Squat and PC Form Check

[theredbaron]

I dig the subcompact-tire bumper plates.

thanks mate yeh they're pretty sweet.

They're mini cooper wheels. You can drill out holes on a 1.25kg/2.5lb plate and fasten it to the wheel using the wheel nut holes.

Will come in handy when i'm learning how to snatch.

Maybe I am wrong, but it appears that you are squatting with the bar on your shoulders rather than in the low-bar position. Perhaps the resultant torque is to blame for your back problem.

Nope, I'm loyal to the low-bar

[Steve Hill]

Mr. Spine needs to man up and get with the program.

Seriously though, short of increasing the weight to ensure that the weight doesn't lift off his shoulders what else would you do?

1) If the bar is racked / held properly, the hands hold it locked to the back.
2) Knees need to stay flexible, so that the weight is not landing on a rigid body, and the shock of the bar coming back down is absorbed by muscle rather than locked-out joints (including the spine, which by definition for this style of lifting, is locked into place).

This is important because if the knees are locked out and rigid, and the back is not locked out properly, then the [i[back[/] can flex under the IMPACT LOADING that the weight is now doing. This is dangerous because the impact from the weight is far more than the weight itself. For instance, if you take a given weight, and a non-deformable scale, and set the wieght on the scale, it will read the given weight. If you then pick the weight up in such a manner that the force of the weight is removed from the scale, but the mass itself is still in contact with the scale (no movement - just a de-loaded scale) and then release the weight, guess what happens to the reading on the scale? It goes from 0 to a peak of roughly TWICE the value of the weight, and then back down until it reads the actual value of the weight. This is what impact loading is - and it gets worse the farther you get from the scale.

So, if the bar on your shoulders totally de-weights from your back, then guess what? For a brief instant, you have to deal with a minimum pf a force equivalent to twice the weight you are lifting when Mean Ol' Mr. Gravity requires your shoulders to once again support the bar. And that force gets much greater, very quickly, if the bar actually rises off the shoulders.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be moving quickly at the top of the squat. I AM saying that you need to be prepared to deal with the consequences, and deal with them properly, or injuries can result.