Amsterdam squat camp follow up (@Tom & Jordan, or who likes to comment)

[JayvH]

First of all a happy new year,
this is a follow up for the Starting Strength Training Camp in Amsterdam considering the squat. As notified I like to spam your board with recording sessions of mine. I had issues with my knees sliding forward due every rep.

An old video of me showed me, that I had times when the knees stayed back although these were the days when I had big issues with not letting them cave in. I wonder if I by any chance bought my knees staying out by letting them travel forward.
After Amsterdam I went to the gym two times and recorded every squat rep from the first with the empty bar to the last work set and plus 3 sets with the last warmup weight for working on the technique with the TUBOW. I think the false movement pattern is now dug in, during the first workout I hardly found a rep with only light knee travel.
Here are some sets of my second workout with the work load, which is about the same as in Amsterdam but 25 kg less than two weeks earlier.
First set 67,5 kg, view from side and behind
Third set from the side.
The knee travel is excessive in those.

And now with the pussy pad as a TUBOW substitution backing of to 50 kg
one set from the side
and one from the side and behind.
Knee travel is less but still noticeable.

As you can see in this set and the one with 67,5 kg from the same postion my right leg is also having a slight movement inwards. Are my toes pointed too much outwards or do I have to push my knees out more? Is knees out the one thing to focus on more or do I have to set the knee position earlier in the descend and/or lean over more?

[Tom Campitelli]

50 kg looks a good deal better than the heavier sets. Do me a favor think about where the weight is distributed on the bottom of your foot. At the bottom, you are shifting to your toes with the attendant forward knee slide. Fight that with everything you have. Let's see if that gets you to where you need to be.

[JayvH]

Thank you Tom,

I took this in consideration, but I'm not their yet. On monday I increased the weight to 70 kg but felt a twinge where the posterion chain attaches to the lower back when I came into the bottom position of the squat. I had to go down to 60 kg yesterday but did 5x5 to get some reps done. Here is a video of the fourth set, which I considered to be the best one.
Video
But I still have a bit of slide in every rep especially the first one. My question is wheter

• the knee position I end up after the slide is the correct one so I have to bring the knees more forward in the first third of the descent or
• is the knee positon after the first third fine and I have to fight more for this position.

I would like to give a better view by getting the camera further away from the rack and therefore get my whole body from the start into the picture but a Smith machine is blocking the way.

By the way I messed up the links in my first post, so the 67,5 kg are both the same video, but I can not edit anymore.

[Tom Campitelli]

The weight is shifting on to your toes at the bottom. Your knees ultimately go too far forward. So, the second bullet point is the more correct one. Think: heels.

[JayvH]

I try alot of cues at the moment "knees", "bend over and stay in place", "knees out" and so on. I think I'm getting better although I always get sets with one or two "sliding reps".
I think this is my best set of the last workout:
Video
But I always get a little slide forward when I'm at the turning point before I start the upward movement, is this normal or is this still to much?

[Tom Campitelli]

I try alot of cues at the moment "knees", "bend over and stay in place", "knees out" and so on. I think I'm getting better although I always get sets with one or two "sliding reps".
I think this is my best set of the last workout:
Video
But I always get a little slide forward when I'm at the turning point before I start the upward movement, is this normal or is this still to much?

I'd be willing to get if you got you knees further forward early, the last bit of slide would go away.

[JayvH]

But than the first bullet point from the second to last posting is the issue, isn't it?

How do I get my knees in position earlier in the descent? The length of my lower leg, femur and back are defining my ideal positon of the knee. I should bend over more right from the beginning as you told me, but in doing so I have to get my ass back more to keep the bar over the middle of the foot. With the ass reaching back my knees can't go forward more because the connection with the tibia. That's the thing with the high bar back squat and the front squat where the back is more upright and the knees are more forward.

To be honest I'm beginning to feel a little stupid having not figured it out after one month only working on form. As the weight is now adding up slowly the number of good reps is decreasing. I'm not sure if I'm already wrong on the warm ups and now the weight gets high enough to point out the errors.

The weight is still light enough to make a very slow and controlled move, maybe I'll try to look down on the knees on the descent and have a look what they are doing.

Is it advisable to add weight to the bar or is better to stay at this weight until I figure it out or even take weight off the bar?

Just for the completion a link to my last workset with 65 kg but there is not anything new to see I think.
Video

[Tom Campitelli]

The low bar squat is an interesting coordination of hip and knee flexion. Think of it this way:

• You need to keep the bar in balance over the midfoot.
• You need to get your knees in place by half way down. Right now, you are usually trying to hold them back until the very end.
• You need to lean over enough to utilize hip drive.

The issue you are fighting the hardest right now is your knees. Play around with it. Even if you fuck the other stuff up, get control of your knees and let's see where you go from there. Sometimes this stuff takes a while and that time frame can get extended when all we've got is video.

[JayvH]

I'm ok with the mindset although I'm not feeling when the bar is not over the middle of the foot, at least not at the current weight. I'm pretty sure, that this also took me off balance when I was aiming for 100 kg.

I think I see what you mean by the knee position after the first half of the way down. In this video of my second to last workout
Link
I'm ok in the first rep but 2 to 5 I hold the knees back. (I'm not talented in video editing so no possibility here to draw a few lines in the video).

I do wonder how the right cue is for me here. Although I recognised it in the video in my last workout I didn't have one good rep during my worksets.

[Tom Campitelli]

If you need to be slightly more upright, make it so that you are. Push your knees further forward.