I have tried to squat low bar for 3 months, can only quay with knee break.

[Joe Pears]

Hey Mark I have been trying to squat for 3 months now using the low bar set up. I have had private coaching for a few sessions and simply lack the ability to squat in a low bar position and I can only squat at all by breaking at the knees, otherwise I just fall over.

I have done mobility work and have had coaching from a strongman/powerlifter and still could not do a squat breaking at the hips.

He asked me one time to try putting the bar up high with elbows underneath and break at the knees by driving them forward and outwards and opening up the hips.

I hit 200 pounds for a triple which might not sound like a lot but using a low bar approach I can not squat at all unless I do half squats.

Have you ever known people who just could not squat low bar breaking at the hips?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have known lots of people who could not squat correctly by themselves, and who got a coach that could not help, and who subsequently decided that he couldn't squat. Buy the DVD.

[BigDave]

[Rip, feel free to delete this comment if there are a bunch more like it coming in at the same time. I have a feeling I will be part of a cascade but..]

OP, the SS model doesn't require or even want you to break at the hips. the knees and hips break simultaneously at the top. If you didn't know this, you haven't really read the book/the forum and it's no wonder you're having trouble. My guess is that your 'coach' had you try to squat with hips way back and no forward knee travel whatsoever, which is woefully inefficient for a raw lifter. (Re?)read the book, get the DVD, or better yet, find a competent coach (SS directory). It takes a different skillset than a lot of 'coaches' have to teach the movement to a novice lifter.

[Brian Jones]

Hey Mark I have been trying to squat for 3 months now using the low bar set up. I have had private coaching for a few sessions and simply lack the ability to squat in a low bar position and I can only squat at all by breaking at the knees, otherwise I just fall over.

I have done mobility work and have had coaching from a strongman/powerlifter and still could not do a squat breaking at the hips.

He asked me one time to try putting the bar up high with elbows underneath and break at the knees by driving them forward and outwards and opening up the hips.

I hit 200 pounds for a triple which might not sound like a lot but using a low bar approach I can not squat at all unless I do half squats.

Have you ever known people who just could not squat low bar breaking at the hips?

Joe Pears - I guarantee you can do it if done correctly. Throw the "I can't stuff" out the window - that will just get in the way because you will make it way more than what it is. You would have to be one Old, Fat, and Crippled S.O. B. to be worse off than where I was when I started and I was able to stumble ass-backwards into a good squat. Throw out everything before you posted here earlier - Buy the DVD. If you can't get there right now, watch the Techniques section posts, look at the Resources section of the website here, google & You Tube Rip, Squat., whatever. I can't even hit depth until I have close to 200lbs on the bar - but once I get loaded - watch out brother. You can do the same. Have at it . . .

[Joe Pears]

No I don't mean hip break as in the geared powerlifting stance but just as a cue, when I break at the knee it is pretty much simultaneous to my hip movement. The difference being that my ass shoots down rather than back and down. And Rip its not like I had a globe gym instructor The guy in question represented a country in olympic lifting and in recent years has been competing as a strongman and powerlifter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVKEl4Wxoqc

For example in this video you push the ass backwards and then drive the hips up, but I just can not drive my ass backwards like that without falling over or it feeling so unnatural that I can not squat more that 60kg. Also I have the second edition of the book and have as mentioned had coaching for the lift but no matter what I do I am stronger and feel more stable using a high bar squat and going down to where my ass nearly touches my heels.

In the book near the end you do say that substitutions for the low bar can be made in favour of the high bar for elderly people and people without the shoulder mobility etc so I am guessing you would still think it better for a novice to do starting strength with a high bar squat than to do another program?

Also I read your article on pulling in heeled shoes, I have the power perfects which have a .75 heel, would you advocate pulling in a shoe which that much of an arch or to use a lower shoe like a rogue one only?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Joe: $10,000 says I can have you squatting correctly in 15 minutes. That's enough to pay for your plane fare to WF if I'm wrong.

[Mark E. Hurling]

With respect here, you are using a lot of words that lead me to believe you are way overthinking this. Get under the bar while it's in the rack, then push the bar forward so it wedges against the upright immovably and push yourself under that bar just a little more. Then follow the instruction cues for gaze, head and neck position and it all falls into place.

[Gunnhild Bruno]

Joe, you haven't even posted a form check on here. It's entirely possible that, despite the lofty qualifications you say your coach has, he does not know our analysis and model and is therefore unsurprisingly shitty at coaching it. Before you start saying "can't", try getting useful help (a trip to WFAC, in person coaching with an SS coach, or at least help by posting a form check on this website) first. I bet every Starting Strength coach has had multiple experiences with people who swear up and down that they can't squat without falling over, who have tales of woe involving months and months of useless isolation exercises and stretches to fix "imbalances" or muscles that supposedly "aren't firing"... who basically just needed one session of live coaching to get into a perfectly serviceable Starting Strength model squat. It's frequently a five-minute fix, since healthy people who can't squat without falling over often need just one cue: "Lean over". You really haven't done anything resembling due diligence to justify the belief that you can't low bar squat.

[Aleksandr28]

Take Rip up on his offer. What do you have to lose?

And do you know how silly it sounds to say that you can't "break at the hips" when squatting? Stop and think about that for a second. If you stood straight up and then ONLY bent at the knees? You'd fall over onto your back. Try it.

Now try this: stand in front of a chair and sit down into it. Pay attention to your body as you do it. You'll find the answers.

[Brodie Butland]

Hey Mark I have been trying to squat for 3 months now using the low bar set up. I have had private coaching for a few sessions and simply lack the ability to squat in a low bar position and I can only squat at all by breaking at the knees, otherwise I just fall over.

I have done mobility work and have had coaching from a strongman/powerlifter and still could not do a squat breaking at the hips.

He asked me one time to try putting the bar up high with elbows underneath and break at the knees by driving them forward and outwards and opening up the hips.

I hit 200 pounds for a triple which might not sound like a lot but using a low bar approach I can not squat at all unless I do half squats.

Have you ever known people who just could not squat low bar breaking at the hips?

I'm really not trying to be a smart-ass here, but how do you sit on a toilet without breaking your hips and sitting back? If you sit on a pot like a normal human being, you should be able to do a low-bar squat.

Look up a SS coach or, failing that, post a video in the technique section. I won't buy the "I can't" until I see it for myself...I've seen too many people miraculously perform a passable, below-parallel squat after claiming an inability to to take it at face value. Including my 65-year-old mother with an arthritic hip.