Cue question on squat: hips vs knees

[andj1]

Hi.

I realize that this might just be me overthinking the issue and a dumb question, but I had a question about getting proper squat form. When I first started squatting, I was mainly relying on the idea of driving the hips first, which worked out well at the start of my progression. As the weights got heavier, I noticed that my right hip/external rotator muscles were weaker than my left, causing an imbalanced shift to the right coming up from the squat. After posting on this forum, the advice I got was to just go back down to a manageable weight and try to force both knees out hard to even this out.

Squatting now, I feel like I am putting all my effort into forcing my knees out (almost screwing my feet into the ground). I no longer feel nearly the tightness that I felt at the bottom of the squat when I was using the "hips up" cue at the start of the program. Is there some balance to how much of each plane of motion I should focus on, i.e. rotating my knees out vs pushing my hips up?

[Michael Wolf]

First to clarify: I'm familiar with the cue "screw your feet into the ground," and it may have it's place if other more common cues for knees out don't work and this resonates with the trainee. But there's a reason you don't see it used around here in form checks by SS coaches. Knees out really comes from the external rotation and abduction of the hip; we find most people can get it just by thinking about shoving their knees out, but if that doesn't work for some reason, thinking about the hip - the place where the joint action that shoves the knees out actually takes place - is the logical next place to turn, before saying "screw your feet into the floor" which is a fairly vague thing to cue.

That said, it sounds like you may be misunderstanding "driving the hips first." That's what you do to get out of the bottom of the squat; that's NOT how you get into the squat. Knees and hips should break together, at the same time, at the start of the descent. And if you're having trouble getting your knees out properly, thinking "Knees out first" might help.

But you can think "knees out" at the top and "hips up" at the bottom and they're not at all mutually exclusive. Unless I'm misunderstanding your post.

[andj1]

I did already know that moving the hips first referred to the bottom of the squat. My personal problem is that while I am doing this movement (at heavier loads), my right hip tends to shoot to the right while I am going up. After posting on these forums, the conclusion I came to was that my right hip was weaker than my left hip, causing my right quads to take more of the load. I don't have a problem keeping my knees out going into the squat, just when coming out of the bottom. I hope that makes more sense now.

For reference, here is the same video I used to post a form check a few weeks ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ6s...ature=youtu.be

[Michael Wolf]

I'm not really sure what your question is? If it's whether you should be thinking "knees out!" or "hips up!" the answer is yes.

Do you have a more recent video (preferably shot from several feet further back)?