Just woke up, wife got home, I'm on my throne. Perfect example, act like you are squatting down to take a slam.
Back to bed after this and a wipe.
Look at what happens when you start the descent. You do a little butt flick, throwing your hips back and causing you to lean forward - THEN you break at the knees. This is wrong, stop doing the butt flick - break at the knees and the hips at the same time. You will probably need to think "BREAK AT THE KNEES" first to get out of the habit of doing the butt flick.
Also, your stance may be a little too wide, and may actually be making it harder for you to hit depth because it is stretching your adductors beyond their elastic capacity. Bring your heels in to shoulder width, then shove your knees out and see if it's any easier to hit depth.
Just woke up, wife got home, I'm on my throne. Perfect example, act like you are squatting down to take a slam.
Back to bed after this and a wipe.
Well shit. I didn't even notice that I was still doing that. Thanks. I'll try to fix it. That brings up another question though. Am I supposed to keep my knees locked at the top of a squat? It's kind of the natural thing for me to do, but I've had a trainer say that could place unnecessary stress on the knees and to keep them slightly unlocked at the top.
Yes, you should lock the knees out and straighten your legs at the top of the lift, otherwise you haven't "finished" the squat. Just make sure that your first movement when you descend is to break at the knees and hips. For you, to counteract your butt flick habit, just think first about getting your knees forward and out THEN getting your butt back as you sink down into the hole. I hope that helps.
I've squatted quite a bit with a guy who is your height and weighs about 50lbs more than you. His warmups with less than 225 are night and day form wise when compared to his working weight with heavy ass weights. Being so big with not so good mobility almost works like a squat suit. But you can't use it if you have no weight on your back and are slowing down to a crawl when you hit the hole.
This "trainer" is a fool and shows you why you should not hear every one's advice too often.
Since there are no shear forces on the knee while standing up(the angle between the femur and the tibia/fibula is 0 degrees, hence they are on top of each other, the menisci do their part and hold you body, more accurately a force equal to your bodyweight multipled by 10 and which is measured with newtons, this is easy for the menisci as it stand 3-5 times stronger forces while you walk, go down the stairs or do any other basic day to day activity which involves the knees)
Came back to the post to see if you are not backing down, I remember my days struggling just like you.
From the last videos it seems you can actually reach the proper depth, just keep a few things in mind:
1. open the feet angle a bit more if needed so that your belly don't bump into your hip, and keep the knees open to the sides all the way.
2. shove the knees forward at the beginning of the movement, not at the end, you must work on that.
3. Don't be afraid to use more weight, worst case scenario- you fall down on the safety bars you adjusted for that case, it happens, and you need to learn how to drop the bar sooner or later
4. pull your ass up fast and remember that squats are meant to be hard
Last edited by David_G; 05-05-2012 at 03:41 PM.