Squat Check

[Carper Seateck]

Hi Mark,
I'd appreciate your comments on my squat videos. This is 200 lbs at 5'11''/190 lbs. My critiques: I'm slow, I don't have a good bounce, my upper back seems a little hunched, perhaps my knees are moving forward on the way up (not at the bottom), and I'm 100% looking at the mirror in front of me. Advice for these things?

I only really have two complaints about what the squat is doing to me. I've been having a sciatica-like pain (or what I imagine sciatica feels like) on my right side, focused on the right low back (the dimple area in the back). I want to exercise it away, but it's not going away. Contracting my lower back muscles causes it to hurt on command, otherwise it's a constant dull ache. Sometimes bending over then standing erect hurts it.

Second, I don't think my bar placement or upper-back tightness is correct, because the bar is painfully digging into my left shoulder, giving me a scab-type thing on the left side. I think the bar is under the spine of the scapula because the bar makes a mark there that I can inspect later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l8iR...ature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrNKY...ature=youtu.be

Thank you for your books and time.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Your stance is too wide, there is no use of rebound, and you're apparently looking at yourself in the mirror while only squatting 200 pounds.