On October 17 2013 03:25 farvacola wrote: Yes, when your knees want to extend over your toes like that it means that your hips and/or ankles are not mobile enough.
I'm thinking it's his hips, get the butt down at the start so you can set your lower back nice and flat
I think he should be standing closer to the bar, it looks like his toes are under it, but if the bar was brought above the middle of his foot then the shins wouldn't have to travel so far to touch the bar and he could sit back more so the weight would be shifted further back.
I don't think that will fix everything though, since it looks like flexibility is also an issue.
Also I think you should spend more time trying to get your back tight once your bent down in position, you spend a long time working on your feet and shin position, but once you've sorted that you just bend down and pick up the bar. Maybe spend a few more seconds making sure your back is tight and your hips are lower.
The squat felt decent on the last set, but I am still having trouble shoving my chest out and up. The video is my last set of squats (which for some reason, always looks/feels better than every other set...) but I'm finding it harder to get stronger for squatting. It's been really slow in terms of progress, maybe I should up my calorie intake? I'll spend a couple of days precisely counting my calories (probably starting next week so I can have a full week of my calories) so that I have an idea of what I should be doing to make more progress. I'm on my third week of starting strength and approaching my bodyweight for a squat. I weigh ~148-150 lbs, so my progress isn't absolutely abysmal, but it could be better. Going to keep taking it slow though and focus on the form.
As always, thanks for any tips and advice. I feel like my butt wink is slightly better in this video, but my chest is still an issue. It still feels heavy and I can't really shrug that feeling off when I'm squatting. In my second set my abs got really tired, so hopefully I will continue to make progress for stability and strength.
It's hard to tell from the angle, but from the movement of your body it looks like your bar position might be too high. And that's putting a larger amount of force on your core and also makes it harder to generate upward force since your weight is shifting away from your heels.
The weight should be resting on the spine of your scapula, which is a lot lower on your back than you may think is possible for the bar to be stable on. With a tight back and close grip it will be very secure though.
Eufouria, I'm doing high bar squats, not low bar squats. They are a different exercise. I'm well aware of the bar being able to sit on/below my shoulder blades, but that's not what I'm aiming to do.
On October 17 2013 03:52 FFGenerations wrote: video 2
Still looks like you are squatting dude. You need to focus on pushing your hips back not down. That's why I mentioned touching your toes. It looks like you keep pressing down on your knees to increase mobility somehow, but that just keeps shifting your shins out. Check out this video. I think it should help you clear up your deadlift.
On October 17 2013 07:43 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: Eufouria, I'm doing high bar squats, not low bar squats. They are a different exercise. I'm well aware of the bar being able to sit on/below my shoulder blades, but that's not what I'm aiming to do.
I think he's mentioning that because your squats look objectively terrible. It looks like you are doing a combo squat-goodmorning or some derivative. I wouldn't be surprised if you tweaked your back or neck doing that in the future.
On October 17 2013 07:43 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: Eufouria, I'm doing high bar squats, not low bar squats. They are a different exercise. I'm well aware of the bar being able to sit on/below my shoulder blades, but that's not what I'm aiming to do.
I think he's mentioning that because your squats look objectively terrible. It looks like you are doing a combo squat-goodmorning or some derivative. I wouldn't be surprised if you tweaked your back or neck doing that in the future.
I wouldn't even say it's terrible, it looks like it would be a decent low bar squat with correct bar position.
I'm no expert on high-bar, so someone like decafchicken's advice would be infinitely more valuable than mine, but the good oly lifters in my gym look very different when they squat high-bar. Their knees and legs point out less, their bodies are more upright and the don't use hip drive..
Out of interest why do you want to squat high bar? I'd say low-bar is better for pretty much anyone who doesn't do olympic lifting/
I'm no expert on high-bar, so someone like decafchicken's advice would be infinitely more valuable than mine, but the good oly lifters in my gym look very different when they squat high-bar. Their knees and legs point out less, their bodies are more upright and the don't use hip drive..
Decaf actually only advocates high bar squatting afaik. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he basically called low-bar squatting retarded and said that Rippetoe is the only one that currently advocates it and that in Europe it has never been a debate which one to use.
