Hip drive vs. good morning?

[baronfebdasch]

Just squatted today at 235x5. The past few workouts I've been noticing that my lower back starts killing after finishing a set. It seems like it's definitely a muscle pain and after some rest and Aleve it usually goes away.

I've been focusing on getting some hip drive with my squats; but somewhere in the process I think I'm ending up doing heavy set good mornings instead.

With each rep I've been focusing heavily on picking my ass up from the bottom of my squats. I don't have video but it feels like in driving with my hips, my hips raise faster than my chest or at the same rate. That results in my back still maintaining the same or similar angle as from the bottom of the squat when I come up, which then forces me to use my lower back muscles to complete the motion and stand up straight.

Where is the balance between hip drive and using your back to stand straight near the end of coming up on the squat?

[Gary Gibson]

Just squatted today at 235x5. The past few workouts I've been noticing that my lower back starts killing after finishing a set. It seems like it's definitely a muscle pain and after some rest and Aleve it usually goes away.

I've been focusing on getting some hip drive with my squats; but somewhere in the process I think I'm ending up doing heavy set good mornings instead.

With each rep I've been focusing heavily on picking my ass up from the bottom of my squats. I don't have video but it feels like in driving with my hips, my hips raise faster than my chest or at the same rate. That results in my back still maintaining the same or similar angle as from the bottom of the squat when I come up, which then forces me to use my lower back muscles to complete the motion and stand up straight.

Where is the balance between hip drive and using your back to stand straight near the end of coming up on the squat?

This is something I've struggled with myself. It matters more to me than the necessity of "evil" in the universe. Blowdpanis and I have had a few exchanges about it too.

You can go to my youtube page (link in my signature) and see how I used to come up with a pretty flat back out of the bottom and how I've altered that over the last few months so my squats are prettier. Part of the problem was losing tightness at the bottom and losing back angle at the bottom when I tried to catch the hamstring bounce. So part of what's helped has been making sure my back angle STAYS THE SAME when I hit bottom. I drive up with my butt, but my back angle then only changes a tiny bit.

Powerlifters look up and drive their traps into the bar. Rip points out that driving with the traps works, but so will staying tight into the bottom. Driving with the traps can cause the chest to rise faster than the hips, thus letting the knees go forward and killing hamstring tension. The trap drive sometimes comes in handy when the weight is really fucking heavy, however. Also I find myself looking up a bit like most powerlifters do when the weight gets really heavy in order to avoid getting too bent over (which is very likely to happen when the weight approaches my limits). I like to think I nailed a good combo of hip drive and trap drive in my last meet (my latest video on my Youtube page).

Anyway, make sure you're not losing the back angle when you hit the bottom. This is what tends to exacerbate the tiny bit of back angle loss that tends to come with hip drive.

[Gary Gibson]

Clarification:

You're going to lose a tiny bit of back angle with proper hip drive, but it won't look like a good morning if you stay tight and keep a good back angle at the very bottom of the descent.

If you don't stay tight when you hit the bottom and stretch your hamstrings, then the weight of the bar will continue to drive your torso flat after your hips have reached depth. This flattening only gets worse when you drive with your hips. You turn the movement into a good morning.

Make sure the bar stops when your hips break parallel by staying tight, that is to say making sure your glutes and hamstrings don't let your back go flat because of the momentum of the descending bar.

Don't know if that message was clear amidst my other rambling.

[baronfebdasch]

That makes a lot of sense. I'll try to take a video or have a third party check as I'm going down but I think my trying to go deeper is resulting in compromising back angle. I think because giving up that angle at the bottom feels like I'm going deeper.

That's great advice Gary now I'm looking forward to my next squat day instead of dreading the back pain.

We'll see how well my body responds to knowing what I have to do.