Please teach an idiot how to squat...

[TheJoshua]

Hi Ripp,

I have your book and for the last 3 months I have been following your starting strength routine. I have noticed many improvements, however there is one huge problem. I still can't squat.

No matter how many times I read the squatting section, watch videos on squatting, or get advice from other people at the gym, I still can not squat properly. You can imagine how frustrating it is to see people going to the gym for the first time being able to squat with a close stance, whereas I after this long of a time struggle to do even a very wide stance to near-parallel. I have never done sports in my life and due to health reasons never stepped foot into a gym through middle and high school.

Hip mobility and flexibility: I am able to hold onto a pole in front of me and go ATG in one motion, but I have absolutely no balance doing that. I stretch every day with a few yoga moves to try to gain more flexibility, but it hasn't helped me. It took me 2 weeks to be able to go from standing up to ATG from the start.

I believe one of the major problems is ankle flexibility as I'm not able to bring my knees much further than my toes, but I don't know if there are any other problems going on.

Here is my latest video:



Later in the video I have another angle.

Mr. Rippetoe, can you please give me advice on how I can better squat and be able to perform the exercises in a better fashion? I never give up on things that I love, but I can't deny that it is getting very frustrating/depressing not being able to do this. Squatting effects powercleans, deadlifts, and many other exercises so I feel like I must perfect this before I can make significant advancements.

Thank you so much,
Joshua

[Mark Rippetoe]

You are a prime candidate for purchase of the DVD: http://aasgaardco.com/store/store.ph...on=show_detail

[mrflibble]

Later in the video I have another angle.

I notice you omitted "vertical."

You are a prime candidate for purchase of the DVD: http://aasgaardco.com/store/store.ph...on=show_detail

Have you got a sideways version you can send him?

Seriously TheJoshua, it takes a few seconds to rotate your video in youtube. How about showing a little respect? Or even just common sense? If you're going to ask someone to help you, doesn't it make sense to make it easy for them to do so?

[mlentzner]

You haven't been paying close enough attention because you're squatting hi-bar. And buy some lifting shoes for Pete's sake if you love it so much.

[Carlos Daniel]

Those people are squatting on the wall and yet they wonder why their squats are not good.

[weizhen77]

First thing first, from your video, I guess that when you first started squatting, you didn't squat without a bar to get a basic feel of what a squat is like. Second point I noticed is your eyeball's/neck's position is not as described in the book, are you sure you read the book for more than once, and missed out the diagram showing the guy holding a tennis ball between the chin and collar bone?

[sunetdanne]

You are a prime candidate for purchase of the DVD: http://aasgaardco.com/store/store.ph...on=show_detail

I would suggest that you head to the closest pl/ol gym and have a coach check your form.

Thanks Mr. Rippetoe for pointing that out in my thread for a couple of months ago.

My coach had a look at my body type and my crappy low bar squats and advised me to move the bar up higher on my traps. I asked: "Do you mean like a high bar squat?"

He told me, no, there are two ways to squat, wrong way or right way. Each person has to use his "angles and lines" and adjust the bar position after that. Now for the first time ever I feel that I am using my hips/ass when I squat. And I am not using a "by the book low bar squat".

He also had a look at my deadlift: Max was 1x5*120kg. Suggested that I should move to sumo deadlift(again we are talking about using your angles) first time ever I tried the sumo I pulled off 1x5*120kg and it felt like a piece of cake.

PS: My coach is 70 years old and does 7x10*90kg in bench with his feets of the floor. "Nothing wrong with rusty iron"

Best regards
Daniel

[Mark Rippetoe]

My coach had a look at my body type and my crappy low bar squats and advised me to move the bar up higher on my traps. I asked: "Do you mean like a high bar squat?"

He told me, no, there are two ways to squat, wrong way or right way. Each person has to use his "angles and lines" and adjust the bar position after that. Now for the first time ever I feel that I am using my hips/ass when I squat. And I am not using a "by the book low bar squat".

He also had a look at my deadlift: Max was 1x5*120kg. Suggested that I should move to sumo deadlift(again we are talking about using your angles) first time ever I tried the sumo I pulled off 1x5*120kg and it felt like a piece of cake.

I'd appreciate knowing more about this. How do your "angles and lines" determine the place to set the bar on your back? How do "angles and lines" determine that sumo is correct? I always thought that we placed the bar and stance in specific ways to cause the effect we desired.

[sunetdanne]

I'd appreciate knowing more about this. How do your "angles and lines" determine the place to set the bar on your back? How do "angles and lines" determine that sumo is correct? I always thought that we placed the bar and stance in specific ways to cause the effect we desired.

Sorry: My bad.

This is a power lifting gym so of course the focus is to lift the max possible weight in the long run.

I think that the coach means that that my body type(length of legs, torso etc) seems to be more more suitable for sumo deadlifts.

About squats:

It is necessary to find the optimum angle for a persons body type. Is he/she long or short, heavy or light?

A person with a longer torso tends to lean forward if the bar is high up on the shoulders. If your head is "below your bellybutton" you need to place the bar closer to your neck to find balance.

Anyway: Your best advice ever was to go and find a coach

Regards
Daniel

[Mark Rippetoe]

It may have been the worst advice I ever gave. How is one's head below one's bellybutton? What is the optimum "angle"? Do you understand our squat method and why it works?