggwUG_H

Deadlift

https://youtu.be/cYVytMXDqKc?si=FZpcg3ox4Nmqt0SP

https://youtu.be/cYVytMXDqKc?si=_0IyeEkzj5kpqyt4

Sections

0:00 Intro

1:10 Overarching concepts

7:10 Bar position

12:05 Foot pressure

16:53 Knees over bar

18:40 Bracing

24:04 Shoulders & lats

27:39 Grip

35:42 Head position

37:23 Getting down to the bar

41:46 Pulling slack & wedging in

44:51 Sumo deadlift

48:08 Grip slipping, hand tears, & pain

51:43 Weak points

53:07 Programming & variations

If you have any questions or want some feedback on one of your lifts, feel free to reach out. And if you found this useful and you’d like to get notified when I publish more articles and resources, you can click here to join the Premier newsletter.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance

A (Former) Skinny Twerp's Guide to Bulking

If you'd rather get this information in video form, click here. If not, keep reading below.

https://youtu.be/Ii0kc0RAqCs

If you're naturally skinny, have a small appetite, and are struggling to gain weight while lifting, then this is the guide for you.

If you ask most gym-goers for advice they'll say "Bro, just eat more, it's that simple!"

Well, maybe it is that simple for them - but I've tried eating as much as I can till I was uncomfortable for weeks on end, and it gets exhausting. It just isn't a very sustainable way to bulk. Instead, you should look for ways you can get your necessary calories in without it feeling miserable. This guide will give you 8 tips to help with that.

When I started lifting I was only 145 lbs at 6 feet tall, but in the last ten years of training and eating, I've managed to gain 65 lbs and get up to 210 lbs bodyweight. Here's a lot of the strategies that I've found along the way that help tremendously.

1) Drink Your Calories

If you're struggling to eat enough, here's a way to get more calories with ZERO extra effort or force feeding - just drink some of your calories.

Rather than having water, try drinking milk, juice, sports drinks, soda, or shakes. The same quantity of fluid you would already be consuming now also comes with a few hundred extra calories per serving.

Some peoples initial reaction is "Won't I be dehydrated if I'm not drinking water?" The answer is no, because these drinks are still ~90% water. Also, I am not saying you should never have water, I am just saying you can replace a few glasses per day with these substitutes and easily add 500 calories/day that way, which singlehandedly is the margin difference between maintenance and gaining a pound per week.

Over the years I've also tried making shakes at home in a blender with things like protein powder, peanut butter, oats, frozen fruit, ice cream, yogurt, etc., but they always come out really thick and not that easy to get down. It is basically just a whole 'nother meal, but without having to chew. I still find it filling and uncomfortable to consume much that way. If that helps you, great, but it didn't really work for me.

Instead, I drink things like Fairlife milk (extra high protein compared to regular), Naked juice (if you can find them, the 64 oz bottles aren't as insanely overpriced as buying a bunch of the individual 15 oz bottles is), and apple juice. I also drink Powerade/Gatorade while training rather than water. The simple carbs can help keep your energy a little higher during long sessions. And again, if you're price conscious, you can buy the Gatorade powder much cheaper and mix it up with water yourself.

The last thing I should probably mention here is alcohol. Yes, alcohol has calories, but it is harmful for your training. It impairs muscle growth, impacts sleep, and worsens recovery. I am not advocating for drinking alcohol as a way to get calories - in fact, I would keep it to a minimum if you really care about your training.

Drinking some of your calories is a gamechanger, and probably the tip with the biggest possible impact, so if you're only going to take one thing away from this article then let it be this one.

2) Leave Snacks Lying Around

Often times the issue is that eating more food in one sitting is uncomfortable, so spacing it out throughout the day is really helpful. Many people already know this - snacking more is one of the most common bulking tips. However, actually remembering to do it is often the hang up. We get busy doing stuff and forget to eat except at big meal times, but this tip can help with that.

