Squat and press form check
Hi everyone,
I would really appreciate a critique of my squat and press form.
I recently posted a thread on the Mark Rippetoe Q&A forum and got some advice but the thread later disappeared. I wanted to follow up so thought I would try here.
Here is the original video:
https://vimeo.com/39674534
* Squat 145kg. Rip pointed out that my knees are coming in and my depth is high (both of which I could see), but he pointed out that this is caused by my stance being too wide.
* Press 47.5kg. Doing a push press using my knees - funnily I never really noticed I was doing it until seeing the video. Mark also said I'm not using my hips.
Here is a newer video of the next session (with about two weeks off squatting in between due to hurting my back):
https://vimeo.com/40302077
* For the squat I tried narrowing my stance so that my heels are roughly shoulder width. I've only squatted twice with this change and it has enabled me to get better depth (below parallel) and felt ok. However even at around 100kg (not shown) I had to work hard to keep my knees from coming in, and at 120kg (shown in video) I can clearly see my knees still coming in as I come out of the hole.
* For the press I am trying to keep my forearms vertical, keep my knees locked (no push press), lean back before pressing rather than during, and keep my wrists straight (I have a bad habit of having my wrists bend back on press and bench press).
1. Am I on the right track here?
2. For the squat, with my knees collapsing in, should I drop the weight down until it doesn't happen (~100kg), and slowly work up from there?
3. For the squat, I used to have the bar too low down my back and it caused a lot of elbow/arm/shoulder pain. Is it now ok or too high? I know the angles in the video are not the best to see this.
Thanks.