I say try a shoe with a heel. My squats felt 10x better when I gave up adamantly believing chucks where the only way to squat. I know not everyone feels this way but unless you are required to use a flat shoe or are in an event that requires you to use specific equipment then use whatever will allow you to best perform the lifts you want to perform.
For me, I always had a lot of lower back strain despite spending an unbelievable amount of time videoing myself, stretching, practicing form, mobility drills, etc to make squatting in my chucks feel ok. It was very useful for me to switch to a shoe with a heel, though YMMV.
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He clearly has plenty of ankle mobility, and no issue whatsoever hitting depth. Given the amount of forward knee travel already shown, In my opinion heeled oly shoes would be the last thing he needs.
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Didn’t read any of this thread, but I’m 6’3 with moderately long legs. I’ll just tell you what worked for me, and you can pick and choose what you want.
1st, I started squatting with 25s under my heel, to fake the mobility.
2nd, went to low bar squat. Position feels much more natural to me, I’ll tack that up to being tall.
3rd, widened my stance. About shoulder width or so, with focus on keeping my knees going out.
4th, did A LOT of squats, and A LOT of paused squats until it just drove home.
As for general tips… make cues. Take your time getting set up, wedge the bar as deep as you can stand under your back, tense up until your lats hurt, pull the bar through your back with your arms. Dont be ashamed to use a belt until you can really train your bracing without it…
To this day squats are the one lift I feel like I need 2-3 sets to relearn every week, so I might actually start doing them twice a week just to drive home the motor pattern.
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