The best trick I've heard for this is to pick 1-2 simple, high calorie, shelf-stable snacks that you can leave lying around where you will walk past them multiple times throughout the day. For example, maybe you leave them on the edge of the counter, on your computer desk, or by the front door. Then, every time you walk past, stop and grab a handful to eat. This works well with things like chocolate covered nuts or pretzels, cinnamon swirl bread, and rice krispie treats.

Leaving food lying out where you will see it multiple times is a reminder to snack throughout the day. Or, if you're still in school, maybe the start of each class is your reminder to snack - this is the same principle. You need some sort of reminder through the day, whether it be visual, linking it to a certain activity, or setting alarms to go eat.

3) Add Oil, Butter, and Sauces

Similar to drinking your calories in the first tip, adding oil, butter, or sauce to foods adds no real volume or bulk. It is additional calories with no added difficulty to consume it. If anything, it actually makes things easier to eat, because now your food is moist and takes less effort to chew up and swallow.

I add olive oil to my ground beef and rice, butter to my scrambled eggs and toast, oil on my leftover pizza (for the calories but also because the crust dries out a little), butter or oil on pasta, etc.

Even if each of these is only 50-100 calories, over the course of a week you might do it 10 times, which adds up to 500-1000 total extra calories per week. That's roughly equivalent to one less meal per week that you have to choke down if you're already struggling to eat enough.

4) Add More Dessert to More Meals

The saying "There's always room for dessert" is kind of true. You may have had all the ground beef and rice you can handle in one sitting, but could you still handle some ice cream? Probably.

Obviously I am not saying to replace all of your meals with dessert. However, if you want to add dessert to the end of each meal to help reach your caloric needs, go for it.

A lot of people are used to only having dessert with certain meals. Maybe they think of it as a dinner thing but not lunch. Changing that and adding dessert at the end of every meal can help increase caloric intake. Similarly, some people have notions of how much dessert they should be eating, like thinking two scoops of ice cream is plenty. Well, if you're trying to gain weight and are looking for a way to eat more, how about you increase that and make it three scoops. Many times it is fairly arbitrary, self imposed beliefs like this that are making bulking harder than it needs to be. We don't even realize we're doing it till someone else points it out, because in our mind that is "normal" or an unwritten rule.

A few months of increasing your dessert intake while trying to gain weight isn't going to hurt if you're training hard, still eating the main part of your meals, and don't have preexisting health conditions.

5) Gradually Increase Portion Sizes

People often get in a routine and eat roughly the same amount as they're used to. Maybe you've eaten 3 eggs, 2 slices of toast, and 8 ounces of juice for breakfast every day for the last two years - see if you can't gradually increase the amounts slightly over time without feeling too forced. Maybe you can do 10 ounces of juice instead of 8, then a while later bump up from 2 slices of toast to 3, then a while later try 4 eggs instead of 3.

Much like you would progressively overload your training over time, see if you can gradually increase the quantities of your food too.

6) Eat Fast Food

Why is it that fast food is generally demonized and frowned upon in society? Because it is high calorie, high fat, and easily palatable.

Soooo, you mean it is calorically dense and easy to eat a lot of? That sounds perfect for what we're looking for.

The thing to realize is that the same characteristics that make it "bad" for your average, sedentary, overweight normie is what makes it so helpful for what we need as a lifter struggling to eat enough. It is a case of mismatched needs that makes it harmful for the general public. They do not need to be consuming 4000 calories a day, but you might need to! It is hard to eat that many calories worth of whole foods, so adding some processed and fast foods can really help.

If you're price conscious, my best tip is to download the app for your favorite handful of fast food places. Most of them have ridiculous discounts compared to just ordering off the menu at the store (like 15% off or more over the course of multiple trips, between the deals and reward points). Also, some places are obviously cheaper than others, so if you're getting burgers and fries multiple times per week it is less expensive to do that at McDonalds or Wendy's than at Whataburger or Five Guys.

