Those look fine to me. I can tell you're thinking about bending at the knees first. Don't worry about that. A good coach might have more to say, but they look good to me, man.
Frustration continues. I'm starting to think focusing on "fixing" knee position is wrong, and that the knee position is a symptom and not a cause of my problems. I feel the problem is maintaining tightness in posterior chain to fully engage hip drive. Today I tried to focus on keeping back angle so that I can sit back. But the video shows knee slide at the bottom of many if not most reps, in fact it was worse today than in other recent videos. On thing I noticed, I seem to be squatting quite a bit past parallel now, and since the knee slide happens at the very bottom of the rep maybe I'm just going too deep?
I got two angles today, though I still feel the side angle tells more of the story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXR0v2cmo6Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4msTzapJw84
Last edited by JSK; 03-14-2012 at 09:26 PM.
Those look fine to me. I can tell you're thinking about bending at the knees first. Don't worry about that. A good coach might have more to say, but they look good to me, man.
My hip disagrees though. I feel like with Sunday's squats I came full circle. The whole reason I decided to reevaluate my squats in the first place was because I had developed pretty bad pain in my right hip flexor due to "knee slide" coming out of the hole.Those look fine to me
When squatting Sunday I could tell I wasn't keeping posterior tension at the bottom, and by Sunday evening my hip was aching again (thankfully not the sharp pain I originally had). Looking at the videos from Sunday I could see the knee slide was back (it's especially obvious in reps 3-4 of the second vid above).
Going by what I saw in Sunday's videos and what I felt while squatting, I think my problem was two-fold: going a little too deep, and leading out of the hole with my chest instead of using hip-drive. Today I focused on those two things, and feel I made some progress. I could feel a difference between the reps I got right and the ones I didn't (and my hip also let me know, as I could feel the pull on it in the reps where I lost tension).
Here's a vid from today. I think at least the first couple reps are an improvement, and tonight my hip's not aching so that's a good sign as well. Still need to work on consistency though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhoIKQ7P_Qk
Last edited by JSK; 03-16-2012 at 09:54 PM.
Going too deep is usually a result of getting loose, not the other way around.
Also, did you ever get a rear view? It looks like your knee position is OK, coronally speaking, but it’s always good to get more data, since not everything shows up on just a side or 3/4 view.
First video from Sunday is a rear 3/4 view. The mirrored wall is just a few few behind me so a view from directly behind would require turning around and facing the mirror. I can do that if it's useful I just normally prefer to face away from the mirror.
Got video from 3 angles today. Feel like some reps are an improvement but it's still a work in progress.
Side view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_dvJ9bOvos
Rear 3/4 view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbrobv3IQo0
Front view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1VDtnBatA0
These are shaping up. You're still tipping forward slightly at the bottom. Note the occasional hint of "looking over the side of a boat" going on, especially visible in the 3/4 view from rep 3 on.
It seems that you have a tendency to lead with the chest on the way down as well as on the way up. Maybe you were trying to correct this previously by sliding your hips and knees forward and "pulling yourself up" by raising the chest.
You're generally doing a good job trying to address this, but I would personally have you turn your toes out a tiny bit more and pull the knees out a little bit further/harder, i.e., open up your crotch more, and--pardon the crudeness--lead with your taint on the way down. I think this will improve your balance and help you keep your back angle more controlled.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree about the leading with chest thing, I think it comes from having done high-bar sqauts off and on since high school, the back angle and stronger hip drive of low-bar squat still doesn't feel completely natural to me and old tendencies creep back in. I'll try adjusting my to angle as you suggested and push the knees out more (in the front-view I see that little bit of wobble at the bottom).
It's not a wobble issue. Resist over-thinking minutiae. A slight knee wobble isn't really the problem.
It looks to me that your problem is that you're not focusing on your hips. Opening up your crotch more and leading with it on the way down may correct this and shift your consciousness during the squat from your chest to your hips. It's a way of changing your mental focus, which will hopefully translate into your movement patterns.