My nasty form breakdown is stalling my LP, what am

[JTT]

Hey!

I've been doing SS for over two months and I have a huge problem with my squat. My form is breaking down when I add weight and it ruins my linear progression. I'm failing to do the program correctly.

I started doing squats at 52.5kg and increased 2.5kg each workout. I noticed that my form was breaking when I reached 65-70kg. So I spent a few workouts to correct my form and was able to progress to 80kg. Now I'm stuck again at 82.5-85kg and my form is horrible. I cannot add weight because I consider my sets a total failure due to the bad form.

I descend, and when I'm about to ascend my left knee caves inwards and my hips shoots to the right leg. My body is shifting laterally to the right and my knees are all over the place. I think my back is also twisting a little and this is obviously huge cause for concern! I'm starting to get some light back pain after my workouts.

Two videos from today's workout.

First set

Third set



I've been to a Chiro to determine if I had a leg length discrepancy, but she couldn't see any notable difference (no x-ray tho). She used the method Rip used in his article about LLD. She did however say that my pelvis was rotated counter-clockwise (if watched from above, my right side/shoulder appears to be slightly in front).

My goal is to squat 1.5x BW for 5 reps but I'm not getting closer with this bad form.

You guys have loads of experience and surely you must have encountered this problem before. Do you have any recommendations on how I can fix my form and get back on with my LP? Any help and feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

[Tom Campitelli]

Yeah, those are some twisty fuckin' squats. I, too, would suspect a leg length discrepancy, perhaps with some scoliosis, although such things are notoriously difficult to diagnose over the Internet. Do you have scoliosis? If I pause your video at the bottom, I can almost convince myself that your right knee is lower than your left. I see that "Sweden" is written on the plates. Is that where you live? If so, we may be left doing this over the Internet, although I may be in Sweden for a couple of days this June.

Let's try this:

Put a shim of approximately 1/2" underneath your right leg and film another set of squats with it from behind. The shim can be rubber or wood. Something that does not compress and will not slide around.
Widen your stance slightly.
Drive your knees out hard and work very hard to push evenly with both feet.
Really tighten down against the held breath and drive your hips up. Don't lift your chest.

Get me two angles again. One from the rear oblique and one straight on from the back.

[shanewilcox]

I wouldn't ordinarily dream of offering a comment here, being at around the same stage as the OP, just on 2 months in and only having increased my squat from 60 to 110 kg (body weight 100 kg at 5' 11" and 49 years old, for context), but I had (and occasionally still have, when I lose concentration) a similar, if possibly less extreme problem. My left knee would "cave in," and there'd be a compensatory twist on the way up.

Being in New Zealand, the land of the high-bar three-quarter squat, I was on my own. It seemed to me that the weight was too far back, putting its centre nearer my heel than the mid-foot, which seemed to have the effect of pulling me too upright too early, and to go too deep, effectively taking the hamstrings out of the equation and causing my form to collapse (sometimes literally). This seems likely, in my amateur opinion, to be related to the one aspect of physiognomy that I may share with the OP: relatively long legs and short torso. My correction was to close the hip angle at the bottom (i.e bend forward) more than initially seemed correct. The primary risk I have now is of producing a "good morning," so really focusing on hip drive and maintaining a tight back is imperative. After a period of 1.5 kg increases while I sorted this out, I'm now back to 2.5 kg jumps and things are feeling much better.

Sorry if I'm talking out of school amongst such august company. By all means tell me to mind my own business.

[Stvn]

I`ve got the same problem as you, JJT. Just posted a question about it on this forum. That unbalanced feeling sucks.
If it gets answered I`ll post a link to it here.

[Tom Campitelli]

This seems likely, in my amateur opinion, to be related to the one aspect of physiognomy that I may share with the OP: relatively long legs and short torso.

Long legs and a short torso will generally not produce a shift to the side like this. Whether this is something the OP can correct volitionally, or whether he needs a shim to help is something we will have to suss out.

[shanewilcox]

Long legs and a short torso will generally not produce a shift to the side like this. Whether this is something the OP can correct volitionally, or whether he needs a shim to help is something we will have to suss out.

Makes sense, thanks.

