Squat check

[Stvn]

Hi coaches,

I would be grateful for some feedback om my squat.

I'm still in my LP and I recently started doing a deload squat session on Wednesday. But I still don't manage to progress 2 times a week due to form issues. Frustrating, because I know that I have a good bit of LP left in me: from time to time I feel the hip drive and the weight goes up without problems. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to recreate that feeling very often.

I was hoping that you could give me a pointer of two on how to improve. As always, many thanks in advance for this!

Background:
I'm 31, 6'4" and weigh 209 lbs, up from 190 lbs

The video is my first set @ 281 lbs (I only got 3 reps on 2th and 3th set)



Things I notice:
- Rep 1: knees shoot back (same with reps hereafter)
- Rep 2: I let my chest drop, killing hip drive
- Rep 3: Even more chest dropping + I start to look up when coming out of the hole -> rep is way harder to finish than it should have been
- Rep 4: I'm a tad high + chest drops, making back angle too small + something weird going on with my grip
- Rep 5: Too high + grip shenanigans + chest drops

[Tom Campitelli]

You are one long-legged dude. Stop trying to arch your back so much. It is making everything harder than it needs to be. Stay neutral. Point your chest at the ground. Keep your chin down. With your proportions (long legs, short torso), you are going to be fairly horizontal at the bottom. Embrace this because it is your lot in life. Once you get out of overextension, it will be easier for you to get depth, too. You generally need to go an inch or so deeper on those. Descend a little faster. Ceasing to overextend will help that, too. Chin down on the way up. Drive your butt up.

[Stvn]

Thanks for the tips, Tom! I wasn't aware that I'm overextending my back and that I'm too high in general.
This is gonna take some rewiring on my part I'll try to incorporate your tips this evening.

One quick question though: when I focus on driving my butt up, I tend to tilt. My back angle gets more horizontal and the bars moves forward of the midfoot, creating a longer moment arm than necessary. Do you happen to have a cue that I can keep in mind so I stop doing this? Or will the not overextending clear this up too?

Thanks for your time in any case!

[Tom Campitelli]

This is the Zen koan of the squat, to misappropriate a religious concept. You want to drive your hips up while keeping the bar over the midfoot. This means that you need to think of the bar in a slot over the plane of balance as you ascend. This is the "master cue" in the book. Think of driving up, not forward. Your chest needs to come up with you, but you don't want it to lead.

[Stvn]

So, I've deloaded from 127,5 kg to 105 kg, in a effort to incorporate your remarks. I've gone up 5 kg every training since in an effort to not detrain too much. This is my third set with 120 kg. Do you see any improvement?

In any case, it made me realize that I need a lot more feedback on my technique. If my contract gets extended next year, I'm going to start with SS online coaching.

[Tom Campitelli]

Reps three through five were great. Do that on all of them.

[Stvn]

Thanks, Tom!