Squat, Deadlift and Bench Press Form Tips for Women

Nikkiey: What's up, WarriorBabes? Hey, everybody. Nikkiey here, and welcome to our Sunday WarriorBabe Revolution rally call. It is 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and I am excited to be here with you tonight and to drop the topic that I'm going to share with you right now. It's different. You know how I am with mindset. I feel like it's key. I feel like it's extremely important, because if you can get your mindset in alignment with the goals that you want to accomplish, your body will follow.

That's why I'm really big on honing in on the mindset aspects. The macros and the training are so important, and they're important tactics, but the mindset is really the bottom of the iceberg that's going to play into your journey. How much do you believe in yourself to do the tactics, like the workouts and the macros, to be able to get to your goals? How much do you believe in yourself in order to do it? That's why I touch on the mindset side of things so much.

But what I wanted to talk about today is a little bit different. It's on the workout side, and it's going to bring a lot of value to you. I'm going to do my best with today's topic because it's definitely more of a visual thing, but I'm going to help you get it down pat. I always give you a little teaser at the beginning of what we're going to talk about, but it's going to be really valuable, it's really going to help you, and I guarantee you're going to notice the difference this week if you employ what I'm going to share with you today.

But before we dive in, I want to give a huge, huge welcome to all of our new babes who've joined us this past week. If this is your first rally call, make sure you tune in on a weekly basis. It's really good to immerse yourself in WarriorBabe everything, so that you can listen to what I'm saying, employ what I'm saying, and drown out anything that you've done before, tried before, or are hearing in the industry. Because when that happens, a lot of conflicting things happen. You get confused and you get overwhelmed. But if you tune in to the tools and the strategies I'm sharing with you, and you immerse yourself in WarriorBabe everything, like the rally calls and the Q&A on Wednesday in the community, then you'll be creating more of a clear path for your journey moving forward.

This program has thousands of women. We've transformed hundreds of women's bodies, and it works. You just have to put in the work. That's what it comes down to. The tools and resources are available to you inside of this program. Like I say with mindset, you just have to get past anything you've done or tried before and trust the journey that you're embarking on for yourself here inside of WarriorBabe. The tools and resources are inside the program; you just have to do it. You have to put in the work. And like I say, trust me now and believe me later. Okay?

So if you're new, welcome. I'm stoked that you're here. You're going to find a lot of value from these rally calls. And if you can't tune in live on Sundays, we always post the recordings inside the application. So again, if you're new, welcome. I'm excited you're a part of this community of thousands of women who are becoming stronger, more confident versions of themselves. And I'm stoked because the community just keeps growing and growing, and it's really cool to see how impactful it is. I'm just one person, plus I've got my team, but you are thousands of people, and it's really cool to see how much of an impact WarriorBabe is starting to create. We've been at this for a solid two years. I'm getting off topic, but I'm just super excited to see the impact it's creating on your lives. So keep up the good work. If you're new and just getting started, that's awesome, because I'm super stoked to see you inside the community.

All right, so on that note, let's dive into tonight's topic. Like I said at the beginning, it's on workouts, and it's going to provide you tons of value. I'm going to do my best to articulate this, create the image inside of your mind, and connect it to how you should be employing it inside the gym. WarriorBabe is online, but we're trying to bring something a little bit new and different into WarriorBabe so that we still have that connection. Even though we're not with you in person, we can create it by helping your brain connect to the points I'm sharing with you here and in the things we're creating going forward.

So tonight's topic is around workouts. We're going to talk about form. This is something I have been implementing with my VIP program every single Wednesday in our educational Q&A. We're getting on and sharing the proper form for specific exercises, which has created such a massive difference for the women inside the VIP program. They're implementing what we share on those weekly Wednesday Q&As into their workouts, and they're blown away by how drastically different some exercises feel just by implementing proper form. So tonight I'm going to do my best to share it with you the way we've shared it with them.

Now, granted, in the VIP we have Zoom calls, and we're able to show each other and they're able to see the form we're doing and critiquing. So I'm going to do my best to paint that image for you here on this call, so you can use the tactics and strategies I go through with you inside the gym this week.

