Squat help

[storm1507]

OK guys I hit a PR on squats today and seemed to Good Morning the wt up.

What's my weakness and what do I need to work on?

Sorry for the basic question, but I've never really pushed this hard on squats.

[ricka182]

I do the same with heavier squats.. I try to keep my chin up, shoulders back and tight, and heels down solid. I also squat barefoot to minimize the cushion. It might feel comfortable, but it's lifting your heel off the ground 1", which would push you more forward, especially on heavy weights.


I'm sure some the heavier squatters will chime in shortly..

[storm1507]

Originally Posted by ricka182

I do the same with heavier squats.. I try to keep my chin up, shoulders back and tight, and heels down solid. I also squat barefoot to minimize the cushion. It might feel comfortable, but it's lifting your heel off the ground 1", which would push you more forward, especially on heavy weights.


I'm sure some the heavier squatters will chime in shortly..

Thanks. I squat/dead heavy in my socks.

I go through all the keep the chest up, lead with my hips, etc. etc in my mind, but when it gets tough my body just does what it wants to do. Well, what is HAS to do is more accurate.

[Bodybygamma]

Could be a lot of factors. I am pressed for time right now so review this see if there is anything helpful. http://muscleandbrawn.com/forums/beg...how-squat.html

Do you have any videos of your squat? If so pm me with a link and I will check it out for you and fix you up. If not time to get some up. Hope this was some help.

[BendtheBar]

You could be sinking with your knees in a bit instead of opening your knees slightly and dropping your gut (invisible gut) between them.

Another possibility is head. You might start looking down, or moving your head down when coming from the hole. Lead with the head and hips. The body will follow the head, so even if you are raising your hips out of the hole as you should be, if you move your head down just slightly you will start to good morning.

I would look first at opening the knees slightly as you descend, and focus on lifting that head with your hips out of the hole. The body always follows the head. Small head changes greatly impact squats and deads.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

You could be sinking with your knees in a bit instead of opening your knees slightly and dropping your gut (invisible gut) between them.

Another possibility is head. You might start looking down, or moving your head down when coming from the hole. Lead with the head and hips. The body will follow the head, so even if you are raising your hips out of the hole as you should be, if you move your head down just slightly you will start to good morning.

I would look first at opening the knees slightly as you descend, and focus on lifting that head with your hips out of the hole. The body always follows the head. Small head changes greatly impact squats and deads.

+1 on the first paragraph. When people start hitting heavier weights on squats, they seem to start using the mindset of moving the bar down and up, instead of moving the body the correct way and taking the weight along for the ride. When this happens you'll start to get bent over. I start my squats by moving my knees out and letting my butt go straight down. Moving my knees out gives me room to stick my stomach between my knees at the bottom (I go atg). I use a low bar hold, and it FEELS as if the angle of my back never changes as I go down and up. It actually does, but it doesn't feel like it. I focus especially on the wide knees when I do a power lifting, wide stance squat. Remember, the less you bend over at the hips, the less you have to move the bar to reach parallel.

Another issue can come in if you go down with good positions, but start back up by straightening your knees without moving the bar. This shifts all that weight onto your back as your butt sticks out. To keep from doing this, feel like your driving through the floor with your feet, and through the bar with your hips as you explode up.

Imagine a bar chained to the ground on each side, and you are trying to break the bolts holding it down. you wouldn't get underneath it by bending at the hips. You'd get under it by bending your knees so you could use every muscle in your body to push up on it.

[J_Byrd]

It would help a ton if you had a video I could see. Without seeing it, I would think that you are breaking with your knees first rather than the hips. The hips and but should be moving first then the knee. If the knee breaks first, then it will cause a natural lean.

[storm1507]

Here is a vid of my 270# 3 from last week in my basement gym. I didn't get as low as I would like. But, I'm a little nervous about hitting those small spotter arms if I fail.

YouTube - ‪CON-CRET creatine squats‬‏

YouTube - ‪CON-CRET creatine squats‬‏

Thanks for the help.

[BendtheBar]

Take a close look at the video. On most reps when you get close to the hole your knees are actually moving in. Second rep is really noticeable. This rep it happens a bit too. Sometimes they move in at the start of a rep.

Try to keep your knees out. Don't force them to go out in an exaggerated manner. Keep the feel natural, but try not to move them in.

Really focus on bringing the hips up from the hole. As I tell my wife, butt up, hips forward.

From Mark Rippetoe:

Coach Rippetoe calls attention to the role of the adductors in the squat. They lengthen in eccentric contraction as athletes squat down, and shorten in concentric contraction as athletes stand up. If the knees stay out, the adductors can be effectively stretched out, contributing to hip extension.

A very common fault occurs when athletes drop their knees in when they squat. They are not using their external rotators to keep their femurs in external rotation. They don’t get their adductors to contract and help with hip extension because the adductors never get stretched out into a position where they can contract.

[Carl1174]

It looks like as the set progresses and the legs are fatiguing you are starting to almost good morning the bar up, your butt is coming up too fast on the last two reps (last sets especially). Focus on pushing the knees out further to as they seem to be coming inwards and try to keep the back angle the same right through the rep.

looks good though mate, the first rep is solid looking (knees out a bit more) and depth is OK, perhaps a tad deeper, but it looks good.

One tip LtL has given me is to set the pins/safeties to just below parallel and practice getting down to it and resting the weight on the bar, like a negative. This will build the confidence to dump the weight if need be.

Hope this helps

Carl.