Help With Squat

This is kinda tricky but I don’t think we’re opposites.

Leaning forward is OK, but extending/overarching the back and neck, loosing ab tightness and sticking the butt out the back not OK. I want the tightness and brace before the lean.

To keep tension on glutes and hamstrings. Just so everything is tighter at the bottom. Even if there is forward lean it will feel more upright and use more legs and less back.

Here’s Reed showing extended vs neutral and squeezing low abs.

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You have a point, but I wouldn’t worry so much about minute details for a guy who is just learning to squat. Obviously he needs some adjustments to perfect his technique, but that will come with time. Extending his back is much better than rounding.

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@chris_ottawa & @FlatsFarmer thanks for the detailed responses!

I will definitely try the lauded goblet squats!

As to the knees drifting forward, it hard. I can do the most perfect looking squat with the bar against the rack to hold me up, but it’s soooooo far away from being able to hold myself up. I don’t really understand how to sit back more and get deeper.

Holding onto something the only way to get deeper and not have bad lower back rounding is to sit way up, which I can’t do at all or I fall forward.

I fall over way before I get to parallel lol

Looks good man. I have no advice other than do not force depth. Your depth looks good to me. If the squat is pain free, you’re probably doing most right.

It’s hard because squats are hard. :slight_smile:

If the reps get painful slow the tempo and cut depth a tad, then work back in a pain free range of motion.

Good work man.

One thing to think about:

You break at the hips first. That works for some people, and not other people. It forces my bar path forward, which it looks like it may for you too, albeit not much. But this can lead to compensation and pain. Perhaps play with breaking hips and knees simultaneously. May help keep your bar path more vertical.

This is a knit pick. Your squat looks good.

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I’ve been purposely trying to initiate the squat with my hips first because I thought that was right. I’ve also been trying to lift the head first on the up portion but so far am only able to do that when box squating.

Your knees need to go forward unless you are wearing a squat suit and don’t plan to go below parallel. As for going deeper and sitting back more, it’s going to require more hip flexion and maybe you don’t have the required mobility just yet. But you are pretty close to depth (can’t see exactly due to plates in the way) so just keep working on it. You can film yourself from the side doing those goblet squat stretches to see how deep you are going, those are typically easier to hit depth than a back squat due to different leverages so aim to go deep on those.

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