Fixing the squat

[trick_ster]

I've been doing SS since last May and squats and deadlifts have been progressing well until about a month ago. Squats got really hard in the 285-300 range, I'd get quad/hip flexor inflammation once in a while and I'd develop a tightness in the hip joint/SI area on the right. So, after getting a shoddy 300 I decided to deload.

That didn't help. I still kept getting the tightness on the right and things were still getting inflamed. So, I decided to focus on my form. Here are the results:



How does that look? To me, it still seems to be in line with what's described in the book. I feel much more stable on the bottom, I don't get any inflammation and the tightness only comes back if I don't pay attention but ...

1. I'm not sure if my knees travel too far forward. I'm focusing on shoving them out as far as I can and keeping the bar over the mid foot, leaving the rest to do what it will. This is the result.
2. Is my depth ok? It looks like I'm squatting deeper than necessary but it's the only way I found I can judge depth consistently and with shins at a more acute angle (than I used to use) it's hard for me to say.
3. I've always had a tendency to "lose tension" on the right hand side: the knee would travel forward, the shoulder would drop. This combined with more sitting than in the summer is what I suspect started SI problems. My fix to the slump forward has been to consciously keep my right hip/knee further back than it wants to and lead more with the right shoulder. Sometimes that seem to look exaggerated.
4. Do you think the bar is too high? After I made the changes described in #1, some reps were finished with a good morning. This was happening way less in this session than when I started (last Friday) and seems to disappear if I remember to keep my chest up, so I think I'm the right track.
5. My wrist placement looks worse than it felt. I realize it wasn't the focus of the recordings but you can see it at the bottom during the first set and in the mirror on the last one I can manage to get tighter but it requires conscious effort which sometimes is not there.

[Tom Campitelli]

Widen your stance slightly. Lean over a little more on the way down. Go more slowly on your descent. I would bet that your hip and back pain are probably a result of letting go, going to fast, and getting a little loose at the bottom. I cannot really comment about your wrists or bar placement from the videos you posted.