Don't worry- I was stuck on the same weight for several months thanks to dodgy technique and figured that was just all I could lift.

Amazing the difference a bit of form can make.

My problem now is my traps hurt from the bar- they hurt less if I place the bar higher such as almost on my neck, but then the form suffers.. whereas if I pinch my shoulder blades together, and let the bar lower on the traps, I get soreness. I am putting this down to it being unfamiliar with the higher weight, for now.

Don't worry- I was stuck on the same weight for several months thanks to dodgy technique and figured that was just all I could lift.

Amazing the difference a bit of form can make.

My problem now is my traps hurt from the bar- they hurt less if I place the bar higher such as almost on my neck, but then the form suffers.. whereas if I pinch my shoulder blades together, and let the bar lower on the traps, I get soreness. I am putting this down to it being unfamiliar with the higher weight, for now.

Great to see bros helping each other out. Maybe someone here will give you an oily massage to help with your "traps" issue.

Don't worry- I was stuck on the same weight for several months thanks to dodgy technique and figured that was just all I could lift.

Amazing the difference a bit of form can make.

My problem now is my traps hurt from the bar- they hurt less if I place the bar higher such as almost on my neck, but then the form suffers.. whereas if I pinch my shoulder blades together, and let the bar lower on the traps, I get soreness. I am putting this down to it being unfamiliar with the higher weight, for now.

It might be that the placement is still not correct, hopefully I will be able to help you out with that. When I started doing low bar I was really sore for about two weeks, now I never get sore at all where the bar is - the skin just got thicker over time. You don't have much choice but to power through it.

If you are quite skinny you might find that doing trap specific exercises help you - one arm rows on an iso lateral machine or pendlay rows for example...the larger your traps the further away the bar is from your spine.

Great to see bros helping each other out. Maybe someone here will give you an oily massage to help with your "traps" issue.

Yeah, that's a great advantage of Thailand - you can go get a real massage rather than using the foam roller.

I've noticed that my traps have gotten larger just from doing deadlifts and maybe OHP - I don't do any trap exercises and they are still noticeably larger.

If you want to get serious, look up books/info by Paul Kelso, you'll be glad you did..

Oz

Don't worry- I was stuck on the same weight for several months thanks to dodgy technique and figured that was just all I could lift.

Amazing the difference a bit of form can make.

My problem now is my traps hurt from the bar- they hurt less if I place the bar higher such as almost on my neck, but then the form suffers.. whereas if I pinch my shoulder blades together, and let the bar lower on the traps, I get soreness. I am putting this down to it being unfamiliar with the higher weight, for now.

The bar should be placed across your shoulder muscles below the upper spine, the one where you can feel it going out between back and neck. Definitely don't put the bar on top of that!

The proper way with squat is to retract your shouldes somewhat so you create a 'bridge' across your upper back and then push up against the bar as if you were trying to lift it (just a bit of power, dont actually try to lift it), this creates more stability.

See the pic I found by doing a google search for 'high bar squat posiiton'.

As for the pain, that is part of the game, don't pussy out with the padding

if you find some outdoor gyms with decent equipment I would be interested to know where, ( though a decent set of bars are great if you are getting the calisthenics going)

Benjasirri and benjakitti both have outdoor fitness areas with chin up and dip bars for calisthenics, been going to benjasiri everymornjng it's right next to phrom pong Bts

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Lumpini Park has a better outdoor training facility.

I'm pretty similar to OxfordWill:

OHP: 48.5kg

Bench: 70kg

Squat: 95kg

Deadlift: 92.5kg

I do three sets of 5 reps for these weights (1x5 for deadlift).

I'm constantly injuring my back (pain just to the right of my tailbone), probably because of the deadlifts, so I've taken a 2-week break from squats and deadlifts and focusing on my upper body and calves, also trying to do some stretching of my hamstrings.

Looking to find a coach to work on my squat and deadlift technique - if anyone knows a good one, I'd appreciate the info.

Its amazing to see those numbers and see how weak i am at squatting compared to the other numbers.

I actually bench more then i squat but my dead-lifts are 50 kg higher as my bench.

If you want to learn more about form get the book starting strenght it has pages upon pages about deadlifts squats.

I will be out of the running for hopefully a short while. I had a 25kg disk fall on my toe and break it (belt broke during weighted dips) So i think no deadlifts for a while.. though i hope not too long. Was just getting back to doing them heavy.

Hello to Power-lifters in Thailand... I'm still doing some research, but some friends at True Fitness told me there is a group that is trying to begin a Power-lifting event in Thailand.. I'll post something when I find out more...

https://www.facebook.com/Thailand.powerlifting