Lower Back Proprioception

[METAL VIPER]

I've been really working hard on nailing my squat form down since I received my pair of lifting shoes for Christmas. I'm concerned about my depth. I've had 2 friends and my girlfriend watch my form and say that I'm hitting depth, but I still don't feel confident with the consistency. I can of course go lower, but when I'm descending, I can't for the life of me tell when my lower back goes into flexion. I'm sure that if I am not actually hitting depth, continuing the squat will eventually stretch me out; I'm just worried about my lower back going into flexion and losing hip drive. Before I descend, I just think about keeping my chest up, my lower back extended, and getting a stretch in the hamstrings; basically, I just think about the weight being right on my sacrum and maintaining the same back angle as lockout. Anyone have any tips on maintaining extension in the lower back or should I just stretch the fuck out of my hamstrings?

[Mr.City]

In Starting Strength, there's a section in the squat chapter about cue to keep the lower back locked. I believe he has you lay on the floor and raise your legs and arms without bending your knees.

[Dastardly]

The advice in starting strength seems to be to keep squatting, with your knees pushed out to enable a good stretch rebound. Depth should gradually improve.

I just realised that for my past few months of squatting I had been prioritising depth over lower back tightness. I think this was a big mistake and am going to make a big deload and follow the advice in the book.

You should film yourself regularly to check your form (things such as lower back tightness)

A parallel squat looks something like this:


The key being, that the crease on your hip/thigh is below your knee.

From what I have gathered from reading SS, the purpose of getting good depth is to achieve a good balance of tension/rebound at the bottom of the squat. If your hamstrings are short/tight, this may occur before hitting parallel. (more experienced folks please correct me if Im wrong, as Im learning this myself) Forcing yourself to go beyond this depth would cause hips to tuck/tilt and hamstring tension/hip drive will be killed as well asplacing lower back in vulnerable position.

[Force Production]

If you have already been stretching your hamstrings a lot and it's not helping, you need to stretch another muscle, probably the psoas muscles, that helped a lot for me.

[nisora33]

If you have already been stretching your hamstrings a lot and it's not helping, you need to stretch another muscle, probably the psoas muscles, that helped a lot for me.

Uh, brother, I think you're misunderstanding the function of the psoas muscle and what effect its being tight would have on the low back, actually (hint: look at the muscle's line of action and then think about it in terms of gravity and which way IT acts).

[Force Production]

Uh, brother, I think you're misunderstanding the function of the psoas muscle and what effect its being tight would have on the low back, actually (hint: look at the muscle's line of action and then think about it in terms of gravity and which way IT acts).

Mm, yeah, I guess you are right. I thought it would pull on the lower spine and thus affect the pelvis, but it inserts too high in the spine to have that effect.

[nisora33]

Mm, yeah, I guess you are right. I thought it would pull on the lower spine and thus affect the pelvis, but it inserts too high in the spine to have that effect.

The psoas is primarily a hip flexor. There is no active hip flexion going on as you descend into a squat. Furthermore, psoas tightness would be mitigated at the bottom of the squat by the fact that you're bringing its origin and insertion points closer to one another as you squat down.

-S.