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Thread: Help me analyze my squat video

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2018
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    Default Help me analyze my squat video

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    OK - I'm really trying to get my squat form right, and I'm coaching myself. Any help would be appreciated. I don't have any sense of where my body parts are while doing a squat, so I need to learn how to analyze my own video.

    The video here has three sets, and is annotated with what I think I did right/wrong. My questions are basically where should I be looking, and what should I be looking for....

    A few notes:
    - I know my wrists are wrong. I've decided to take care of that later.
    - The bunjee is a depth sensor. It also means I don't have safety bars, so I'm not pushing any weight that I have any chance of failing.
    - The video contains three sets. The first is goblet squats to help me stretch out and see what I'm doing. The second is my "best" warmup set, and the last is my workset (actually, my only workset, I ran out of time and couldn't do 3 sets)
    - I need to slow down and think between reps about what I'm going to do.
    - I'm using the very useful block of wood. I very rarely touch it, and it never fell down.

    I seem to be having trouble with depth, my back is curved in the goblet squats but seems to improve later, my hip drive is very iffy - I think I have it once in awhile, but mostly not.

    Please let me know if you think my assessments are right, or how I should be looking at my videos differently. I have a lot more video to comb through.... Any help is appreciated.


  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Hello Adam (again - just posted something in you other thread)

    My impression is that the goblet squat is badly executed, and it sets you on the wrong path straight from the off.
    Given where the weight is, a goblet squat is far more similar to a front Squat then to a Back Squat. You are effectively back squatting the goblet. You try to mimic the action of a back squat, but the weight in front forces you to compensate in some radical ways; your knees are too far back, your back is hunched forward and you are exaggerating the sitting back, because if you sat back as it's normal for a back squat, the weight in your hands would topple you forward.

    If I were you, I would either ditch the goblet, or learn to do it properly, and accept that it's just a way to warm up your joints, but NOT a way to train the movement you are actually trying to do.

    I would also video myself without the bar, just assuming the position that it's in the book, pressing palms together, elbows pushing knees away. You need to be able to get that, and it should take one hour of attempts, tops, before you move on. It should also help you getting the stance right, as your current one seems a bit narrow.

    As a left-field suggestion, you might want to spend a couple of sessions doing some front squats; they will help you getting familiar with the feeling of keeping a straight, tight upper back, and the feeling of diving deep in the while keeping the lower back in a naturally extended position. Also, you'll learn to recognise the proper depth, which will alow you to ditch the bungee string and use the safety bars on your rack.
    Fronts won't teach you how to back squat, but it might be easier to learn how to keep you back tight while doing them.

    Once you get the basics right, returning to your current work weight should take very little time.

    Hope this helps,

    IPB

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2018
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    Carmel, IN
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    Quote Originally Posted by IlPrincipeBrutto View Post
    Hello Adam (again - just posted something in you other thread)

    My impression is that the goblet squat is badly executed, and it sets you on the wrong path straight from the off.
    Given where the weight is, a goblet squat is far more similar to a front Squat then to a Back Squat. You are effectively back squatting the goblet. You try to mimic the action of a back squat, but the weight in front forces you to compensate in some radical ways; your knees are too far back, your back is hunched forward and you are exaggerating the sitting back, because if you sat back as it's normal for a back squat, the weight in your hands would topple you forward.

    If I were you, I would either ditch the goblet, or learn to do it properly, and accept that it's just a way to warm up your joints, but NOT a way to train the movement you are actually trying to do.

    I would also video myself without the bar, just assuming the position that it's in the book, pressing palms together, elbows pushing knees away. You need to be able to get that, and it should take one hour of attempts, tops, before you move on. It should also help you getting the stance right, as your current one seems a bit narrow.

    As a left-field suggestion, you might want to spend a couple of sessions doing some front squats; they will help you getting familiar with the feeling of keeping a straight, tight upper back, and the feeling of diving deep in the while keeping the lower back in a naturally extended position. Also, you'll learn to recognise the proper depth, which will alow you to ditch the bungee string and use the safety bars on your rack.
    Fronts won't teach you how to back squat, but it might be easier to learn how to keep you back tight while doing them.

    Once you get the basics right, returning to your current work weight should take very little time.

    Hope this helps,

    IPB
    Thank you.

    I'll ditch the goblets - I screwed them up and they weren't helpful. There was a couple of sets of unweighted squats with stretches before that, like you suggested - I just didn't include them in the film. Not having a lot of luck with the stretch - it seems trying to push my knees out doesn't get me much more than a centimeter, I'm just inflexible I guess...

    My stance was actually wider at the start - I brought them in because I thought they were too wide (the goblets were at original width).

    My big problem is that I still can't distinguish good from bad. I can't "feel" caving knees, and I can't "see" what caving knees look like, or any other issue. That makes it hard to improve.

    -->Adam

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