Form Check: First SQUATS since wrist surgery

[TheSloner]

About 3 months ago I suffered a distal radius fracture(fancy talk for broken wrist) and I had surgery to have a steel plate placed inside. I was in a cast for a month and a half and was unable to do any lifting during that time.

I recently started physical therapy and have started squatting again just this week. I worked up to 245 x 5 today and ended up doing 5 sets. I feel like I'm working out the rust from not lifting for so long and would like your opinion on these sets.

I videotaped set 4 and 5. I feel like they moved pretty well, I'm just worried about some of the reps seeming a bit high. Please point out anything that needs to be changed of fixed, as any advice or input is greatly appreciated. I'm here to to learn! Thanks

Set 4
YouTube

Set 5
YouTube

[David Geiger]

Your depth is fine. It's hard to tell from this angle, but it looks like your knees might be caving in at the same time your begin your ascent from the hole.

[TheSloner]

Yeah, they shift from outside my feet to directly in line with my toes. Is this something that needs to be changed and fixed? I never get any pain in my abductor or hip flexor area, so I assumed it was fine. Thanks for the reply!

[David Geiger]

Ideally, in the model of the lift, your knees will be in line with your toes for the duration of the rep, and not go outside or inside of that line. It's not just your groin, but also to prevent lateral stress on your knee (and everything inside your knee). In the real world, minor deviations from the model seem to affect some people in a negative fashion, and not affect others....

[Caleb Krieg]

Joseph!

Good on you for getting back under the bar.

You don't want to push your knees outside of your feet either. Like David said, knees should track directly inline with the foot the entire rep.

Also related to your knees... You're not getting them forward soon enough on the descent. You are breaking at the hips first, which forces the knees to play catch-up at the bottom of the squat.

Check out this cartoon Dr. Sullivan made:



Notice how the knees post in place in the first 1/3 of the descent and then stay in place the rest of the way to the bottom. This is what needs to happen. You should find it much easier to control your knee position side-to-side this way to.