flexibility issues? (2 problems.=)

[logged101]

So I finally convinced my friend to start the program and yesterday was his first day. Hes 6ft 160lbs.

So after I showed him the proper stance/form for the squats, he went for the try and we encountered a problem. With only the bar and even without it, he could not even get to parallel. This guy had great form and all but could just not go low enough. How can we fix that?

Because of this problem, when we went to try the deadlifts, in the initial stance. His arms could not reach the bar without his back breaking form since he could not go low enough to grab it. Because of this he could not go 5 reps without stopping in between each rep and reposition himself.

What can we do Mark? Thanks in advance.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Stretch out his hamstrings and make sure his stance is correct, i.e. toes out but heels not too wide.

[Iron Ego]

Just throwing in my $0.02. I find its actually easier to hit parallel on the squat with weight on the bar due to the weight actually helping to stretch the hamstring. I think this is also where the "rebound" at the bottom of the squat comes from, although I could be mistaken.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Absolutely. We had a guy at the seminar this weekend that was unable to keep an extended lumbar with the empty bar. By the time we had him up to work set weight, he was fine. Happens all the time.