1. Either the bar, your hands, or your elbows are in the wrong place. Experiment. You have my permission.
2. This may be normal. If this is your first experience with physical exertion, the learning curve will be steep. You'll be fine.
Member
Low Bar Squatting Issues
Hello Mr. Rippetoe,
I'm having issues with low bar squatting, having switched to them about 2 weeks ago after finally getting and reading SS. Two things, mainly:
1. I always feel like the bar is gonna roll off me, despite placing the bar on the scapula, pushing my chest out and elbows backward. I must be doing something wrong formwise, because a lot of the weight ends up being supported by my lower hand rather than my back. FYI, I have moderate winged scapula if that makes any difference. Should I move the bar a bit higher or what?
2. In the 2nd and 3rd sets, upon pushing the bar upwards, my face turns all red and hot (mirror in front of the squat rack...), blood rushes to my head, and I feel like I'm gonna bust a blood vessel or something. Afterwards, I feel slightly lightheaded but not like I'm gonna pass out or anything. Bar speed and everything is good, and I'm finishing all the prescribed reps. I'm not sure if this is normal or a sign that something is wrong.
Thank you very much in advance,
Eric
TMPHBITEU
1. Either the bar, your hands, or your elbows are in the wrong place. Experiment. You have my permission.
2. This may be normal. If this is your first experience with physical exertion, the learning curve will be steep. You'll be fine.
Member
Congratulations, you are now exercising!Originally Posted by dunedain
Member
For #2: Make sure you are breathing. I have a bad habit of not doing that lol.
Member
Not for nothing, but I used to have a real problem forcing myself to look down, and I would always be checking my depth in the mirror. This caused me all sorts of problems once the weight got heavy, including killing hip drive, turning squats into good mornings, and weirdly enough, allowing the bar to roll around on my back.
I never made a video to see exactly what I was doing that was causing the bar to shift like that, but forcing myself to look down solved all of those problems.
Member
He was exercising. Now he's training.
Member
I think this is pretty normal. I often come away from heavy efforts with a few blown capillaries in my face. They are like tiny bruises, which is tiny coolness.
Good on you for getting after it, and stick with it! It gets easier as it gets harder.
Member
The biggest obstacle for me has been fixing the hip drive. I've been squatting like a useless bastard for most of my life. Straight back. Bar on the top of my traps. Looking skyward. In fact I still exaggerate the hip drive quite a bit because I feel that I have to. And I also make for a shitty squatter. I don't have a short torso, but my legs and arms are longer. So for me I still tend to angle my back forward quite a bit to facilitate the hip drive on the way up. It's exaggerated, but it's working, and the muscular development in my legs has been excellent.
That aspect for me has started to improve, especially with the increased weight. But the most important thing is to drive the hips. If I have to sacrifice back angle to facilitate the hip drive then so be it. If you don't learn hip drive early on, your squat is pretty useless.
What pisses me off is that the trainer comes and tells me I'm leaning forward too much while the guys beside me are doing nothing but flexing their knees. Not that I care, but sometimes I wish I had SS with me at all times.
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