Squats - made some, missed some

[strongpanda]

Hi guys,

Today I had my first experience of failing squats on my LP. F/28/135ish lb BW. All my other lifts are going strong with lots of gains in the tank, squats are the only ones that are getting very grindy. Bench - 92.5lb (+2.5lb/session), Press - 57lb (+1lb/session), Deads - 175lb (+5lb/session). Chins - 2@BW. 5 sets of 3 on everything except deads which are 3x3. Today is the completion of week 8.

I took a trip to SSC Kelli Nielson on day 1 of week 6 for some in-person form corrections. She suggested I switch my programming slightly. Still 3x a week, however Day A is Squat, Bench, Chins, and Day B is Press and Deads. I have been doing this since that meeting. Here is my log if you wish.

Here is a working squat set from today at 150lbs (+2.5lb/session) that I did not fail: Youtube

Here is a set that I did fail: youtube

Total reps for this weight today were 1,2,3,3,2.

Upon asking myself the first three questions, I would first say that perhaps I should increase my rest time between sets from 6 minutes to 8. I am eating a ton of food with a focus on protein, not restricting calories or carbs or any of the other silly things people do. I also get between 9-11 hours of sleep a night.

I'm confident I will be able to hit this next time I attempt it, but I am wondering if anyone has additional suggestions for me? Thanks for taking the time.

-Amanda

[Geoff Bischoff]

I'm not a guy to talk form, since mine needs massive work, but three things I saw:

1) You still appear to be squatting marginally high by this camera angle.

2) The rep you missed was still inching up when you set it down. Your grind is good, but I think your body had that rep, whereas your heart didn't (unless you felt injury coming on?). This is a problem I've been having with my squat lately, and I intend to crack down.

3) Looked like you had to come pretty deep into the hole to lay that rep down. You might want to set the safety bars a little higher, maybe a couple inches past competition depth, so that when you get a fail you've got less distance to travel under load.

Form stuff I'll leave for those who are good at it.

[JakeWasHere]

Keep driving the hips! It looks like you’re getting vertical and trying to bring your chest up on the way up. Karl Schudt has a great video on his Instagram showing what happens when you do this.

[Nikki Burman]

Hi Amanda!

Dang girl, these are heavy. Without taking a detailed look at your programming, if I took you on as an online client after watching these videos, for example- I would be having you do a reset to fix some form issues. You are just trying to get it up at this point, which is making it way harder on you. You currently aren't able to keep correct form at this weight. You are losing back tightness, knees need to go out more so you hit depth, and then you are raising your chest vs staying in your hips. Some reps you needed to sit back more as well but overall you did a decent job with this. Your focus would be keeping a "proud chest," knees out, and HIPS! Hips all the way through. Stay confident that your hips will drive you up.

[strongpanda]

Thank you Nikki! I really appreciate your advice! I will do the reset and work on these form issues.

And thank you Jake. It took me a minute to find that video, but once I did it really opened my eyes to how I was lifting my chest.