01 / Core realization
Descend—and hope for the best.
One of the surprising, but not really surprising, effects of going lighter on squats for a few months and then slowly inching back up is that my technique has started to improve.
In the past, I was strong, but squats often felt like that: descend and hope. There was a lot of brute strength involved. The lift depended heavily on willpower.
Now something different is starting to appear. My whole body is involved. Everything is beginning to come to the party. A groove is forming—a technique that works for me is beginning to emerge.
I am not gasping for air or feeling absolutely drained with every rep in the same way. The movement is becoming more efficient.
Willpower made me strong.Awareness is making me skilled.
02 / From willpower to awareness
Attention can wander around the body.
Before, my attention was mostly sheer willpower. Now there is space to notice what the lift is actually doing.
- 01Where the weight is in my feet
- 02How pressure shifts during the lift
- 03Where the bar is in three-dimensional space
- 04What ascent angle keeps it over mid-foot
- 05Where energy leaks during a rep
03 / Squat
Finding my own groove.
With the low-bar squat, the exact position and movement pattern cannot simply be handed to me. A coach can give principles: the bar stays balanced over mid-foot, the body remains tight, and the ascent keeps the bar moving vertically.
But the exact feeling must be discovered personally. Anatomy, mobility, proportions, and experience all shape what the correct position feels like. The goal is not to copy someone else’s squat, but to find the version that lets my whole body move as one system.
04 / Bench press
Waste less of the strength you already have.
Even after a strong bench effort, the thought was not only, “Hell yeah, I nailed it.” It was also: I can improve the form more. I still leaked energy.
The numbers still matter, but they are no longer the whole story. The aim is not just to complete the rep. The aim is to waste less of the strength already there.
05 / Practice until you perceive
Technique begins as a checklist.
Practice technique until you stop thinking about technique and start perceiving the movement.
Eventually the conscious thoughts begin to disappear. Mental bandwidth becomes available for something deeper: pressure, balance, bar position, rhythm, and whether the movement feels unified. Technique is no longer just something I perform. It becomes something I perceive.
06 / Shu–Ha–Ri
Follow. Understand. Transcend.
Shu
Technique is external. Follow the rules and learn the shape of the movement.
Ha
Understand why the rules exist. The movement becomes personal.
Ri
Stop thinking about technique. Bar path, pressure, timing, and rhythm are felt.
Working principle
Technique begins as instruction, matures into understanding, and ultimately becomes perception.
The goal is not merely to lift more weight.
It is to move with less wasted effort. To own the movement, not just the weight.