Hey I took some video of my squat and deadlift sets a few days ago just to make sure I’m doing things right.
I’ve been squatting for a while, but I switched off it after reaching a “heavy” plateau, with reps to failure getting down around 6-8. Now it’s a month or so later I guess, and I’ve started up lighter with higher reps, but the weight seems tough still. Hmm…
The good morning is a new movement for me basically, I just want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.
The squat looks pretty good to me, although you may find it helps you to push your hips back a little more before you start to lower yourself.
I may be way off here, but it looks like you’re going too low in the good morning. As weird as it may sound, don’t bend over. Push your hips back to descend, and push them forward to raise back up. The whole motion should be hip-controlled. When you bend over at the waist, you’re making your back do the brunt of the work, when it’s more productive and safer to maximally involve your glutes and hamstrings, which is the hip motion. When I do heavy good mornings, I really don’t go very far down at all. I push my hips back until I can’t lower any more without bending at the waist, and then stop, which usually ends up being about a 45 degree angle.
Squats look fine to me, but I’m not a very nitpicky person.
Only a couple small things I saw with your good mornings:
-Try to keep your head in line with your spine (don’t keep looking up when you bend over).
-I couldn’t tell if you were locking your knees or not, but if you were, then keep them unlocked (this will prevent hamstring pulls when you up the weight).
-Your stance also looked kind of narrow, but it was hard to tell from the camera angle. I think it is fine to do them with a medium stance, but I like a wide stance, because it works my glutes/hamstrings more and my spinal erectors less.
Wow, I expected to witness some terrible form and was looking forward to the flaming
I echo what rmccart1 said. The squat looks good, although on some reps it seemed like you weren’t 100% on your heels, but that could just be my imagination.
As for the good mornings, I would go slightly lower than what rmccart1 recommended, but not as low as you go. All that lower back movement you do is wasted and could be damaging. Also, don’t move up to heavier weights if you’re not in a squat rack with safety pins.
Yeah, I’m doing a lot reps in the squat because I’m “pyramiding” back up to a new 6-8 rep max. I think that’s a legitamate strategy. I’m doing a lot of reps in the good mornings because the weight is relatively light (60lbs) and I’m just trying to get the motion down. That said, the first time I did them with 50 lbs I was reeeally sore.
Squat is good but could be better. You should sit more between your legs by opening the hips, puffing the chest and tucking the elbows in and forward. Take a look at that, Dan John really opened my eyes about squat form.
As for as GM’s, put the bar lower on your traps, widen your stance a little and your form will improve greatly.
