My nasty form breakdown is stalling my LP, what am

[JTT]

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.

Thank you Steve. The arching would probably explain the back pain I sometimes get after I squat. I will emphasize a lot on the cue "chest down".

[JTT]

Hey again. I'm bumping this thread, hope that's ok. Still having some issues.

Ok, so since I didn't see or feel any significant shifting going on when I squatted 60 kg, I did the natural thing and added 2.5 kg to my next workout. It felt good, so I kept increasing the weight while working on the cues and tips I got from you guys.

But last night I was set to do 70 kg, close to BW. First set felt good (forgot to take a video). Second set felt decent, I took a video of this and saw that the last rep had some tiny bit of shifting. Worrisome but imo acceptable. And then I did the third set and it was a complete disaster, the shifting was back on the last 2-3 reps and was very, very pronounced. You know, ass moving laterally and back twisting like in my first videos.

The thing is, 70 kg feels extremely light. It doesn't feel heavy at all. So last night I did something stupid, I put 95 kg on the bar and did a single rep. THAT felt heavy. I managed the rep and it looked pretty much identical to my last work set at 70 kg with hip shift and twisting.

I probably have something anatomically wrong with my body like a short leg or scoliosis. Maybe I can compensate for this when using very measly weight. But my goal is to become stronger and that means continually stressing my body to adapt, but how can I stress my body sufficiently when it breaks down when I add 2.5 kg to my squat?

I'm trying to get an appointment with an orthopedic to get some x-rays done, but since this isn't an 'emergency', it's low priority for them and the queue was estimated to be 3-5 months!

I've been at it for almostthree months and 67.5kg x3x5 is the only weight I've managed to do without a pronounced hip shift. That's some bad progress right there. It's very disheartening, and there's obviously something fundamentally wrong with me.

What are my options while waiting for the x-rays? More experimenting with a shim? Try a staggered stance? Convince myself that I the shift is caused by a movement pattern and not a short leg? Maybe this is a mental thing where I just loose tightness and get scared when I'm under a loaded barbell?

One reoccurring thing in my videos is that, as Tom pointed out, my right knee appears lower than my left knee when I squat 'heavy'. Maybe this is a short leg, scoliosis or me unconsciously using a bad stance where my knee is not tracking over the foot.

I know this is a lot of text and I'm open to paying for coaching, but can these things only be solved with live coaching? Tom, you mentioned you might be in Sweden this summer, I would be very interested in a session or two.

Any help and input is much appreciated, thank you.

[Tom Campitelli]

Take a slightly wider stance and stop arching your back on the ascent. Just stay really tight. Overextending your spine is going to encourage that shift. Think of doing an abdominal crunch on the way up. Your chest will be down on the ascent more than it is here. I will be in Stockholm from June 21 through 23. Let's see what we can work out.