Hello, been at it with the stronglifts program for about month and half or so.
Squats have been confusing me. At my height I’m having a hard time finding a comfortable stance width, low bar or high bar and getting the right depth.
Right now I’m trying a sorta wide stance, but when I look at myself afterwards something just seems off.
Any advice or criticism on my form would be greatly appreciated.
Squats: https://youtu.be/se9VIejQ7iY
I think your squats looked pretty good. The bar path looked to be well-centered over your foot and you appeared to be in good control of the weight you were lifting. Depth was fine.
You could definitely get a little tighter overall. You could probably spread/screw the floor better.
But I believe you are doing much more right than wrong.
How did they feel to you? Did you have any pain besides DOMS?
Looks pretty good to me, you get good depth and dont really have any glaring flaws in your form. On a couple reps it looked like you had some “butt wink” but I couldnt tell if it was just the angle making it look that way.
Before you go stress too much about stance width and hand placement just focus on getting tight through your trunk and lats. Filling your abdomen with air like its a cylinder from the bottom. Have your hands on the bar and lats engaged the same way you would feel at the bottom of a lat pulldown.
On the EliteFTS site, look for Dave Tate’s Free Squat Manual. I suspect that if you added a few of his pointers and tips, your squat would improve dramatically.
I agree, there are more good things than bad things. What you do wrong on quite a few reps is you lose all tightness on your way down, the bar travels a bit forward and then you have to initiate your way up with a mini good morning. Try to maintain control on the way down and focus your eyes on something a bit higher than you currently do - sometimes it seems like you are looking at the ground, which is a good thing if you want to fall over forward.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I will work on the core tightness, I’m working on sucking air into the belly and just started trying to be concious on my neck.
I’m hitting the gym tomorrow morning and keep my focus on:
Core tight and neck position.
I was considering working low bar, cause I would like to target my glutes and hams more and I’ve read high bar is more quads.
[quote]Khost456 wrote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I will work on the core tightness, I’m working on sucking air into the belly and just started trying to be concious on my neck.
I’m hitting the gym tomorrow morning and keep my focus on:
Core tight and neck position.
I was considering working low bar, cause I would like to target my glutes and hams more and I’ve read high bar is more quads.[/quote]
If that your goal I suggest dropping the Oly shoes. Will also help you from tipping over so bad in the bottom on some of your reps. Just my opinion but, I am all for chucks lol I spent a lot of time working on ankle and hip mobility just so I didn’t have to keep wearing those ugly as oly shoes.
[quote]Reed wrote:
[quote]Khost456 wrote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I will work on the core tightness, I’m working on sucking air into the belly and just started trying to be concious on my neck.
I’m hitting the gym tomorrow morning and keep my focus on:
Core tight and neck position.
I was considering working low bar, cause I would like to target my glutes and hams more and I’ve read high bar is more quads.[/quote]
If that your goal I suggest dropping the Oly shoes. Will also help you from tipping over so bad in the bottom on some of your reps. Just my opinion but, I am all for chucks lol I spent a lot of time working on ankle and hip mobility just so I didn’t have to keep wearing those ugly as oly shoes.[/quote]
YOU TAKE THAT BACK ABOUT OLY SHOES!
They’re beautiful.
Decided on sticking to low bar, it just feels better for me, I feel more powerful coming up and the down motion also feels less awkward
Low bar was a real revelation for me. Once I switched to it my squat struggles (namely knee pain, back pain and mental uncertainty) evaporated in fairly short order.
You look pretty good. Nice bar path, way past parallel, good control of the weight. I have just one tip for you. It looks like you are already squatting when you close your mouth. Try getting your air before you begin your descent.
I get a big belly full of air and I try to push that air out of my whole chest cavity. Then I get tight. Then I commit to the squat. This works for me, YMMV.
There’s plenty of other stuff to know about squatting, but I think you will do just fine.
Keep at it!
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Low bar was a real revelation for me. Once I switched to it my squat struggles (namely knee pain, back pain and mental uncertainty) evaporated in fairly short order.
You look pretty good. Nice bar path, way past parallel, good control of the weight. I have just one tip for you. It looks like you are already squatting when you close your mouth. Try getting your air before you begin your descent.
I get a big belly full of air and I try to push that air out of my whole chest cavity. Then I get tight. Then I commit to the squat. This works for me, YMMV.
There’s plenty of other stuff to know about squatting, but I think you will do just fine.
Keep at it!
[/quote]
Thanks! Can’t wait till I’m pushing some real weight.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
[quote]Reed wrote:
[quote]Khost456 wrote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I will work on the core tightness, I’m working on sucking air into the belly and just started trying to be concious on my neck.
I’m hitting the gym tomorrow morning and keep my focus on:
Core tight and neck position.
I was considering working low bar, cause I would like to target my glutes and hams more and I’ve read high bar is more quads.[/quote]
If that your goal I suggest dropping the Oly shoes. Will also help you from tipping over so bad in the bottom on some of your reps. Just my opinion but, I am all for chucks lol I spent a lot of time working on ankle and hip mobility just so I didn’t have to keep wearing those ugly as oly shoes.[/quote]
YOU TAKE THAT BACK ABOUT OLY SHOES!
They’re beautiful.[/quote]
YOU CANT MAKE ME
Saw this on my timeline today and thought I’d share, Duffin is a great coach and explains things very well. Long video but theres definitely alot to takeaway from it
For core tightness, you could try the agile 8 or something similar for mobility/warm up. DeFranco Agile 8
I do the following variation to activate the glutes and core w/ 8-12 reps each… only takes a few minutes
glute bridges
individual leg raises (90 degrees)
lying torso twists (gets the obliques fired up and stretches the IT bands)
scorpions
bird dogs
fire hydrants
mountain climbers
groiners
hold the squat, twist, reaching as high as possible
sometimes I’ll throw in some quick side planks on top of that if I still don’t feel primed.
[quote]cparker wrote:
Saw this on my timeline today and thought I’d share, Duffin is a great coach and explains things very well. Long video but theres definitely alot to takeaway from it[/quote]
That was a great video. Thanks for sharing.