A personal favorite of mine is buying an extra large pizza, and then eating it over the course of 2-3 days. If you aren't able to finish it in the kind of timeframe, you can always move it from the fridge to the freezer. It reheats decently well from frozen. This is pretty cheap, low effort, and provides a meal for multiple days in a row.

7) More or Fewer Distractions

Do you watch TV, scroll on your phone, or do other things while eating? If not, you could try doing that when you start feeling full to see if being distracted allows you to keep eating a little longer.

If you already do these things, like many of us do, then consider trying eating without these distractions so you can focus on trying to eat quicker. Perhaps your meals are just too drawn out because you are doing other things, so you get full after 20 minutes of eating before you've actually had that much of your food. If the thought of just sitting down and eating alone with no entertainment sounds dreadful, maybe try a podcast or audiobook so you have something to listen to, but it isn't so distracting as to slow down your eating.

There is no one universal right or wrong answer here, but it is a factor to consider and play around with.

8) Look for Weak Points in Your Day

This is the last tip not because it is the least impactful, but because it is the most difficult. Rather than a simple thing you can start incorporating, this is a call for reflection. You should take some time to sit down and think about when throughout the day you aren't eating as much.

Most people who struggle to eat enough feel that way because they stuff themselves at 1-2 meals but are hardly eating at other times. Often this looks like:

1) Skipping breakfast - because they don't wake up early enough to eat before leaving to get somewhere.

2) Having a small lunch - if someone doesn't want to put effort into preparing something the day before or is busy at work and never stops to eat.

3) Not snacking - they never think to eat except at the three big meal times.

If you take the time to find where your weak point is, then obviously there's more room to improve by fixing that then by continuing to add more and more food to the parts of the day when you are already eating a lot.

Conclusion

Weight gain is a marathon, not a race. If you gain a ton of weight really rapidly, chances are a disproportionate amount of it is body fat, because you won't be packing on loads of muscle rapidly. About a pound per week is the fastest weight gain that you should ever really be shooting for, and even that is already fairly aggressive.

You don't need to make a ton of drastic changes to your diet all at once - just pick one thing that seems most useful and start there. Choose the one that would make a big change in total calories and that you can be consistent with long term. Then look to add a few other things gradually over time.

Lastly, if this is something you struggle with, consider seeing a sports dietitian. Notice I recommend a sports dietitian and not just some random nutritionist. That increases your odds that it will be someone who actually knows how to help athletes fuel their training, even when that means consuming a lot of food. That's what you are looking for, not some random crunchy, granola person with a weekend, online nutrition course certification who is going to try pushing their weird, unsupported beliefs on you and won't actually be helpful. Look for someone good that fits your needs, and if the first person you try isn't helpful, then try someone else.

Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance

P.S. - If you found this useful and you’d like to get notified when I publish more articles and resources, you can click here to join the Premier newsletter.

*This article is not intended to be medical advice. It is simply educational and is based on my personal experiences finding ways to eat more. Please talk to your doctor or a dietitian for diet advice specific to you.

Powerlifting Attempt Selection Guide: Foolproof Percentages and Planning Tool

If you'd rather get this information in video form, click here. If not, keep reading below.

https://youtu.be/E6QbwDioyLg

Powerlifting meet day attempt selection is actually pretty clear-cut once you understand it. It can be broken down to a science, following exact percentage ranges. This turns it into a repeatable process based on numbers rather than guesswork or “feel.” If you’re outside these percentage ranges, you’re likely leaving kilos on the platform or putting yourself at risk of bombing out.

In this article, you’ll learn how to plan your opener, second, and third attempts using these percentage ranges so you can consistently have great meet performances. I’ll also walk you through the exact framework I use with my athletes, and if you’d like, you can download a free copy of my attempt planner (Google Sheet) to simplify the entire process.

