I’m usually on the site to read the articles and occasionally lurk in the forums so I don’t post very often, but I missed a 500 pound squat yesterday and was looking for some feedback.
The video is below. I don’t see anything technically glaring and maybe I simply wasn’t strong enough that day, but I’m no expert and there could definitely be something I’m missing.
I have a competition in a month and this is the first time I’ve missed a squat rep since 425 quite a while ago, so I want to make sure I have everything dialed in prior to competition.
I recently failed a competition squat in approximately the same way. I was told that my glutes were lagging and I was advised to work on close stance squats, which I am now doing. Since you’re going to compete in a month it’s probably not a good idea to radically alter your technique or program. You could try incorporating some T-spine exercises into your routine (Bret Contreras wrote an article about this on this site). This would help you from folding over as you come out of the hole.
You have two weeks of hard training and then presumably a taper for the meet. I went too hard in the weeks leading up to the meet and then didn’t do enough the week before. So it goes.
On the way up, when you pass paralel you start driving your pelvis forvard(0:09 in the first video, 0.14 in the second), instead of maintaining straight back. That way you lift more with quads and back. Stay tight and drive with hams/glutes to lockout. Can’t see your stance too well, but you might wanna try squatting narrower this meet.
Your biggest problem was you let your upper back get loose and you collapsed forward which made you get out of alignment and you missed the rep. You need to push back into the bar, pull the elbows under hard, force upper back to stay tight, and I personally suggest looking up a little more. Not at the roof but if my head is angled down at all luke you are I have a very hard time maintaining position.
Papa Bear, I hadn’t really noticed my pelvis moving forward. My quads are pretty strong so that must be why I’ve developed that movement pattern. Maybe I need to do more posterior chain work along with practicing that movement pattern. My stance is fairly wide for squatting raw, but I was able to move more weight when I widened my stance so I’ve stayed with it. I’ve only squatted with one stance for the last year so it probably wouldn’t hurt to play around with it a bit.
Reed, good suggestions. I may have been a little soft.
Alrightmiama, I’ve tried low bar and high bar but I’ve had more success with the bar higher on my back. It’s possible I wasn’t doing it right, but I didn’t have much success with a lower bar position.
I would agree with what has been said, your head looks very flat. You are really tight then seem to lose it on the way up as you start to look straight ahead instead of up which keeps your back tighter.
Other than that. I don’t think you were anywhere near as ‘aggressive’ with the missed squat as you were with the one you nailed. You can’t see the setup or start but it doesn’t look like you ‘knew’ you were going to make the lift if you get me.
Hey man, for the most part your form looks fine, I’d call it a question of execution.
As you get to the hole you really slow down and get almost tentative when you should probably be at your most aggressive to get a good bounce out of the bottom. Learn to bounce/rebound with more confidence and I bet your squat will start going up a fair bit.
I think you could bring your glutes into the lift a little more as someone else said. Things that helped me with that is using a safety squat bar, if you have one available. Dimmel deadlifts after days i squat, and wide stance squatting. Pretty strong lifting though keep it up.
[quote]Leg Ripper Offer wrote:
Thanks for the input.
Papa Bear, I hadn’t really noticed my pelvis moving forward. My quads are pretty strong so that must be why I’ve developed that movement pattern. Maybe I need to do more posterior chain work along with practicing that movement pattern. My stance is fairly wide for squatting raw, but I was able to move more weight when I widened my stance so I’ve stayed with it. I’ve only squatted with one stance for the last year so it probably wouldn’t hurt to play around with it a bit.
Reed, good suggestions. I may have been a little soft.
Alrightmiama, I’ve tried low bar and high bar but I’ve had more success with the bar higher on my back. It’s possible I wasn’t doing it right, but I didn’t have much success with a lower bar position.
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I’d say stay with the wide stance foe the long run. I’m just suggesting to try a bit narrower stance for this meet, so you could use your strong quads a bit more, just because it will be difficult to fix muscular weakness in a month.
besides the technical and glute or ham strengths how is your peaking cycle? How many have you done before an actual meet? Many PLs have a miss or hit approach to peaking and get really confused when it’s a miss and try to change things 180 while all they needed to do was change a little with a better understanding…you hear alot about how someone tripled a certain weight 2-3 weeks before a meet but could only do that weight for a single…and then you have those opposites who can really jack up the weight and always have Prs during the meet. It’s a complex subject, the art of peaking.
[quote]Papa Bear wrote:
I’d say stay with the wide stance foe the long run. I’m just suggesting to try a bit narrower stance for this meet, so you could use your strong quads a bit more, just because it will be difficult to fix muscular weakness in a month.
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I couldn’t disagree more with this statement, it’s almost never a good idea to change your form a month before a competition IMO
I’m not comfortable changing my stance three weeks out from a meet. It feels like a bad idea to make significant technical changes right as I’m priming to compete. I think this competition I need to focus on staying tight and attacking the lifts with aggression and after the meet I can take a step back and see if I should make technical adjustments.
I made the lift when it counted on the platform. Stayed tight, attacked the lift, and stayed fully committed. It felt good and I think I had more in the tank. Thanks for the input everyone.
[quote]Leg Ripper Offer wrote:
I made the lift when it counted on the platform. Stayed tight, attacked the lift, and stayed fully committed. It felt good and I think I had more in the tank. Thanks for the input everyone.
Awesome; you crushed it. How did you peak for the meet?
[quote]Leg Ripper Offer wrote:
I made the lift when it counted on the platform. Stayed tight, attacked the lift, and stayed fully committed. It felt good and I think I had more in the tank. Thanks for the input everyone.
Awesome; you crushed it. How did you peak for the meet?[/quote]
Thanks. 500 has been a big goal of mine.
To peak I started reducing volume on my main lifts and accessory lifts about 3-4 weeks out. Depending on how I was feeling on any particular day I cut out accessory lifts entirely, but even on the days I was feeling strong I didn’t push them hard. Three weeks out I worked up to just beyond my deadlift opener. Two weeks out I did low rep moderate weight deads and worked up to my openers on squat and bench with very low overall volume using singles only.
On Monday and Tuesday leading up to the meet on Saturday I did maybe 3-4 working reps up to about 80% on squat and bench respectively then didn’t touch a barbell the rest of the week. I’ve found that by significantly reducing my volume I can still hit some reasonably heavy weights leading up to the meet while still being fully recovered and ready to compete.