I know I am “supposed to” keep my head up, or atleast neutral, on lits like the deadlift and high bar squat. The issue I have had since day one of training is that I can’t do that without pretty significant neck soreness and eventually pain the next days. It took me a while to figure out this was the issue and when I did, changing my neck position helped immensely.
But this means that on the deadlift and the squat I am basically looking on the ground. This is obviously a disadvantage as looking down on these lifts make the lift harder (or at least FEEL harder). But I have been doing it for a year or so now because on the days I forget to police my gaze, I know it the next days (but usually even right after). I check my video recordings and bam, I had my gaze up. One can never rule out placebo effect completely, but I have been training for a good amount of time now and have experimented back and forth enough times to be pretty confident that this causes it. My neck and trap muscle have always been disproportionately strong but also extreme tight my whole life. If I had to guess, this just compounds that issue.
Any advice, or should I just keep doing what I’ve been doing (looking a little lower than neutral) and accept that as an individual quirk?
Thanks!