And let me tell you what I've learned over the past couple of months working with them, and the past couple of years working with women: a stall in progress could really be the fact that you're not engaging your muscles properly in your workouts. I see people inside the gym just going through the motions and trying to do each workout as fast as possible. They're not taking the time to be one with the body, be one with the workout, and really engage the muscles properly. And when that happens, even though you think you're sweating, your muscles aren't being properly connected if you're just going through the motions and moving through the exercises super fast.

So that could be a huge reason why progress is stalling. That could be a huge reason why muscles aren't being grown, why body fat isn't decreasing, and why you're not feeling sore after your workout or feeling challenged. What I really want you to take away from this rally call tonight is the tips and strategies on how to implement proper form, because I can probably guarantee that some of you aren't implementing proper form with some specific exercises. And I guarantee that with the techniques I'm going to talk about tonight, you'll notice a drastic difference in the way your muscles feel in these exercises. You'll be twice as sore, and I can guarantee you're going to have zero back pain if you do what I'm going to share with you tonight, okay?

It's extremely common for me to see women doing a lot of exercises incorrectly, which results in injuries, dislocations, and tons of non-muscle-related pain. The form strategies we're going to talk about tonight are for the major lifts, and maybe I'll break it down into different lifts over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to talk about the squat, the deadlift, and the bench press. That could be a dumbbell squat, a dumbbell deadlift, or a dumbbell flat bench chest press, barbell or dumbbell. The main thing is I'm going to talk about the squat, deadlift, and bench press or chest press, okay?

First I'm going to talk about what's wrong with the squat, and then what's right with the squat, and I'm going to do the same for the deadlift and the bench press.

A common thing I see that's seriously wrong when women do the squat is what I call a chest dip. They come down in the squat motion, but they're bending so much at their back that their chest is almost coming down to the ground. It's almost like they're doing a forward bend and then squatting. That's completely wrong. Another thing I see is people's knees going way past their toes. And then on the upward motion of the squat, I see a lot of women caving their knees in. Oof, I see this one a lot, the knees caving in.

So these are the things that are wrong: doing a chest dip in a squat, putting your knees over your toes in a squat, and caving in the knees. With the chest dip and the knees over the toes specifically, your back is getting so much compression in the lower region if you're using these two types of wrong form. And with the knees over the toes, your knees are just getting demolished. This improper form can cause so much injury in the back and the knees.

So now let's talk about what is right for the squat. You want to keep your chest up. You want to keep your chin up. You want to keep a neutral spine throughout the entire motion. The way I like to explain it is that your upper body is directly on top of your lower body. You're in perfect alignment from the upper body to the lower body.

Another thing is proper core activation. Next time you go into the squat, think of a button beneath your belly button, and push that button in so your core is engaged. That's how you properly activate your core. You can do it right now if you're standing up: think of a button beneath your belly button and push it in, and you immediately activate your core.

This is a bit of a side note, but I've said it many times before: the majority of exercises everybody does, whether it's a squat, shoulder press, leg press, leg extensions, side laterals, whatever the exercise is, engage your core. That's why I say I don't train abs, because you're training abs pretty much all the time doing the exercises. Core stabilization is so important in proper form, so you can use that little technique in every single exercise you do to make sure your core is properly engaged.

So make sure your chest is up, your chin is up, you're looking up with a neutral spine, and your neck is in perfect alignment. It's totally neutral. You're not bending it down or bending it up. It's perfectly straight, keeping that spine neutral, and then you're activating your core. As you lower, your upper body is perfectly on top of your lower body, and you're keeping your knees behind your toes. Then as you come up, you're pressing your knees out. Think of your knees coming out, because this is where I see a lot of women caving in. And if you're caving in, the weight is too much. You need to lower the weight so you can do it properly, okay? Knees are out, you're squeezing through your inner thighs, and when you come up to the top, you're creating almost an ugly butt squeeze. Your squat should not be pretty. You should be squeezing your glutes at the top and creating an ugly butt squeeze, okay? There's really nothing pretty about exercise, just saying.

