Keeping elbows down and wrists flat during squat

[BlackSheepBoy]

Hi everyone,

I posted a couple weeks ago here about some finger numbness when I squatted. Thank you all for the advice, it's been really helpful. I took a week off squatting and spent the time stretching so that I could get a much narrower grip, and the numbness hasn't returned, luckily. Here's where my squat currently stands. I think my grip starts out good, but at the bottom my elbows drift up, putting my wrists into hyperextension. I'm not sure what's going on here. Am I just losing tightness? Is there any reason this might be happening or cue I can use to stop it?



Thanks a bunch,
BSB

[Justin Smale]

Take everything I say here with the appropriate sized grain of salt and when someone more skilled comes along listen to them. Buuuuut......

When you unrack the bar, your grip looks pretty good, but I think you go into extension with your wrists before you even descend (look at your left wrist at the 25 second mark). From there it progressively gets into a more extended position. I watched this a few times and I'm wondering how sure you are you're starting with the bar in the right spot. If you compare where it is at the 21 second mark with where it's sitting at the 49 second mark, it seems higher when you end your set. I'm guessing it's because the bar starts sliding down your back and you catch it in your hands to prevent it from falling, and try to push it back up into position and end up overshooting your mark (possibly because you weren't tight enought to begin with and that shelf is hard to get the bar to stay on). This would put a lot of strain on your elbows and if it's somewhat similar to what your form looked like before I don't think it's outlandish that it was causing your finger numbness. The fact that the plates are spinning also leads me to believe your hands are too involved with this moving the bar around to try to keep it in position.

How does your warmup look? What stretches do you do to get into position? Speaking from my own experience, if I don't stretch my shoulders out first using the Paul Horn stretch for a few minutes and during warmups then I can't get my elbows where I need them to be which makes keeping wrists neutral very hard. Does your grip feel uncomfortable? If it doesn't, you might be too wide even though you look pretty tight to your body compared to a lot of people. It shouldn't be painful, but from what I've seen most novices get told here, it should be slightly uncomfortable and if it isn't move a finger width further inside. The closer you can make your grip without pain, the easier it probably will be to get your back tight and make a better shelf for that bar to sit on. One cue that helped me was to think of your arms not as supporting columns for the weight, but clamps to push it horizontally into your back.

My unqualified two cents.

[Jeff LC]

i think it could be fixed by just letting the bar rest lower down on your palm (closer to your wrist), as opposed to the middle of your palm, then just let your fingers wrap around the top of the bar. Whenever i hold it in the middle of my palm my wrists bend, then i just slide my hands up just a little to get the bar on the bottom of my palm and that makes them straight.

[pd_oldguy]

Does the bar you are using have a center knurl? It looks like it doesn’t

[BlackSheepBoy]

Correct, no center knurl. I've started using chalk on my shirt, per Rip's suggestion, and it's been really helpful.

[BlackSheepBoy]

I think I fixed it! Thanks to everyone for the help. Chalking my shirt was a much bigger help than I expected, and Jeff's advice on holding the bar a little lower down on my palms kept my wrists flat. I think the next thing to work on is getting a more horizontal back angle, but let me know if any of you disagree or have advice about how to get that more horizontal back angle. Right now I'm not sure how to get there: it feels like I'm as horizontal as I can be without ruining my balance.



Thanks again,
BSB