What are Cues?
What are cues?
If you’re familiar with lifting or if you’ve previously been an athlete, you probably know what a cue is.
A cue serves the purpose of directing your attention to an aspect of your lift that you want to focus on, improve, change, or implement to your technique. Not all cues work for everyone, therefore a good cue is personal, simple, and direct. You want the cues you use to help you, not be confusing or distracting. Finding cues that work well can be difficult and implementing a new cue might take some time, so give yourself some grace and allow yourself to be patient. If a cue doesn’t work, adjust and learn from it!
How to Use Cues
If you’re making cues for yourself, it’s a great idea to film your lifts. You’ll want to be able to see what aspects of your technique might need some help. I like to watch videos in regular speed first to find a general piece of my technique to focus on, then watch in slow motion to analyze what could be better. If I’m squatting and notice my core or upper back isn’t stable, I personally like to use the cues “elbows down” or “pull the bar down”, these cues mean something to me, they’re personal to my technique, simple enough to evoke the action I’m looking for, and direct in that I’m not giving myself a paragraph of things to think about. If you have a coach, this process can be a little easier. Having an extra set of eyes on your technique and learning new cues might be helpful. Sometimes the struggle with coaches is that the cues aren’t personal enough, or they’re confusing to the lifter, so ask questions if a cue doesn’t make sense to you. Your coach should be able to tell you what their cue means and what action they’re trying to get from you.
When you find a cue that you like, write it down. Personally, I keep a training journal where I record all of my workouts, weights and RPE’s used, PR’s, how I was feeling, all of it. A training journal is a really great spot to write down the cues you like. Your notes app, email, or even a sticky note in a safe spot are all fine places to keep your cues!
If you have a training partner, let them know what cues you like. Training without a coach can be hard, training partners make it better. You can help each other out by informing one another about what cues work well for each of you.
If you’d like help creating cues, shoot me an email! I’d love to help analyze your lifts and brainstorm some ideas that might work well for you. Remember that the purpose of a cue is to adjust something about your technique, which can take some time and trial and error. Be patient with yourself, and happy lifting!