But that is how you properly do a squat. Whether you're taking notes or not, next time: chest up, chin up, button beneath your belly button, hit that button, core activated, lower your body with your upper body perfectly on top of your lower body, and as you come up, your knees are being pushed outward, you're squeezing through your inner thighs, and you're creating an ugly butt squeeze.

All right, that's the squat. Now let's talk about the deadlift. What I see wrong in the deadlift is women just bending from their upper body and lifting with their back. That's another compression area for your lower back, and it's why you could be feeling lower back pain.

So what is right, the proper form for the deadlift, is starting the motion with a dip in your butt. You're bending over, about to lift a barbell, but instead of bending and pulling with your back, dip your butt. Create a dip in your butt, and when you do that, you're not going to pull with your back. You're engaging your legs, so you're going to pull up with your legs, keeping the bar super close to your body.

So think the butt dip for this one. You're going to start your deadlift, you're bent over, and a lot of women just pull with their back. When you're in that bent-over position, tell your brain: dip the butt, dip the butt, dip the butt. When you dip the butt, you're going to pull up with your legs. When you dip the butt, you engage your thighs, your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes, everything, and then you pull with your legs. I can't stress enough that if you employ this proper form, you will have no back pain and no injury if you're doing it the right way. I've heard so many times people say, "I hurt my back doing that," and I can guarantee it's because their form is wrong. So take what I'm sharing with you and put it into action.

Now, lastly, the bench press, or chest press. Bench press, chest press, same thing, and you can use a barbell or dumbbells for all these movements. A common thing I see wrong with women in the gym is that the back is completely flat against the bench. Then when they push the weight up, they're pushing it straight up in front of them and caving in their chest. It's a total cave. The chest is dipping down and the back is completely flat against the bench. That is completely wrong.

The proper form for a chest press or bench press is, when you're lying down on the bench, to create a slight arch in your back. You want your back a little bit up off the bench. That way your chest is up, your chest is forward, and your shoulders are pressed back, which will eliminate any impingement or overuse of your shoulders. Your shoulders are pressed back, your chest is up, you have an arch in your back, and then you're pushing the weight up almost in a pendulum motion. It's not straight up. You're coming a little bit out and up, out and up, out and up.

Think of it like this: in that motion, you're squeezing a pencil in your chest. There's a pencil between your chest, and you want to keep it there and squeeze that pencil. If your chest is caving in, you're not going to be able to do it, and that pencil is going to fall right out. So if your back is flat on the bench, create an arch: shoulders pressed back, chest up, pendulum motion coming forward, squeezing that pencil between your chest.

All right, to recap some of the key things I just said about proper form: remember the button beneath your belly button for core activation, for the squat and really any exercise you do. For the deadlift, when you're getting into the starting position, think butt dip, so you pull and push with your legs, not your back. And for the chest press or bench press, you have an arch in your back, chest up, shoulders back, you're pushing up in the pendulum motion, and you're squeezing that pencil between your chest. Okay?

I'm going to leave you on this note. You will be massively surprised when you first try these techniques, so try them with less weight. It doesn't matter about the weight. What matters is that you get this form down. If you employ this proper form and these techniques with the weight you're using right now, I can guarantee you're going to have to lower your weight. And that's okay. As long as you get the proper form down, that's what matters, because that's proper activation of your muscles. And when you have that, you're one step closer to the results you want to achieve with your body. You're going to activate your muscles, your muscles are going to be sore, and you're going to be recovering in the 24 hours after. Your nutrition is going to feed that, tone is going to happen, and more muscle is going to be built. Okay?

So let anybody in the group who didn't tune in for this rally call know how awesome and how important it was, so they come back and listen, because it will make a drastic difference for everybody who implements what I just shared. Make sure you post inside the Facebook group and let the babes know about this rally call. I appreciate those of you who tuned in. Put these things into action this week, and I guarantee you will notice a drastic difference.

All right, babes. I'll catch you on Wednesday for our Q&A. Keep up the good work, start this week strong, and have a good rest of your night. Bye, everyone. Thank you.