Squat check

[williamlexcrawford]

I keep second guessing my squat stance, especially because I've had some knee trouble lately. Any thoughts on improvements?

side:
http://youtu.be/7Thhc7V0_TU
http://youtu.be/w-2UDzZpNV4

rear quarter:
http://youtu.be/PgBY7NwA-mI

[JT in MD]

Might be a little wide.. hard to tell. Also, your wrists bother me.. flatten them out so that you can be sure the elbows aren't supporting the weight.

[williamlexcrawford]

Yeah, for whatever reason I went back to a different hand position other than what's in SS. I guess one of these videos was just during when I did that for a week or two. I was pretty happy with my squat until I stalled a bit and felt like I was not getting as much glute activation as I thought I should with the narrower stance. I came to the conclusion that some activation drills and just putting more thought into the movement while I'm doing it makes more sense than trying to reinvent the wheel. Today I narrowed up my stance a bit and things felt pretty good. We'll see when I go back to something heavier on Tuesday if I was getting a lot out spring out of my hips when they were wound up tighter with the wider stance. Hopefully I'll still be on track.

[sking1001]

Something you should consider examining is that when you are coming out of the hole, your hips are quite obviously driving back instead of straight up. It's much more egregious at 320 than 260.

I wish they wouldn't put mirrors in front of squat racks. Try looking at the molding at the bottom of that yellow wall instead...see if it helps with hip drive. I wonder if the backward driving of your hips is causing some knee issues.

[Marotta]

Heels are coming up, stance could be narrower.

[williamlexcrawford]

Here are my squats from today, with a narrower stance and working a little harder to keep my head down to maintain my hip drive. The first two looked pretty good I thought, but the last two you see my hips shoot back on those. Is that the cause of my hips shooting back, loss of hip drive on the way up?

325x4
http://youtu.be/-BJQQ6YlNAs

[sking1001]

Looks better. I'm working on the same problem is why I noticed. Hips shooting back is loss of hip drive.

[williamlexcrawford]

Good to know, I'll keep at it. Thanks!

On a side note, I think the narrower stance is helping my knee, also rolling a lacrosse ball right above the knee along with the couch stretch from this video damn near cured the pain I was experiencing overnight. I'm obviously going to keep working on it, but the immediate results were amazing. I wrote Kelly and told him he was like Jesus, but more awesome.

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/runners-legs.html

[Gunnhild Bruno]

Your depth looks questionable. Knees OUT. This should also help with the hips shooting back--remember that you’re supposed to keep knees out, HARD, from the moment you start descending until you’re well out of the hole.

[williamlexcrawford]

Yeah, I think I've gotten in the bad habit of looking in that mirror and I'll correct my knees if they drift in, but I'm not doing a good job of keeping them out hard continuously. Now that I'm getting my head back under control I'll work on keeping my knees out hard from start to finish on Friday.