Squat form check

[ChiPpA]

Hey everyone,

6'1" 255, 39 years old. I started lifting about a year ago for the first time since high school. Equal parts life and silly bullshit/bad decisions have kept me on an LP every few months. Trying to do it right this time and run it out. This is the end of week four, five pound jumps from 225 to this third set at 280.

I think I'm hitting depth on these with no room to spare though. I missed the note in the sticky about not wearing black so I hope that's not a deal breaker. I did tuck in my shirt to try to give a good view of the hip. I have trouble distinguishing the point where hip drive out of the bottom crosses the line into a good morning, especially on the last couple reps.

It may be hard to see in the video, but I feel like I have some back rounding in the middle of my back. This is also apparent when I deadlift, so I'm not sure if this is "normal" for me or if I'm not bracing hard enough.

I've had some general right elbow soreness all summer (strangely enough it seemed to coincide with running my weed eater; not sure if that's causation or correlation, but that definitely fires it up). It has never been specifically triggered by squats, but I mention it here in case there are any grip issues. On these reps I did move my grip in, with index finger on inner knurl mark instead of outer mark.

I can see that my gaze is an issue...I think I look where I'm supposed to, but video shows I must be accomplishing that with eye movement instead of a neutral cervical spine.

Sorry for my wordiness...trying to be as self sufficient as possible on noticing problem areas. Thanks in advance for all feedback.

[Ryan Arnold]

The bar needs to be lower on your back. Just below the spine of the scapula. Yes you need to look down - 3-5 feet in front of you and keep your eyes there. If this is a home gym I would just remove that mirror

[BruceTrout]

A thing you might want to do is try and get the camera in a better spot. Really just needs lowered to about waist height and turned to the right a bit more than here.

Depth with no room to spare? If this means you’re just breaking the threshold for proper depth, good. That’s all you need.

A good morning is quite a bit different but I think I get your point. Hip drive occurs from the bottom—obviously—and by that point your back angle should be maintained. These don’t look like good morning, it probably just feels a bit like that while under the bar. I think Ryan is correct, you want the bar down a bit further. Hard to say based on the video, but maybe 1/2-1.25”. That’s going to make your back angle more horizontal so you’ll really want to make sure you stay in the hips and drive from there.