I was the assistant coach for Team USA at the IPL Powerlifting World Championships in 2023 and 2024, and these are the same percentages we used to plan attempts for our athletes - helping us win best team/country as well as best overall male and female lifters both years. The attempt planner linked at the end of this article is the same one I built for our coaching staff to use to simplify the process of planning and tracking attempts for 24 athletes over 4 days. Its many built-in functions should help make your planning easier too, whether you’re a first-time competitor planning your own meet or a coach managing multiple lifters across a long meet weekend.

Your Third Attempt

The percentages used to plan your attempts are based on a realistic planned third attempt, so we're going to start there.

Your third attempt should be a small margin more than the heaviest lift you hit in training leading up to the meet. This is because generally you don't need to hit an absolute max in the gym prior to meet day (just something fairly heavy, like a single at RPE 9), whereas on meet day it is fine to aim for the biggest number you can hit. Plus, you should be a little stronger on meet day after tapering and dropping some fatigue.

Don’t let magical thinking creep in, though. You will not miraculously be way stronger on meet day. If you artificially inflate your planned third attempt, all you’re doing is making your opener and second harder than they need to be and increasing the chance you'll miss your third.

A realistic expectation is that you may be able to add about 3% more than you hit in training. However, if your last heavy lift in training was a really tough grind or not fully to competition standards, or if you are cutting weight for the meet, then you may want to be a bit more conservative. You may even aim to just match your best lift from training without adding anything extra to it.

Recommended Percentages

Once you have your planned third attempt, we are going to base the other numbers on this as follows...

Opener:

87-91% of your planned third. (This also aligns pretty closely with the age-old powerlifting advice that you should open with a weight that you can hit for a triple.)

Second attempt:

94-96% of your planned third, meaning you jumped up about 5-8% from your opener.

Third attempt:

The planned 100%. This is a jump of about 4-6% from your second.

You’ll notice the jump from the first to second attempt is slightly larger than the jump from the second to third. This is intentional. A conservative opener ensures you’re on the board no matter how the day is going, even if you’re sick, nervous, or slept poorly.

The smaller jump from second to third makes your top attempt more predictable. Strength can fluctuate day to day, so taking roughly 95% on your second attempt gives you a clear picture of what you’re capable of on that day. From there, you can confidently select a third attempt that pushes your limits without overshooting and missing.

Want to make this even easier? Grab the free Attempt Planner (Google Sheet) I use with my athletes — as you enter the numbers you are thinking of for your opener, second, and third attempt, it calculates the rate of increase percentages automatically so you can focus on lifting, not math.

Exception: Lower Max Lifters

Generally the only time I would deviate from these percentage ranges is if you have a lower one rep max, such as ~50 kg or less. For example, if someone went 45/50/52.5 kg (100/110/115 lbs) for their three attempts, that is 14.3% difference from 1st-3rd attempt, 9.5% from 1st-2nd, and 4.7% from 2nd-3rd. While this is slightly above the recommended ranges, this is still a reasonable attempt plan. You are only jumping 5 then 2.5 kg, which is totally fine. The percentages are just more heavily skewed by the jumps (which have to be in increments of 2.5 kg) the lower the one rep max is. Anything over a max of about 75-100 kg shouldn't have to worry about this and should be within the recommended ranges.

Outside of this one exception, the percentages and jumps are a fairly hard rule, not just a loose suggestion. You should follow them if you're looking to optimize performance. That is because if you go far outside these ranges, your jumps are either too large or too small, each of which has downsides that I'll explain below.

Too Small Jumps

The problem with making too small jumps between attempts is that you are wasting energy. Think about it like this - if you were trying to hit a one rep max in the gym, how would you go about it? Would you take two really heavy lifts right before it or not? No, you would take decent size jumps from your last warmup to the top set of the day. The same should be true on meet day from your first to second, and second to third. This saves energy and lets you hit the biggest third attempt you can.

Your opener should basically be like your last warmup, but done on the platform. Then the second attempt is moderately hard, and the third is challenging.

