6’2” weight 153.5 eating 2800 greyskull + 1 cardio day + 30 ish hours standing at work or walking a bit. 6-7 hours of sleep. hello guys currently i find it extremeeeely hard to progress on low bar squat and cant find why. this is 180 and almost, if not, breaking parallel. need major help
Squats look fine to me buddy. You could work on making your walkout more efficient and getting tighter/staying tight overall, but that’s true for most squatters. I’m definitely not seeing any glaring problems with how you’re moving.
How long have you been stuck at a 180 work set on this greyskull program you’re running?
How long have you been at 153 on the scale?
What are you trying to accomplish with lifting?
After poking around your other threads I see you were 160 in February. Tall, skinny guys who are dieting down aren’t going to be progressing very fast on the squat, generally speaking. You should still answer the three questions I asked and you might get some good advice.
yeah this wont help.
Pretty underweight for your height, eat more and try get 8 hours sleep.
Could also move on to a 5x5 like madcow/Bill Starr template
hey mate! well in greyskull i was stuck at 180-185 for 8 months after deloads.
153 for a month or so.
getting stronger
how do i sleep 8 when naturally i wake up 6-7 and csnt go back to sleep
also i thought standing doesnt burn a lot of cals?
No mysteries here pal. You need to eat more.
On top of that, I’d like to add that you look like you’re working hard on that set while still keeping good form. Nice work. You’re lifting is not holding you back at all. Now go eat an entire steak.
eggactly what im going to eat after work. steak and sweet potato
Good. Now don’t lie to yourself about progress if you’re serious about making it. You need to drive your scale weight upward by consuming more food than you have been, at least 500 calories per day more. One or two pounds a week. Start by trying to get back up to 160 and watch your lifts go up nicely.
If you are at 153 a month from now and your work set is 190, well, don’t kid yourself that you’ve gotten any stronger or added muscle.
Again, you look like you know how to push a set. That’s an important part of the process and you’re doing it well, at least in that video. More sleep is good but 7 hours isn’t bad. JUST EAT MORE.
thanks a lot mate! you got me pumped! hardest part is eating healthy and feeling full haha
mistakes i see is mainly your upper back area and head.
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stop looking forward, look down on the floor 5 to 10 feet in front of you
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your upper back needs to be rounded when doing low bar squats, almost like you’re trying to get your chin and collar bone to touch
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looking at your arms it does not look like your lats are activated at all. your elbows needs to point at the same direction as your torso angle and think about try pulling it into you while trying to bend the bar around you diagonally downwards using your palms.
Hi there @squishpunch. It seems you’ve created your T-Nation forum account specifically do dispense advice. There’s nothing wrong with that per-se, but I’d be very curious to see some video of your squats.
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This cue is straight out of Starting Strength, but plenty of people low bar squat with their heads forward, or even pointing somewhat upwards. It’s not a mistake if you’re squatting productively and safely.
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone trying to deliberately round their upper back during a squat before, and how are you supposed to do #1 while also doing #2? Again, video of a squat work set of yours might be helpful in understanding this concept.
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How can you detect a lack of lat activation by looking at his arms in this video? Isn’t the function of the lats in the squat to stabilize the spine, which again puts us at odds with point #2, where you advise that the upper spine should be rounded for some reason? My elbows have never been able to arrange themselves at the same angle as my spine, and I’ve been doing low bar squats with work sets ranging between 405 and 495 for years now.
Again, some video of your squats would be tremendously helpful if we are to understand these concepts. I think the OP’s squats look totally fine, albeit not perfect. That’s okay though, my squats aren’t perfect either.
Anyone serious about the squat is going to have a foundation of safe and productive movement that they build on and figure out how to improve on their own. It is my opinion that the OP has a perfectly fine base of movement, and figuring out how to make his upper back round or trying to make his squats look the way someone on the internet says they should would probably not be a good use of his training capital.
Again, some video where you can illustrate this concept would be tremendously helpful. I’d be happy to learn something new.
Doesn’t @T3hPwnisher purposely round his upper back on squats? I thought I had heard him mention that before, at least with the SSB.
SSB yeah. I pull the handles down hard on it. Helps with deadlifts and strongman stuff, not great carryover to squatting proper.
But for barbell squats, I don’t intentionally round my upper back.
I’m not sure you have a choice with a SSB, but since @T3hPwnisher is a better squatter than me, I’d gladly defer to his recommendation. I’ve only done maybe 20 good SSB workouts in my life, never going heavier than 425.
I’m speaking of my experience with low bar squatting.
The angle of the camber and how you treat the handles plays a role. If you push up and it’s angled like the elitefts one, you can pretty much have the same squatting position as you would with a competition squat. A straight on angle, like the NYBB SSB and handles pulled down will fold you over.
For this topic, the Rippetoe low bar squat always looks weird as hell to me, but the, in turn, the internet says my low bar squat form causes cancer, so at this point I tend to stay out of the squat form game.
Oh I agree with you on the whole, I personally can’t imagine rounding my upper back on a squat. Actually, I really can’t imagine it, as in I don’t exactly understand how you would be able to do it and still hold the bar in position… Maybe with way better shoulder flexibility than I have its possible, but man it sounds awful.
Only used a SSB once in my life at a gym when traveling. Loved it, wish I had one.
I used an EliteFTS bar, which has a good camber on it that more or less lines up with bar placement on a front squat if you aren’t fiddling with the handles. To be honest that piece of equipment is the main reason I’m considering re-upping my membership at the powerlifting club I used to lift at. It is it’s own animal in my opinion, and one I kinda miss.
That’s why I stopped worrying about how a low bar squat looks. Mine have always felt great, even though I could probably post a form check video and get someone to crawl out of the woodwork to advise me that I need to change this or that.
Hence my opinion of the OP’s squats. They look fine. If something was hurting him I’m sure he would have had the presence of mind to mention it. He didn’t so I think OP should keep busting ass on his squats.
But again, If @squishpunch has some insight to share, I’d be glad to hear it and especially glad to see how he’s squatting.
I suppose one of the advantages, for me at least, of low-bar squatting is that it let’s you keep a flat spine since you’re putting the weight lower on your back. There’s just nothing that’s pulling down on your upper spine when the weight is sitting that far down on your back.
The SSB literally pulls your neck down, like you’re at a Metallica concert with a really thick and busty gal sitting on your shoulders and leaning forward to get her Marlboros out of her bra, all while you’re squatting up and down. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It pulls forward even more if you’ve got a forward-lean movement pattern from years of low-bar squatting.
I’ve done a set of shrugs or two but I don’t think anything I’ve ever done has worked my traps like SSB squats. I should probably post a form check vid so someone can come along and tell me how I’m going to maim myself with my awful SSB form.
Man you should sell that quote to Elite Fts