[JTT]

Yeah, those are some twisty fuckin' squats. I, too, would suspect a leg length discrepancy, perhaps with some scoliosis, although such things are notoriously difficult to diagnose over the Internet. Do you have scoliosis? If I pause your video at the bottom, I can almost convince myself that your right knee is lower than your left. I see that "Sweden" is written on the plates. Is that where you live? If so, we may be left doing this over the Internet, although I may be in Sweden for a couple of days this June.

Let's try this:

Put a shim of approximately 1/2" underneath your right leg and film another set of squats with it from behind. The shim can be rubber or wood. Something that does not compress and will not slide around.
Widen your stance slightly.
Drive your knees out hard and work very hard to push evenly with both feet.
Really tighten down against the held breath and drive your hips up. Don't lift your chest.

Get me two angles again. One from the rear oblique and one straight on from the back.

Thank you for your time.

I don't have any diagnosed scoliosis, but it is very possible there's something wrong with my alignments. On my first visit to the Chiro, she said my pelvis was rotated and I think she also mentioned something about my lower back being tilted slightly because of this. She did some adjustments and on my second visit she just said that it looked much better. I kept asking if this could be cause by a LLD, but she just kept saying it was not likely at all and that I should rule that out. She thought it was strength imbalances. I don't blindly trust her, I remain very skeptical to be honest. I want an x-ray done but it is very difficult to get.

And I should mention, before I started doing any training at all (4months ago), I had a good 4-5 years of sitting down, slouched over a chair with no thought about ergonomics. Maybe I fucked up my alignments this way. But my posture has improved so much since I started training.

Yup, I live in Sweden (we need our first SS coach badly!)

Ok, so today I shimmed the right leg and squatted. The hip shift is still there, just as bad. I have 3 videos (hope that's ok) because I wanted to show my first warmup set with an empty bar because I don't see any hip shift there. I will try the shim next workout too because I think I'm failing to push evenly like you told me to and I'm not happy with my effort. The stance looks off.

First set (shimmed)

Third set (shimmed)

Warmup empty bar (no shim)

It looks to me like my right knee isn't actually tracking over the foot.

[Tom Campitelli]

I could be fooling myself into thinking the shim is helping get your knees at the same height, but I don't think so. I do agree, however, that the shiftiness you are experiencing is not simply a short leg problem. The good news is that the solution to that shifting is probably under your control. Forget about the shim at the moment. You have some squatting homework first.

Put 60 kg on the bar.
At the top, contract your leg musculature. Hard. Big breath. Contract your trunk musculature hard, too.
As you descend, don't go so deep. Keep your chest down. You are getting too upright at the moment and letting the knees go too far forward.
On the ascent, do not arch your back. Stay tight. Keep your chest down.
If you feel the weight shifting to the right, consciously put more weight in the left. Cue yourself "left."

Let's see two videos again with you working on these cues. One from behind. One from the rear oblique.

[JTT]

I could be fooling myself into thinking the shim is helping get your knees at the same height, but I don't think so. I do agree, however, that the shiftiness you are experiencing is not simply a short leg problem. The good news is that the solution to that shifting is probably under your control. Forget about the shim at the moment. You have some squatting homework first.

Put 60 kg on the bar.
At the top, contract your leg musculature. Hard. Big breath. Contract your trunk musculature hard, too.
As you descend, don't go so deep. Keep your chest down. You are getting too upright at the moment and letting the knees go too far forward.
On the ascent, do not arch your back. Stay tight. Keep your chest down.
If you feel the weight shifting to the right, consciously put more weight in the left. Cue yourself "left."

Let's see two videos again with you working on these cues. One from behind. One from the rear oblique.

Thank you for your time, Tom.

I followed your advice and squatted yesterday, 60 kg on the bar. It felt much better than before.

I took a big breath, contracted my legs and abs, and this time I actually felt tight. I focused really hard on staying tight.
I cut some depth, perhaps too much on a few reps. I was thinking "chest down" but I think I failed at this, because I see arching on the way up.

I did not feel any shift during any of the sets.

First set

Second set

[Steve Hill]

Since Tom is staffing the seminar in NYC this weekend, you're stuck with me.

You;re still letting your back overextend on the way up. I see this with females a lot. You're trying to get your chest up while still driving your hips up, and it results in what can clearly be seen happening at the upper lumbar / lower thoracic region - overstension. The way this is fought is to keep your upper chest pointed down on the way up, and lock everything in place with much tighter abs than you're doing.