The whole issue with your hips is a physical tracking problem, IMO. and my opinion doesnt account for much. i squat moderately wide regardless of gear just because i lack the flexibility to squat narrow. but from squatting wide i learned about spreading the floor and letting your hips open up. its almost like youre forcing your knees outward rather than squatting down. I feel this more in gear than raw but when i squat down and i think about literally opening up my hips and groin it makes a huge difference in flexibility and depth for me.
Do you box squat?
[quote]Shoebolt wrote:
Dude its your hips and glutes. This is not even narrow so its not a biomechanical disadvantage. Your hips are too tight so your knees start caving into to compensate for the lack of flexibility there.
I recommend getting the following resource and having a session before every workout (regardless of how homo it looks):
Magnificent Mobility by Eric Cressey and Mark Robertson.
[/quote]
This isn’t homo at all these guys along with some others save people. If it wasn’t for them id be one f*uped guy.
[quote]Shoebolt wrote:
Dude its your hips and glutes. This is not even narrow so its not a biomechanical disadvantage. Your hips are too tight so your knees start caving into to compensate for the lack of flexibility there.
I recommend getting the following resource and having a session before every workout (regardless of how homo it looks):
Magnificent Mobility by Eric Cressey and Mark Robertson.
[/quote]
Im going to look into it, but i cant find it can you post a link for me?
yea, go stupidly light for a few weeks and keep your form TIGHT. I’m talkin like 135x10, the following week, 185x10, etc. just to groove the form. keep the volume up, and sink it reeally deep. if you feel your hips are tight, try this www.defrancostraining.com/ask_joe/archives/ask_joe_08-10-03.html
worked great for me
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
Do you box squat?[/quote]
Yes I do, love to box squat.
I found the DVD nevermind, and once i get more money i will probably buy it, For right now I need to do more stretching, do that hip drill Dave showed and work on keeping form good. mastsm, that sounds like a good idea, i might give that a try.
I was thining about my squat, and I realized that once I get to 225 my knees cave in, and i go below parallel on those!
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
Do you box squat?[/quote]
Yes I do, love to box squat.[/quote]
How’s your box squat form? I would sit on a box with correct form and force your knees out. Whatever you feel is tight, I would try to mimic that with some sort of stretch.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
If you knees are coming in, imaging you are standing on a towel & try to rip the towel in two by forcing your feet outward.[/quote]
x2. Spread the floor with your feet. Also, it looks like your breaking at the knees on the start of the lift and sitting down, not back.
[quote]matsm21 wrote:
yea, go stupidly light for a few weeks and keep your form TIGHT. I’m talkin like 135x10, the following week, 185x10, etc. just to groove the form. keep the volume up, and sink it reeally deep. if you feel your hips are tight, try this www.defrancostraining.com/ask_joe/archives/ask_joe_08-10-03.html
worked great for me[/quote]
Hey, this link doesn’t work when I copy and paste. is it correct or did he move the page?
You just recently started training raw, right?
How long were you in your gear for the majority of your workouts?
How often were you box squatting vs. free squatting until the change to 5/3/1?
Honestly, your stance is a little wider than I would recommend and you need to learn how to take weight out of the rack. Get your hips under the bar instead of gm’ing it out.
It is likely that your legs and hips are both weaker than you think they are. Drop you weights to a point where your form stops sucking and up it slowly over several cycles. As you acclimate to the heavier weights, you can try pushing it again. If you just started 5/3/1 and your sets are looking like that, then the weights are too heavy. I found that after 9-12 weeks of squatting raw, my “natural depth” (the point at which I could no longer descend) had gone from barely breaking parallel to bottoming out DEEP below parallel. There’s no point in trying to take weights that you aren’t yet strong enough to handle. You can’t lift shit if you’re hurt and if you can’t take that weight to depth in a meet then it doesn’t matter how many pancakes you’ve got on there.
If you plan on squatting raw for a while, I believe there is a breakdown of squat from in the 5/3/1 book. Review that and watch how Wendler and other strong raw squatters squat. Head back, hips back, knees out, elbows under. Spread the floor and drive your elbows under the bar, head back into the bar, and hips through at the top.
Trust me on the stance thing, trying to squat raw with the same stance that you use in gear will fuck you up very quickly.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
You just recently started training raw, right?
How long were you in your gear for the majority of your workouts?
How often were you box squatting vs. free squatting until the change to 5/3/1?
Honestly, your stance is a little wider than I would recommend and you need to learn how to take weight out of the rack. Get your hips under the bar instead of gm’ing it out.
It is likely that your legs and hips are both weaker than you think they are. Drop you weights to a point where your form stops sucking and up it slowly over several cycles. As you acclimate to the heavier weights, you can try pushing it again. If you just started 5/3/1 and your sets are looking like that, then the weights are too heavy. I found that after 9-12 weeks of squatting raw, my “natural depth” (the point at which I could no longer descend) had gone from barely breaking parallel to bottoming out DEEP below parallel. There’s no point in trying to take weights that you aren’t yet strong enough to handle. You can’t lift shit if you’re hurt and if you can’t take that weight to depth in a meet then it doesn’t matter how many pancakes you’ve got on there.