Where most people go wrong is they want to take all of their attempts hard and heavy, but that isn't realistic. If you open heavier than needed, you are fatiguing yourself and limiting what you could do on your third. Think about it like this, we want to start cool and finish hot, otherwise all three will just end up lukewarm.

Too Large Jumps

There are two main problems with making jumps that are too big.

First, you will probably not be as prepared for the next weight. It’s no different than skipping a warmup set in the gym - it would be a bit of a shock to your body. It would feel extra heavy and less well grooved. The same thing can happen on the platform when you make massive jumps between attempts. Each lift should serve as a stepping stone, setting you up for the third attempt.

Second, large jumps magnify the consequences of a missed lift. While failed attempts should be rare if you’re planning correctly, they do happen. When they do, bigger jumps mean a larger hit to your total. Reasonable jumps strike a balance between conserving energy and limiting the downside if something goes wrong, which is why we don’t default to always making tiny, conservative 2.5 kg increases.

What About Warmups?

Generally I like people's last warmup to be below their opener weight by the same size jump we're expecting to make from the 1st to 2nd attempt. For example, if we are planning on going 250/265/277.5 kg, that is a 15 kg jump 1st-2nd. I would match that size jump to the opener and take about 235 kg as their last warmup. Sometimes I may drop it down by 2.5 to 5 kg less to save a little more energy, particularly if we're over 200 kg. But, just like we talked about with the attempts, we don't want that jump getting either too big or too small from the last warmup to the opener or it causes the same issues.

All of the warmups prior to the last one are a little less important in terms of the exact weight, since they won't be as heavy and shouldn't be too fatiguing. I would just aim for 4-6 warmups in total (since on meet day you are sharing equipment to warm up with and may not have a lot of time). Disperse these warmups in reasonable sized jumps, building up to the last warmup weight.

You should take your last warmup about 10 minutes or 10 lifters before your first attempt. This gives you a good bit of rest afterwards, before you are up for your opener, but not so much that you start to get cold. If you're the first lifter in the first flight, then this would be 10 minutes before start time or before the break between squat/bench and bench/deadlift ends. If you aren't, then you factor in a minute per lifter before you, both within your flight and the flight before yours. For example, if you are the 8th lifter in flight C, you should aim to take your last warmup when there's two lifters left in flight B.

Flexibility of Plan

There's one last thing to plan. Like we said earlier, strength can fluctuate day to day, so we want to be ready for this. If you're having a great meet, we can push a little extra. If you're having a bad meet, we want to be able to pull back. This is easier when you have a pre-planned high and low range. To do that, take your planned first, second, and third attempt and add 2% for the high side, and subtract 2% for the low side. (Or you can use the Attempt Planner tool below and it will automatically generate the high and low ranges for you as you enter your planned attempts.)

Then, on meet day, be willing to call either the low, planned, or high numbers based on how the previous attempt felt and looked.

Attempt Planner Tool

If you want to apply everything in this article without doing all the math by hand, you can download the same attempt planner I use with my athletes. As you enter your planned attempts, it automatically calculates the rate of increase, and the color coding lets you know if it is reasonable. If it is green, you're good to go. If it is orange or red, you are outside the recommended ranges and may want to tweak the numbers.

The sheet also generates the high and low values based on your planned attempts. Plus you can use it during the meet to track what weights you've hit, so that it calculates your current total and DOTS score. This helps keep decision-making simple when time is short and stress is high.

Whether you’re a first-time competitor planning your own attempts or a coach managing multiple lifters across a long meet weekend, this tool gives you a clear, repeatable system for meet day success.

Download the free Attempt Planner here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PY67ejT3PZg0ObvoXQljNNhumFnrO9EFf__4GisdvF4/edit?usp=sharing

Hope this helps!

Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance

P.S. - If you found this useful and you’d like to get notified when I publish more articles and resources, you can click here to join the Premier newsletter.