Squat form check

[oscar231]

Have you had any major interruptions during that time?

Yes. Whenever the semester ends (I teach at at a university), I stop going to the gym as frequently, and I let family commitments to change my schedule.

Get some stretchy shorts instead of tight pants. What I'm seeing is you're dropping your chest to far in an effort to reach depth, and I recall seeing other guys suggesting that this problem can be due to getting the wrong kind of proprioceptive feedback from your hips and legs about how low they are when your pants start getting tight. This is close to what you'd call 'good morning-ing' the bar, where you're partly pulling the bar up with your lower back instead of keeping it locked in place and driving with the hips and legs. I guess that might cause some lower back pain.

This is very interesting. Nevertheless, sometimes I squat with shorts (I wear pants on deadlift days), and I think that my form is as bad. But you're absolutely right about dropping my chest to reach depth. I am not good at judging my position as I am squatting, I don't know how high I am.

[oscar231]

Unfortunately Oscar, it may be the most efficient thing to do in your situation. If you've been squatting this high for a while now, you're a little underdeveloped at the very bottom of the lift. Imagine if you spend even a full month working back up, but you have nailed the form and are on your way to higher weights. That's where I'd like to see you in a month's time.

I agree. As happy as I was getting close to 200 lb, it will probably be more productive to deload and work back up. I've been reluctant to do that for two reasons: (a) I think I need some coaching so that I know I'm really making progress regarding form (I'm working on that); (b) Rip makes fun of guys who stop increasing weight to work on form. As he says, 190 will feel easy when I'm squatting 225.

[BareSteel]

There are some great coaches out by you - well within road trip distance. If cutting down on the learning time is what you're after, that's one way to approach the form situation.

[oscar231]

There's one great coach 5 min from my house. I'll email him again. I'm afraid he's very busy.

[Jsutt]

Definitely try to get in touch with him, you'll save yourself a lot of wasted time and effort if you can get these form issues nailed.

[oscar231]

I think deloading didn't help much. In these two warm up sets my form, as I see it, is not much better. I'm reaching better depth, but my chest goes down, even at 135. In my work sets, using a lighter weight than last week, I tried to go deeper, and I think I did. Other than that, it seems I can't keep my chest up, but I am not aware of that until I watch the videos. I'll keep working on this.

Warm-up set 95 x 5:

http://youtu.be/ozE4X1wE1AE

Warm-up set 135 x 4:

http://youtu.be/G6DoctaCOWY

First and third work sets: 175 x 5:

http://youtu.be/3L3Eu1UNpQE

http://youtu.be/hHJHeoBy_WM

[BareSteel]

Your wrists are suddenly becoming overextended at the bottom. FairwellToArms noted this earlier. I'd bet that this is changing the bar position on your back just a little. Focus on keeping your entire shelf stationary (elbows, wrists, upper back are all firm and stationary) and I bet you find that the problem solves itself. As you can see, it's not upper back flexion occurring on a spinal level. This is pitching forward - just a little bit - in the hole.

[Jsutt]

These are much better, honestly. You're still swinging forward a little at the bottom - watch the end of the bar, especially from reps 3-5. Depth is pretty good. You need to focus on sitting back a little more as you descend and keeping your chest up a little more as you come up out of the hole. Overall though they're looking a lot more solid.