If you plan on squatting raw for a while, I believe there is a breakdown of squat from in the 5/3/1 book. Review that and watch how Wendler and other strong raw squatters squat. Head back, hips back, knees out, elbows under. Spread the floor and drive your elbows under the bar, head back into the bar, and hips through at the top.
Trust me on the stance thing, trying to squat raw with the same stance that you use in gear will fuck you up very quickly.[/quote]
Stronghold: This was my second or third week of raw squatting, I did do much box squatting when I was in my gear, and I will narrow my stance a bit to accomodate raw squatting.
Im getting together on Saturday with a bunch of lifters for a “squatapalooza”, I talked to one of them and told them that I want to just work on technique.
Honestly I think it just might be that my stance is just too damn wide…and my hips are really weak.
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
Well I thank you all, and yes Hanley, I can do 365 ass to grass, I did it with a walkout too, Its not that I cant get down in depth better, its just that as soon as I get down, they want to cave in even more, and my back falls forward.
Im doing Cosack squats and hit stretches before I squat and deadlift.
this is my 365 squat at the meet: Featured Content on Myspace
At the risk of sounding like an asshole, unless you’re squatting in 2-3 foot long grass, that’s no where near ass to grass. It annoys me that any squat below parallel now seems to be called a2g.
Anyway… should try to be helpful too. I think you’re stance is way too wide. You’d probably find it easier to hit depth comfortably with a narrower stance and elevated heels. Looks like you’re trying to do a geared squat sans gear!
[quote]Hanley wrote:
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
Well I thank you all, and yes Hanley, I can do 365 ass to grass, I did it with a walkout too, Its not that I cant get down in depth better, its just that as soon as I get down, they want to cave in even more, and my back falls forward.
Im doing Cosack squats and hit stretches before I squat and deadlift.
this is my 365 squat at the meet: Featured Content on Myspace
At the risk of sounding like an asshole, unless you’re squatting in 2-3 foot long grass, that’s no where near ass to grass. It annoys me that any squat below parallel now seems to be called a2g.
Anyway… should try to be helpful too. I think you’re stance is way too wide. You’d probably find it easier to hit depth comfortably with a narrower stance and elevated heels. Looks like you’re trying to do a geared squat sans gear![/quote]
I know it doesnt seem ass to grass, but its really damn close for me, if you see it or not I can feel when I bottom out and that squat was damn close.
I might give the elevated heels a try, I guess I just dont want to go raw to get my raw strength up for my gear lifts, then go back to gear, wich will be double ply, and be all messed up, that being said, I am going to narrow my stance, and take the weight off for a while, unless its a fix I can make in a day. I am also going to start going exercises to bring up the strength in my hips. I will be posting vidoes to show you progress.
You need a training partner that will be painfully honest with you. You also need to get a really good idea of what proper depth feels like and if you don’t hit it, immediately terminate the set. Plenty of single-leg work is also likely to help.
While I would agree that the knees coming in as you ascend is something that should be avoided, I also don’t think it is the worst thing in the world. It seems that you have become hyper-vigilant about the knees coming in and this has caused other form problems. It also looks like you are trying very hard to keep the bar speed high. I think descending and ascending more slowly could be very beneficial. Focusing too much on speed can result in form problems, the shorter the ROM the faster you will come back up. So extrapolating this slightly, if a person is predominately focusing on maintaining bar speed it would be very natural to shorten the ROM slightly on each rep.
Also do a bunch of exercises to strengthen your abductors. Doing wide good mornings and forcing your knees out could help.
Takes some guts to post a video you know isn’t that great, hope you have the wherewithal to transform your squat.
Stance is way too wide mate.
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
I know it doesnt seem ass to grass, but its really damn close for me, if you see it or not I can feel when I bottom out and that squat was damn close.
[/quote]
Ass to grass, buddeh…
I had a similar problem when I was in high school. I don’t know how your mind works, but I function heavily on muscle memory.
With that being said, I ate my slice of humble pie and lowered down to the 225 range until I got it right. I’ve found (and observed) that lifting heavy (or in your case, for reps) with improper form only leads to imbalances, making it harder to correct the form issue in the first place.
My suggestion is to lower the weight, just for a week or two, and focus on the issue. Focus on sitting back, and driving with your ass. Don’t fuck around with the same weight, lower it and I promise I won’t call you a pussy.
I had the same thoughts as you, blaming weak knees and whatnot, but it all comes down to training your body to move the same way, every rep.
I’m assuming you’re somewhat new to PL, so don’t make the same mistake I did. Drop weight. Fix form. Humble pie.
Problem solved.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
I know it doesnt seem ass to grass, but its really damn close for me, if you see it or not I can feel when I bottom out and that squat was damn close.
[/quote]
Ass to grass, buddeh…[/quote]
True ass to grass will only ever happen for someone with long legs. Stumpy leg fuckers like myself can never truly go a2g.
When you get in the gym, before you do any squatting, get on the birthing machines (aka hip abductor and hip extension) and get to work. The ability to hit proper death from a wide(er) stance and my squat overall was helped tremendously by getting those muscles stronger.