High bar is for real men, low bar is for little bitches :D
But you're collapsing near the top a bit. Stay upright, tense your abs and keep your thorax out a bit so you don't rape your back
Also, on my side, weighing in at 68.5kg, 151lbs
HIGH BAR squat, 3x115kg or 253.5lbs
This saturday is going to be singles day, i'm aiming for 265 lbs (120kg)
It's annoying, when i started all of this i weighed 58kg and my dream was to squat double BW (high bar). Well now i can squat double my OLD bodyweight for reps, but i've gained too much weight since haha
edit:
seriously, low bar is shite, i don't understand why you'd do it unless you specifically wanted to max out in powerlifting (which is fair, because you can put more weight on if you low bar)
Low bar has a lot more universal carry over to all the things you'd want your squat to do (if you want to jump higher for example) And yeah it's all starting strength's fault
@FFGeneration Not going to watch the 7 minutes, sorry. Maybe later when I'm done with studying for the night.
While I disagree somewhat on the above two saying you should deadlift with vertical shins (as I've said a thousand times, my DL looks like a clean pull, and it's just what works for me. Even though I have the mobility, anything else leads to injury) they're right (and you're also right) that you're not mobile enough. You're getting your lower back set, which is good, getting down and grabbing the bar and only losing some of the arch, which is OK, but then as soon as you start pulling it just all goes to shit and you're full on round back snap city.
You also bend forward just a little bit when you're extending at the knee, which leads to you having more pulling with the lower back to do at lockout. That's going to cause problems down the road. Lock that angle in, extend at the knee, then extend at the hip once the bar passes the knee. Back shouldn't come forward/down at the start of the movement.
Might want to try setting up differently. You're not tight at the bottom of the movement, and imo that's probably why you're rounding when you start to pull.
@mtl You're making great progress from your first form check vid imo. The jerkiness you see in the middle portion of your reps is a sign that you're actually taking the cues and advice you're getting here and trying to use them, it just doesn't look right because your body isn't used to it and isnt' strong in the right proportions just yet. Keep working on it.
things that might help: When I'm coming out of the bottom of a squat, instead of thinking "bar up" or "stand up" I think "hips forward." You're still taking the first quarter of the movement as "ass up then pull with lower back" before your body keys in to getting the hips underneath the rest of your structures and using that to bring you up.
Your stance still looks weird, but the foot angle is better. Try bringing your feet in a little bit - I'm sure that's farther than shoulder width apart. Other than that... yeah, it just looks like the weight is heavy for you. That will happen. Only way to get rid of that is to squat more. It may not feel like it, but you're making progress. Keep on going man.
@Decaf with it being 10pm, I'm sure you're already too drunk to give a damn about this, but happy birthday man!
Guys I don't know how I should feel about the biggest guy at my gym curling at the squat rack... Like this dude is a goddamn bear, and he curled at my precious squat rack. This world is so messed up.
Happy B-Day Decaf!
Mtl you really got to keep your core tight for the squat, but I'm guessing people may have already pointed that out. I do see the squat morning alternating here and there so I think you should be ok if you really keep in mind to keep your chest up. Try some extra core exercises, that's what helped me to achieve better form.
FFgenerations you gotta attack that bar like a man bro. I smell too much fear.
As for me I haven't been around the forums for a while... Spent a week away from the lifts because of that elbow injury, felt depressed. I'm back now with a deload. The rest may have sucked but I guess I really needed it. Even climbing back up to the working sets it was ridiculously easy.
On October 17 2013 13:00 Snuggles wrote: Guys I don't know how I should feel about the biggest guy at my gym curling at the squat rack... Like this dude is a goddamn bear, and he curled at my precious squat rack. This world is so messed up.
On October 17 2013 13:00 Snuggles wrote: Guys I don't know how I should feel about the biggest guy at my gym curling at the squat rack... Like this dude is a goddamn bear, and he curled at my precious squat rack. This world is so messed up.
The king of the gym gets to do what he wants.
Indeed. There's some humungus motherfuckers at my gym (short guys at 100kg with 5% bodyfat or lower) and they get to lug their bag around and make tons of noise as far as I'm concerned, lifting for 10 years and injecting gives you that privilege.
@Phyre - I actually readjusted my stance halfway through my 2nd set because I thought it was too narrow, lol. When I was reading Starting Strength it seemed like Rippetoe recommended a wider stance, but I guess that's for more powerlifting type movements. Kelly Starrett recommends a narrower position with feet pointed almost directly forward, right?
I'm not really sure of what the hips forward part means. Does that mean when I'm coming up I should think about pushing my hips forward or I should initiate the movement by pushing my hips forward?
@Snuggles - Maybe I'll add some L-Sit pull ups at the end of my workout since it'll help my hamstring flexibility and help me get better core strength. Leg lifts are really easy for me now. Hanging leg lifts are pretty easy for me too. If I was stronger I'd try learning how to do dragon flags, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to.