You are squatting with a high bar position, looking forward, going too deep, and then leaning over and doing a hip-driven ascent. Tell me what you are trying to do and why.
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Squat Form Check
Having gone through LP for many months with several resets, I am finally feeling comfortable enough with my squat form to post a video here for the coaches to critique. Tell me anything you see that I could improve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i0d...ature=youtu.be
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You are squatting with a high bar position, looking forward, going too deep, and then leaning over and doing a hip-driven ascent. Tell me what you are trying to do and why.
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OK, in order:
1. The bar position is as low as I can comfortably get. My shoulders are very inflexible and rotated forward. I don't know why.
2. Looking forward - guilty, I have no excuse.
3. I go deeper because I have found that it reduces the pressure on my knees. When I would squat to just below parallel, my knees would tend to get sore. I experimented with going a little deeper and found that it helped. Is this a problem?
4. I could be wrong, but it does not feel to me that I am "leaning over." I believe that what happens is that coming up from the bottom, my hips are coming up but my shoulders are not. I think it is because my hamstrings and lower back are stronger than my quads. For example, I am squatting 270 lbs. for 3 sets of 5, while I am deadlifting 1 set of 5 at 385. I think this is a bigger disparity than most people. Maybe I have the whole thing wrong. This has been a constant problem for me, and I have seen a few other people here at this forum discussing it. If I reduce the weight by a mere 5 lbs., I do not have this problem. Every time I increase the weight in LP, it comes back.
I would have mentioned all of this in my original post, but I did not want to prejudice you in looking at the video. My current point of view is that I am personally OK with the bar position and the depth unless you feel it is a big problem. The problem that I know about and would really like to correct is to get my shoulders to go up with my hips, in other words to keep my back angle steady coming up from the hole. Thanks again for your help.
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I would bet that you can get in a low bar position. Your shoulders do not appear to rotated forward. I have some trainees with very rounded upper backs. You are not one of them.Originally Posted by twnutt
If you are doing a high bar squat, then you might not look down.
Yes. For a number of reasons.
Or, to put it more succinctly, you are leaning over on the ascent.
That may be. It may also be the case that you are relaxing at the bottom and your squat is an uncomfortable combination of high bar and low bar techniques.
It is.
I would need to see video evidence of this before I believed it.
Then you need to do what you think is best.
I'm not much a fan of high bar squats, with a few exceptions. One reason is that many high bar squats devolve into low bar squats with elongated moment arms across the back, bad positioning, general looseness, and flexed backs when the weights get heavy. In fact, such a situation describes your squat well.
You have two choices as I see it. You can learn to high bar squat properly, which will mean staying more upright on the ascent, or you can learn to low bar squat properly. I am a fan of the latter.
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Tom, thanks for the detailed answers, I appreciate your time. To follow up, I am hoping you can clear up a few things for me. First, help me understand what problems might result from going too deep. I have an open mind on the topic and if going deeper will cause problems, then I will attempt to correct it. More importantly, I understand what you are saying about the bar position increasing the lever of my back and I can see how that lever would interact with my back angle on the ascent. I am trying to form a specific action plan based on your recommendations. I can attempt to get into a lower bar position and not go as deep. I am not sure if it would be better to do this at current weight or to begin at a lower weight and progress from there back to my current weight. Finally, when would it be most helpful to post a follow-up video?
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Tom, following up on my previous post, I went ahead and did my best effort at a lower bar position and trying to keep my back angle from leaning forward at the same weight of 270 lbs. today. Let me know if you see improvement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rqu...ature=youtu.be
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Watch the bar placement video on this site. You have the bar in the right place as I suspected you might be able to do. The next step is to get your thumbs over the bar and see if you can get your wrists in a better position. Look down. Looking straight ahead is not what we want in a low bar squat. While looking down, concentrate on driving your ass straight up, not back. Some of your reps were pretty good in that regard, but the last ones could be better. These are an improvement over the last ones.
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Tom, thanks again for the comments. I know you guys are spending your valuable time critiquing random strangers on the internet, and I appreciate it.
I am glad to hear that you are seeing improvement. I will continue to work on it. As for wrists, my right wrist is very inflexible, I believe due to spraining it when I was around 7 years old. It is pretty painful for that wrist in particular to get the bar down low. However, I think that over time the flexibility should improve. I will squat again tomorrow and update with video.
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Tom, here is my last set from yesterday. I don't know if I am looking down enough, I am looking at the ground but maybe my head is still too upright. The grip felt much better. I feel like I am still struggling a little with my ass moving back, as you put it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_-wTq7w6E
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I've seen much worse. If I can get you to look at a point on the ground about 2 or 3 feet in front of your feet, I would bet that would clean up a little bit of the bar path deviation we see, too.
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