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Episode #59: Eye Gaze & Neck Position in Barbell Training & Powerlifting | Why you shouldn’t “look up to go up!”
Neck tweaks and dizziness can sometimes occur with barbell training and powerlifting. So if you’ve ever wondered why you get dizzy when you lift heavy, why you tweaked your neck from the overhead press, where you should look when you squat, etc., you should understand that your eye gaze and neck position is very important when you lift heavy.
The neck is a region of the body that does not actively contribute to the bar moving up in the squat, bench press, overhead press or deadlift. Therefore, we consider the neck joints accessory joints rather than mover joints. While it’s impossible for the neck to stay completely still when you lift it should be your goal to keep it as still as possible and reduce the amount of position change that occurs as the rest of your body moves in space.
Our eyes also play a significant role in our overall lifting experience and execution so we should be very specific with what we are doing with our eyes as well.
The role of eye gaze in barbell training is to:
Provide visual feedback about the environment/where our body is in space
Maintain as much neutrality in our neck as possible to support the function or structures in our neck and inner ear that promote balance and equilibrium
At Progressive Rehab & Strength, we have a few general rules for eye gaze and neck position that applies to all exercises, including non-barbell/non-powerlifts:
The cervical spine or neck and head are extensions of the spine and should remain in line with the rest of the spine throughout the lift
If the cervical spine cannot remain in neutral throughout the lift, it should be positioned at the start and end of the lift such that it is positioned in neutral during the most stressful parts of the lift
The eyes should be positioned perpendicular to the line of the spine when it is at its most neutral position during the lift
In this episode of the PRS Podcast we dive deeply into our eye gaze and neck position recommendations for each barbell lift. For some lifts this is obvious,for others it is not. Check out the full episode to learn how to improve the execution of your lifts while reducing injury to your neck.
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Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:00] I just want to start this by saying how significant eye gaze is for pain, because I address eye gaze with almost every single one of my rehab coaching clients and it makes, even if it's just making a 5% difference, 5% can be a lot for someone who's experiencing pain.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:23] Welcome to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. We're your hosts, physical therapists, strength coaches, and clinical coaches Dr. Alyssa Haveson and Dr. Rori Alter. Join us on our journey of barbell strength training and rehabilitation.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:41] Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, back with the lovely Dr. Alyssa Haveson here at Progressive Rehab & Strength. She is also a clinical coach. I said that backwards. I don't normally say it like that, but you want to know what? I'm backwards today. I guess I'm all over the place. I've been in vacation mode for the last three weeks. It's the end of the summer and I've definitely just been chilling. How's your summer been going? I feel like we haven't talked in a while.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:10] I don't know if it's happening. I feel like there's been so much going on. I don't know. I've been busy.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:18] Oh, you've been busy with what? Well, you had wedding. You traveled across the country. You've been to competitions. You did your own competition. Rescued more cats.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:26] I don't know. I feel like it's going very quickly. And it gets shorter every year.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:35] No, I always say that when we're little, we're like ten, that summer is a large portion of our life. Every year that we add, our summer a smaller portion of our life, and it just gets shorter and shorter every time. But this summer is the first summer that I've actually enjoyed a lot of it. I've been going to the beach a lot, went on a long vacation, going out to the pool a lot. Anyway, I guess it's because I have a kid who needs to do things and be outside. So in any event, we're back at the podcast here recording one of the episodes I forgot about before I went on vacation. We're going to catch up here and talk a little bit more about the neck and barbell training and specifically your eye gaze, the neck position, and eye gaze position that we recommend for each of the lifts. We're not just going to talk about the low bar back. We're going to talk about the low bar, back squat, high bar, back squat, and front squat, because I think that those are common squats that people will do, whether they're using an accessory, they're using them as supplemental exercises, or their main lift. You know, I think we should cover that. We'll talk about the deadlift, the bench press, and the overhead press, and what we feel is the optimal neck position and eye gaze based on how we would execute them.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:02:58] You can go back to our ten minute tip episodes on each of these lifts. I don't think we have one on the front squat, but we have a ten minute tip on how to execute the back squat, the conventional deadlift, the sumo deadlift, the bench press, and the overhead press. In those that's the technique that we're referring to when we're talking about eye gaze and neck position in this podcast episode. One thing that is important to understand is that we do not speak in absolutes. I think that one of the things that people will experience in social media or the internet or when they're listening to people that they learn from is absolute ideas, dogmatic ideas, this is right, this is wrong, this is how you have to do it, fix this, don't do that the right way, the wrong way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. I think a lot of that is because some people truly believe that, but also people respond to extremes. They respond to hooks and catch phrases and they just want to draw you in. They might say these things to be in opposition to people that are their competitor. Alyssa, you said this in one of our last recordings that one of our favorite sayings here is everything is adaptable, but not everything is optimal. Right? We just want things to be as optimal as possible for you. Even if that means that it's not perfect relative to the way that we teach our model, or we just have a model as a reference point and then have to modify things for the individual. Alyssa, you and I talk about this a lot, right? Remember when you're listening to those podcast episodes on how to squat bench deadlift and overhead press, there are models that we base movement off of and are teaching coaching off of, but it's a starting point. It's not the end all be all, so when we talk about eye gaze and neck position and joint neutrality, I think that is kind of when we... Alyssa, why don't you explain just so we can get on the right page here with the person who's listening? The neck is an accessory joint, so basically it does not contribute to the bar moving, right? So, what are our loose rules about that in barbell training?