Lack of balance with no-weight squats

[progressiveman1]

I just started learning to do squats how you describe in your book, and you say one should first start practicing with just the barbell alone. I'm pretty sure that I'm following all your technique instructions, but for some reason I keep falling backwards near the bottom. Is this probably because of the lack of weight being used, or is it possibly bad form?

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is because you're not leaning forward enough. It is safe to say that anytime you fall over backwards, you were off-balance backwards. The bar is in balance when it is over the mid-foot, and if you fell back you didn't have it there.

[progressiveman1]

Okay, that seems to help.

I have another problem. For depth, I can't get all the way down. As I near the bottom, I can feel my low and middle back get really tight and my body just won't go down any further.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is generally fixed by shoving the knees out as you approach the bottom. Are you sure you have the book?

[progressiveman1]

I think I figured out the problem, but it might contradict what you say about stance in your book. You explain that stance width can vary for each individual depending on things like height or flexibility;that a tall person will probably need a wider than usual stance. However, you also explain why non-powerlifters shouldn't use a powerlifting(extremely wide) stance since it omits the quads. When I widened my stance to about 28 inches(from the inside of each foot)(and I'm 6'2"), I could finally consistently maintain balance and get proper depth. But I'm wondering how do you know when a wide stance is too wide?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Excellent question. A stance is too wide when it "binds" the hips and limits depth. A narrow stance limits depth by placing the thighs in contact with the gut at the bottom (at least for people of normal bodyweight -- the emaciated may be exempt from this rule), keeping the last bit of depth from being attained. A wide stance stretches the hipjoint ligaments into a position where they are very tight at the bottom, useful for powerlifting where you'd like to be very tight at a parallel squat but not useful for squatting when the criterion for depth is full hamstring and adductor stretch. The stance I suggest allows depth to be trained without any other anatomical constraints other than muscle extensibility in the posterior chain.

If your balance and depth are working better at 28", use it. Just what I like to see: successful problem solving.