Please critique my squat

[spencerd]

Hi guys, please could you give me some feedback on my squat, I hope the camera angle is ok - it seems to be half including the floor. To me it looks like my back loses tightness right at the bottom, but I'm not sure, plus it feels pretty tight when I'm doing it.

I've worked really hard on stopping the knees going forward halfway down and keeping them out. I realised that caving knees at the start of the ascent was causing the bar to go forward of mid-foot. Also I felt some tightness in my groin right at the bottom, but I hope this is just regular adductor tightness from keeping the knees out.

Set 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtf0dswME0
Set 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIvXgMaT3_A
Set 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te7mYThSwzw

[PackMule]

Do you know how to actively flex your lumbar spine? Looks like you have no tightness in your lower back in the bottom. Need to keep that tight throughout the squat.

Your depth is questionable on some of these. Try bringing your stance closer by about an inch, not too much, and then you'll have to get your knees out more to get them out of the way.

[Dastardly]

Im sure your technique used to be much better than that, what happened?

You need to start at the beginning and get a solid bar grip. Really pull those shoulders & elbows back (with chest up) to brace yourself strongly against the bar. This alone will fix a lot of this "looseness"

When you have a solid lock on the bar, really tighten your low back like jmoye has described, and keep it tight as you lower yourself into the squat. Make sure to push knees out, and as Rip would say "point your dick at the ground" this will help your hips sink between your legs, and keep your hips tilted the right way also so your back does not round.

[spencerd]

Cheers guys, yeah I remember you reinforcing the tight back to me Dastardly, and I thought I'd got it right, but I've probably become a bit lazy with my elbows and upper back since. I'll try to follow what you have both suggested and post up again after my sets tomorrow.

[spencerd]

This was harder than I thought, and I'm still not sure I really "get" it. I was losing the tension in my hamstrings halfway down so I'll try to work on that at bodyweight over the weekend. It looks like the third set was the worst and if I force my chest up then the tightness is better. But I don't want to end up too vertical either.

Set 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crioJj1jyXQ
Set 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hzUq5TrTS0
Set 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_bgZEUTZtI

[PackMule]

Man you're thinking way too much. All this is is sitting down and standing back up.

Some things you need to do: Stand up straight at the beginning of each rep. Your feet are too wide. Not getting depth. Trying to keep your torso vertical. And you could probably benefit from using the block of wood.

Your best bet would be to get some in person coaching.

[spencerd]

Cheers man, I really appreciate the feedback. I recorded another set today, trying to keep the upper back nice n tight, and I moved my feet in about an inch either side. But tbh, it just looks the exact same as the first set! I read an old thread where Rip said that using less weight may hinder how tight your can get your back, so today I used 100kg. But I still flopped around.

Set 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJRlVPJ_mJY

I'll look into getting some coaching because this is really breaking my balls.

[osv2]

But I still flopped around.

If you feel the moment when your spine begins rounding on the way down, the solution is simple: use squat as the stretch for the squat. Get empty bar and squat till the point you start to loose your spine extension. Do set of 5 to this level. Add weight and do sets of 5 (to this level) until you feel the speed out of the hole begins to decrease. From now, do your workouts with this weight, not raising it, sitting down only to the point right before your spine would start to round, but try really hard to keep it extended yet get lower and lower. As you seem to misunderstand "chest up" cue, try to think "show your nipples" instead. In fact you should almost feel cramp in you upper back if you do it right. And do "knees out" (or "show your dick" if you wish) really hard as well in those bottom position. Once you are able to squat to parallel, start to raise the weight, but never allow yourself a rep with rounding back.

[spencerd]

So I've looked at a few threads with similar issues, and watched a couple of Mark's videos about bar placement and lower back cues. I found that I wasn't really feeling my back in the right place before I don't think, also I really tried to focus on a tight upper back thus more "chest up" and leant forward a bit more. I narrowed my stance and pointed my toes out a bit further.
Today's goal was to try to maintain the back even if it resulted in a high squat.

Today's set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5mihEstuNo&t=21

So from this, I think my back is much tighter than before, although I'm hyper-extending at the top in order to cue it, I'll try to work on this. I lack depth and my knees aren't being set early enough but I think that if I work on the lower back over the next couple of weeks that I'll be able to stay tighter deeper and fix the knees from there.

[osv2]

It's better control indeed. However, you still start rounding your back higher than you squat. At the very end of 0:25 second you are at the lowest point where you didn't bend yet. Try to stop a few times in those position, really remember the feeling in your spine there, then strive to keep this feeling when you try to go lower on every rep.

You are not that far from parallel, keep improving!