Squat Form: Self Critque

[Steven Q]

Coach Rip,

I understand, having been inundated with video after video of the same squat mistakes, that your desire to review videos has waned. In the interest of having people continue to post videos for others to see, I thought I might post my video with a self critique; the value here being that others might watch the video first, critique it themselves, and learn how to analyze their own videos and provide themselves with the necessary cues and fixes. In addition, it might save you some time, as beer will rarely drink itself, and there are only so many hours in the day to shout at people in a gym and consume fine lagers and ales.

Watch on mute if poor music offends you; alas, getting a globo gym to play "Back on the Streets Again," or "Whipping Post" might be more difficult than getting them to buy bumper plates.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ajTSLpk98Fk

1. Head Position; the angle make it look worse than it is, but when I really look down the hip drive is noticeably better.

2. Knees: it seems as if my knees are coming forward mostly in the middle 2/3 of the movement, where you prescribe their coming forward as being done with in the first third of the movement. The first rep has the knees shooting forward throughout, but the rest of the reps are better.

3. Knees: I am extending the knee almost right out of the hole during the portion of the squat that I should be extending the hip; perhaps this is worsened by head position and might contribute to an overall lack of exemplary hip drive. I'm not quite sure if this is incorrect, though watching this video http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y4hmjm4CUak&feature=related I fail to see the same sort of knee extension at the bottom of the squat.

4. My lower back loses proper arch, though it does not seem terribly offensive.


I had worked my way up to 240 lbs on the squat before getting a camera; once I had one, watching my form made me realize there were a few things I had been doing incorrectly, including leaving the knees, and, therefore, much of the quad work, out of the squat, and dropping down too far, in this case recognizeable by a lack of hamstring extensibility causing a rounded back. The hamstring issue is being worked upon with dedicated stretching, as is the knee issue.

With my shins more near verticle, I had to lean over more, and felt a lot of the work of squatting in my lower back; hopefully this new squat with more knees forward, and, therefore, more quad work, will negate my having to lean over as much and save my lower back some work at the expense of my quads.

If there is anything that I've missed, or any incorrect assumptions on my part, please let me know.

Thank you,

Steven Q.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This all looks like an accurate assessment to me. The interest has not waned, but the sticky has saved some repetitive effort.

[Steven Q]

Thanks for the reply, I assume, then, that there is nothing wrong that you can see with the squat?

I am correct in thinking that the knee extension occuring when it does is a problem? I was trying to play out in my mind what knee extension at that point might do to hip extension, but couldn't quite wrap my mind around it.

Thank you for your help,

Steven Q.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I am assuming you are the guy in the first video. In this one, you are correct in seeing the knee extension move the hips back. Among other things, it shifts the weight back to a point behind the mid-foot, and wastes the knee extension in terms of its contribution to raising the bar. If it just shifts the load back instead of moving it up, other muscles have to do that work. Just like in a deadlift, the hamstrings anchor the pelvis so that the work of opening the knee gets transmitted to the bar.