Should I improve my squat form before increasing weights?

[melan]

Hi everyone. Long time reader, first time poster. I started Starting Strength again recently after falling off the wagon during summer. I'm in my 6th week now and progress has been fairly strong so far. I recently decided to start recording my own lifts because I wanted to make sure I was doing them right and I noticed some problems with my squat form. I decided to take a day to squat lighter last week so that I could do more sets and work on my form but I'm still not really happy with how I did, especially when I used a program to trace my bar path. I uploaded a video of this below:



I notice my bar path isn't straight vertical, it tends to go forward when it goes down and backwards when I come back up. It's particularly pronounced on the low warm-up sets, but I guess it's less important there. On the higher weights I have a tendency to push forward a little as I come back up out of the lift.

I've had these problems for a few workouts in a row now and I don't really know how to fix them. I still haven't failed a set but I've gotten to a point where I'm worried I might because I'm thinking about my form so much when I'm under the bar. Is this form enough of a problem that I should stop until I get it right or should I keep incrementing the weights as normal anyway? Note that I haven't felt off-balance on any of this yet and I haven't injured myself either. I'm just worried I might later on.

I'll be doing a workout today again so I'll post some update videos if anyone is able to help me. I went back and read the squat chapter in the book and watched a bunch of videos on the squat by Rip and Alan Thrall so I'll see if any of that helped me.

[Jeff Illingworth]

You are too upright. You need to get bent over and use your knees less. You also look like you're holding the bar wrong, but I can't tell. Can you get a video shot from the rear 45 degree angle and with the camera at hip height?

[melan]

I actually looked at that one earlier today. I'll try and put it into practice, but the difference between the good squat and the bad one is quite subtle. Is there anything you recommend I use as a cue to make sure I'm not staying upright? I'm definitely not up because I think I need to be, it's just how I naturally tend to squat, I'm actually trying to work against it. I'll also work on my hand position because I think you're right, I might have my wrists bent a little too much where they should be more on top of the bar.

[Jeff Illingworth]

Set up a tubow. When you squat, break at the knees and hips at the same time. Immediately get your chest aimed at the ground. Get your knees to the tubow by the time you're halfway down and then keep them exactly there until you are halfway back up. This will make the rest of it fall in place.