Glad to see you back in the gym and hitting the squats hard. Good work Frenchie.
Bree - I couldn’t find a vid that showed exactly but mine were alternating, hence I had 1 leg set up for the curling and the other one crossed over it.
aaaahhh. alles klar! merci!!
Frenchie: I’m always benching first to get my groove on too. Squatting first is hard core. I’m so glad you’ve found yourself a coach.
today’s homework: about 2 dozen wall squats. bleh.
here’s my first attempt
and here’s my last:
my knees are still traveling forward, not sitting back enough. some improvement. not as much as I would like.
Wall squats are a bitch, but I believe that they really have helped my squat.
Keep trying.
I will say that those wall squats are an interesting exercise. I could see them being very helpful for those who have knee cave or initiate squats by bending their knees and allowing them to travel too far forward. I guess I just never noticed that you had either of those problems in your vids.
Your house looks very clean. I live in a cesspool. Housecleaning is not one of my strengths.
Woo hoo to being back in the gym! That looked like a solid workout, tons of squatting! Sounds like you have a pretty awesome coach too. That external push is something that I miss when I’m training alone.
Ummm…is your coach CBear? 
^^ Ha! (I did, in fact, lol)
On the wall squats, the trick (for me) when doing squats without a bar on my back is finding the incredibly fine line between sitting back far enough to mimic the weighted movement and not falling over backwards. Dunno what that says about my mobility/levers/balance, but there it is. Here’s me doing some wall squats, for giggles. 
(what you don’t see are the several where I either had to hop backwards to catch myself, or just let myself fall over backwards. Good times)
The first is one of my first; the pause on the way down and the jerkiness are balance related (in my mind at least, laugh). The second is after berating myself for a bit and having loosened up some from repeated attempts/failures.
Whoops, let’s try that footage again.
Edit: Patience, grasshoppah, is the lesson for me tonight. Anyway the vid above is the later squat, this one is one of the earlier ones. Point is! These are annoying and therefore probably a good training tool. To be done at home, where nobody can see you fall backwards. 
I thought your chest looked more upright on the last rep. Are you allowed a slightly wider stance? If your knees can’t come forwards then you gotta put them somewhere to retain balance over your center of gravity…
[quote]alexus wrote:
I thought your chest looked more upright on the last rep. Are you allowed a slightly wider stance? If your knees can’t come forwards then you gotta put them somewhere to retain balance over your center of gravity…[/quote]
I would be surprised if these were good training for Oly lifting since Oly squats are narrow stance and the goal is to drop down between your legs rather than sit back. I can see a benefit for those learning wide-stance PL squats, though.
Veggie - how long before you got it?
Snap - yup, both knee cave and knee traveling. As for the cleanliness, we live in a small 800 square feet place and the 2 adults living there spend their days at work, not hard to clean up nor maintain. It takes me 1 to 2 hours every 2nd or 3 week to clean it up. The value of no kids I suppose.
Kristophe - you bastard. now I’m going to pout all day. Since you wanted to show off I’m asking you for a vid from farther away so I can see your feet stance
This AM: more wall squats - a solid dozen of them and this time with my toes right up against the wall. No vids cause I did them coming out of the shower before getting dressed for work. Problem with these is depth. I hit parrallel and then there’s no where to go and I lose my balance. merde.
You made me try wall squats and its pretty much a FAIL. The only way I can get any kind of depth is by taking a super-wide stance, which is far, far away from the slightly-wider-than-shoulder-width stance I take in my real-life squats.
Are you using your normal width stance for these?
I will have to work with this.
I love doing the wall squats with my normal PL squat stance. You’ll get to where they’re completely natural N. You’re on the right track, and only practice will get you there.
Keep it up, Frenchie!
I tried it and it felt fine…am I doing it wrong lol? took a vid just to see…
and most of the vids I see, the people are facing away from the wall…is facing toward for balance more?
[quote]mom-in-MD wrote:
I tried it and it felt fine…am I doing it wrong lol? took a vid just to see…
and most of the vids I see, the people are facing away from the wall…is facing toward for balance more?[/quote]
Facing the wall prevents your knees and upper body from going too far forward. If your knees drift forward, they hit the wall. If your upper body drifts forward or you buckle over, your face hits it. Teaches the “sit back” cue for squats.
Pas de probleme mon amie.
But, just like Kimba I have to use a stance that’s a bit wider than I normally squat with. I’ll play with the camera and see if I can get a foot shot. For what it’s worth I don’t feel like mine look any better than yours mechanically- if anything they’re more off-balance. I also get to cheat and use my beard to make it look like I’m closer to the wall than I actually am.
I was totally ‘not’ showing off, rather commiserating with you via video. nod
so no part of your body should touch the wall?