Squats gone wrong + Possible big mess + Possible bicep injury

[HomeBrew]

To me, your stance seems a little too wide.

The bar may be too low on your back. It's JUST underneath the spine of the scapula.

When you rack and unrack the bar, take smaller steps, no lunging, staying in balence and control throughout.

[Dwayne_KONG_Wint]

Things I immediately see:
1. Bar placement is about as low as you could possibly put it and barely have control. It is forcing you into a rounded thoracic position at the top. If you put it a wee higher, you won't have to do that and you will be able to stand straighter which has a lot of benefits. That rounding is contributing to your arm pain believe it or not.
2. When you drive out of the hole, instead of keeping your upper arm in the same relation with your torso as it was before, you are pulling them down. That's like the opposite of what you should be doing. That pulling is making your arm hurt.
3. Grip could be narrower but that's not affecting your arm pain. (The following comments are not necessarily affecting your arm pain either.)
4. Rack height sucks.
5. Elbows too high for my liking.
6. Lifting chest mid rep instead of driving hips
7. Too many steps in your set up
8. General looseness throughout your body...probably because you are using light weights here for you but you need to still treat them like they are heavier.
9. No bounce.
10. Too much fixing bar and wrist position before next rep.

All these things are going to kill how strong you can get. There's probably more stuff there if I keep glancing up a the video.

[threeonethree]

Things I immediately see:
1. Bar placement is about as low as you could possibly put it and barely have control. It is forcing you into a rounded thoracic position at the top. If you put it a wee higher, you won't have to do that and you will be able to stand straighter which has a lot of benefits. That rounding is contributing to your arm pain believe it or not.
2. When you drive out of the hole, instead of keeping your upper arm in the same relation with your torso as it was before, you are pulling them down. That's like the opposite of what you should be doing. That pulling is making your arm hurt.
3. Grip could be narrower but that's not affecting your arm pain. (The following comments are not necessarily affecting your arm pain either.)
4. Rack height sucks.
5. Elbows too high for my liking.
6. Lifting chest mid rep instead of driving hips
7. Too many steps in your set up
8. General looseness throughout your body...probably because you are using light weights here for you but you need to still treat them like they are heavier.
9. No bounce.
10. Too much fixing bar and wrist position before next rep.

All these things are going to kill how strong you can get. There's probably more stuff there if I keep glancing up a the video.

Thanks

1) I will try to put the bar a little bit higher. I also feel this is the problem as i have felt the bar trying to roll down couple of times.
2) This could also be due to the bar placement on the back? Maybe my arms are compensating for the unstable bar? I will make extra effort to keep them in place.
3) I will narrow the grip a little bit. It is currently three fingers out from the knurl and i wll bring it to the knurl.
4) I only have these two positions available on the rack. Which one is slightly better? Any easy fix like putting a couple inch thick mat / plywood on the floor ?
5) I will try to pinch together the shoulder blades and see if that helps.
6) I am trying my best to lead from the hips?
7) That will be fixed.
8) I will try keep things tighter. This may also be due to unstable bar and everything else is compensating to keep it in balance.
9) How do i fix that?
10) This also could be due to the position of bar on the back.

I will try these corrections and make a new video from couple of angles today.

[wmilas]

I want to reiterate. Rack height sucks. For realz. Its killing your setup. The bar should be laying across your pecks if you walk up to it racked and put your chest against it. Hell based on your build if you have more of a horizontal back angle some people have it as low as their nipples. I'd start there, get that cleaned up, and then see what happens. My gut is alot of the issues you have will disappear because you wont be hyper-extending trying to unrack the bar.

Oh and btw, if you re-racking that high, your back angle is most likely fubared going back into the rack.

Let me repeat myself. You should be unracking at the back angle you are using while squatting. You should be re-racking at the same angle. Your video shows you racking and re-racking with an almost completely vertical back. When I watch you squat your back angle (mostly correct) is much more horizontal than what you show your rack and re-rack as.

[threeonethree]

Hi,

I tried putting the bar in the lower peg on the rack but it hit the higher peg when unracking. Moreover it felt funny moving backwards while squatting to unrack the bar without it hitting the higher peg. I felt the starting of the funny feeling in my left bicep/shoulder even in the lower position.

So after couple of warmup reps i had to go back to the higher position. But this time i tried a tighter grip + higher position on back and taking care to unrack without hyperextending.

The funny feeling continued but i am unsure if it due to the earlier injury and the workout marely irritated it or if the same problem persists which caused the injury in the first place.

I am posting a new video from the back.

[threeonethree]

Hi,

I tried putting the bar in the lower peg on the rack but it hit the higher peg when unracking. Moreover it felt funny moving backwards while squatting to unrack the bar without it hitting the higher peg. I felt the starting of the funny feeling in my left bicep/shoulder even in the lower position.

So after couple of warmup reps i had to go back to the higher position. But this time i tried a tighter grip + higher position on back and taking care to unrack without hyperextending.

The funny feeling continued but i am unsure if it due to the earlier injury and the workout merely irritated it or if the same problem persists which caused the injury in the first place.

I am posting a new video from the back.

BUMP.

Any other inputs with the back angle video?

[wmilas]

So its hard to tell because its shot directly from your back. I'd need a 45 degree or a side angle to see where your back is at.

Out of curiosity what is the flexibility like on the shoulder that's bothering you? I've seen people have shoulder (inner) and bicep issues when their flexibility is a bit constrained and they clench down hard on the bar when the weight gets heavy. It gets worse when they raise their elbows.

Take the bar, load it on your back, get that funny feeling, then raise the elbow slightly higher. Does it get worse?

If it does I can suggest 2 things. First is the stretching exercise in Rips book. There is also a video on the board where one of the SS coaches shows exactly how to do it.
Second, buy one of those stretchy therabands. Hook it to the rack and work your range of motion on your shoulder BEFORE you squat. Its not an intense exercise. Its a stretch/blood pumping exercise. You do 30 or 4 reps side and overhead. It'll heat the shoulder up and stretch it a bit before you lift. I help and individual (tennis pro) that constantly has a tight shoulder from serving. Having him band it, then stretch via Rip's exercise ofr 2 minutes before he squats removes the shoulder and brachialis pain.

[threeonethree]

Rested two days on weekend and no soreness noticable after this workout.



Tried bar in higher position and narrowed the grip while making the chest tighter.

please check if anything improved and whats left to be done.

[wmilas]

Ok, so lets start with this. Watch your video. Observe your ass. Do you see how it curves inwards at the bottom of your squat? That curvature causes your lumbar to go into hyper extension. You don't want that under load. Its hard to see but I think there is still knee slide coupled with this. What this means is as you drop your knees extend. After the initial drop your knees should not move forward over your toes at all. They should be locked. It looks like yours continue to move forward on the whole movement downwards.

At this point you probably need a SSC to correct this. Its my opinion that the back angle is too high still which is causing this (its usually the main cause) but your case may be different. You could start with a knee check. Get 2 2x4's and put them in front of your knees when you squat. When you drop into the hole you should touch them on the way down, and then not knock them over. If you are knocking them over then there is knee slide. Play with a light weight, adjust your back angle down until the knee slide stops.

Past that, its above my pay grade and someone else with more experience needs to chime in.

[HomeBrew]

Chest over sooner, you are still moving it down near the bottom. Get it over all the way in the first 1/3 of the movement.

Your lumber spine should be locked, locking your back in. It's the hips that move.

Don't stop at the bottom, bounce.

Your stance looks a little too wide and your toes a little too far out, making it hard to keep your knees out. They're collapsing in.