I always squat low bar and wide, but tried high bar shoulder width today and love that i can drive out of hole fast.
Please critique my form, I am thinking of switching to high bar.
Kind of iffy camera angle, but looks like you hit depth (just barely).
It seems like you are still squatting with your old style. Looks like you are trying to push your hips out and distribute the weight across horizontally, like a wide stance low bar. Get IN the hole and push the weight up with your gutes/legs.
Experiment a lot and listen to your body!
- You’re jerking into your squat, which causes you to have to decelerate all that extra force you’ve created.
- I can’t really see the bar position, but you’re low bar squatting it either way.
- That little frog bouncing you do as you walk it back into the rack to make 365 cause a bar to bend may feel cool, but trust me, it isn’t.
I’d stick to the low bar.
Also this squat is high.
[quote]Alexkennedy3000 wrote:
- You’re jerking into your squat, which causes you to have to decelerate all that extra force you’ve created.
- I can’t really see the bar position, but you’re low bar squatting it either way.
- That little frog bouncing you do as you walk it back into the rack to make 365 cause a bar to bend may feel cool, but trust me, it isn’t.
I’d stick to the low bar.[/quote]
Thanks for the critiques. Ya its not exactly high bar, but my torso is definitely more vertical and my shins are coming more forward than my typical wide squat.
Whatever you would classify this squat as, I got more speed out of the bottom than usual.
Agree on the frog thing, hate using that rack to squat, you have to walk out too far. When i use the cage, I can take 2 steps and im set.
**Please elaborate, what is the jerking youre talking about?
AlexKennedy3000 already stated this, but your hip hinge doesn’t go below your knee so the rep would probably get red lighted. The other main thing I saw was that you appear to be looking down. Try to really puff your chest out and up to work on engaging your lats and keeping your back straight.
Good speed though, keep up the hard work.
Depth looks good to me honestly.
I think people are being a little too critical. I think the squat looks pretty good, moved fast and easy, was deep enough, your positions were good, etc.
The one thing I would say, is that personally with high bar I like to hit rock bottom, because I find I get more out of the stretch reflex and rebound out of the hole than I do from “reversing momentum,” as someone already said, at parallel. So perhaps play around with that. But honestly, your squat reminds me of eric lillibridges. He is fast into the hole, and stops at paralell, and he squats over 900 sooo I think you can be sucessful with this style haha. Just be careful not to keep calling it higher and higher to get PR’s
[quote]N.K. wrote:
Depth looks good to me honestly.
I think people are being a little too critical. I think the squat looks pretty good, moved fast and easy, was deep enough, your positions were good, etc.
The one thing I would say, is that personally with high bar I like to hit rock bottom, because I find I get more out of the stretch reflex and rebound out of the hole than I do from “reversing momentum,” as someone already said, at parallel. So perhaps play around with that. But honestly, your squat reminds me of eric lillibridges. He is fast into the hole, and stops at paralell, and he squats over 900 sooo I think you can be sucessful with this style haha. Just be careful not to keep calling it higher and higher to get PR’s
[/quote]
Its funny you say that, Eric was running through my head as I went for this.
Kept telling myself “stay upright, reverse weight early”
The problem with me and deeper squatting is we just dont mix. I have a similar build to Pete Rubish with long femurs, and youll notice that when he squats, he squats DEEP, but look at his position out of the whole. He is ALWAYS rounded over.
Congrats on the PR! I clicked on this thread because I hit the exact same PR on Monday, lol. I’ve actually squatted high bar until a couple months ago when I switched to low bar for the first time. Previous PR was 345. I agree with what NK said about high bar in terms of depth. I always used to feel much more comfortable going extra deep. Starting the turnaround just past parallel was difficult for me.
[quote]mg3 wrote:
[quote]Alexkennedy3000 wrote:
- You’re jerking into your squat, which causes you to have to decelerate all that extra force you’ve created.
- I can’t really see the bar position, but you’re low bar squatting it either way.
- That little frog bouncing you do as you walk it back into the rack to make 365 cause a bar to bend may feel cool, but trust me, it isn’t.
I’d stick to the low bar.[/quote]
Thanks for the critiques. Ya its not exactly high bar, but my torso is definitely more vertical and my shins are coming more forward than my typical wide squat.
Whatever you would classify this squat as, I got more speed out of the bottom than usual.
Agree on the frog thing, hate using that rack to squat, you have to walk out too far. When i use the cage, I can take 2 steps and im set.
**Please elaborate, what is the jerking youre talking about?
[/quote]
You hear the plates slam into the bar once you begin you descent? It’s an artifact of you dropping so fast that the plates make contact with the bottom, then move back to the top of the barbell sleeve. When you drop that fast you have to slow yourself down as you continue your descent. Thus creating a problem that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Really skilled squatters can get away with this. It also means you have to “loosen up” to move that fast. That’s why your bar path moves forward during your descent. Had you gone any deeper we would have most likely watched you round your lumbar, because the bar would have been too forward of your center of mass. Tighten up, and don’t initiate your squat with such a violent jerk. You’re strong enough to get to below parallel too, so get there. I’m not saying to ATG the thing, but this is an above parallel squat. You really might want to go back to a low bar though.
As you ascend from the bottom, your hips start going back which means your back is taking over. By the time your in the bottom position, you hips should be as far back as they’re going to be and only go forward from there. So you need to do one of two things. Sit back more on the descent, or keep your hips more forward when going up. If you choose the latter maybe try focusing on pushing your hips and knees forward as you go up with the weight.
Also, what may help is if you stay tighter in the hole. And your depth might need to be a little lower. It’s borderline. And no bouncy bouncy on the way back to the rack.
[quote]Alexkennedy3000 wrote:
You hear the plates slam into the bar once you begin you descent? It’s an artifact of you dropping so fast that the plates make contact with the bottom, then move back to the top of the barbell sleeve. When you drop that fast you have to slow yourself down as you continue your descent. Thus creating a problem that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Really skilled squatters can get away with this. It also means you have to “loosen up” to move that fast. That’s why your bar path moves forward during your descent. Had you gone any deeper we would have most likely watched you round your lumbar, because the bar would have been too forward of your center of mass. Tighten up, and don’t initiate your squat with such a violent jerk. You’re strong enough to get to below parallel too, so get there. I’m not saying to ATG the thing, but this is an above parallel squat. You really might want to go back to a low bar though.
[/quote]
Everything makes sense. Ill descend a bit slower next time.
No harm in messing around with this higher bar placement, my body will adapt, and ill figure out a better foot placement. This was the first time in months that i tried anything not wide.
When I squat wide (my feet are literally at the ends on the rack), I get no drive out of the bottom. I have to pull a Ben Rice and sorta lean forward so my hips can rise first and catch that groove, then easily finish the lift.
Deadlift day tomorrow with 3x8 squats as accessory. Will post up some squat work and see if I can make the descent smoother.