squat form check

[pgl]

YouTube

Here is my 285 x 5 squat. I have made good progress lately, but I suffer from knee soreness following heavy lifts. I am 24 yo and 6'4" 215 lb.

[Pete Troupos]

Hey Peter

Need something more specific than "knee soreness". Refer to the sticky for injury/ache issues.

These look pretty good except that you're on your heels most of the time. Watch your feet. You rock back and forth between each rep. Stop that. Get midfoot and stay there.

[pgl]

Pete, thank you for the critique. I will work on mid-foot.

The knee soreness is in my front lower knees, the area slightly below the kneecap. It does not hurt between lifts, but I start to feel pain in this area during my last warmup set, then by the time I am halfway through my second work set it is unbearable, to the point where if I bench that day it is hard to build an arch. Most of the time the pain goes away in less than 30 min after I squat, but something more like soreness persists. I began to experience this around the time I was attempting squats of 300 lbs.

[Pete Troupos]

I am not a doctor and this is not a diagnosis, but it sounds similar to patellar tendonitis. Not setting the knees could be the cause or at least a contributing factor. I'm wondering if you've taught yourself to squat on your heels to avoid the pain. The issue is that under a heavy enough barbell, you're going to rock forward to midfoot at some point whether you want to or not.
I'd check out the rehab sub-forum and see if you can find something similar that will give you an idea of how to deal with it. Or create a new post there.
The way that I've addressed it with clients is with box squats, progressively lowered over time, done at a tempo to focus on the eccentric portion.