[quote]mikandrea wrote:
Try this, place a 10 lb. plate under each heel (feet about hip width apart). Put you arms up straight over your head (to put your lats on stretch). Now squat. Can you get deeper this way? The answer is probably “yes”. [/quote]
I tried this. When the feet were flat, I had to lean forward and I was not able to go all the way down. With the heels elevated, I was able to go all the way down, comfortably.
After reading all this advice, I decided to do the following:
Stretch before squatting:
#1) WEIGHTED CALF STRETCH Perform 2 sets of 20 seconds each leg
#2) STATIC HIP FLEXOR STRETCH Perform 2 sets of 20 seconds each leg
I will try to keep my elbows more to the front.
I will look straight ahead and a little bit up.
I will go down lower, up to parallel.
I am still searching for research of Squat and videos of correct execution.
I am surprised it is so difficult to find a detailed video. Most of the ones I see seem worse than my posture.
Thank you guys.
[quote]BobPit wrote:
After reading all this advice, I decided to do the following:
Stretch before squatting:
#1) WEIGHTED CALF STRETCH Perform 2 sets of 20 seconds each leg
#2) STATIC HIP FLEXOR STRETCH Perform 2 sets of 20 seconds each leg
I will try to keep my elbows more to the front.
I will look straight ahead and a little bit up.
I will go down lower, up to parallel.
I am still searching for research of Squat and videos of correct execution.
I am surprised it is so difficult to find a detailed video. Most of the ones I see seem worse than my posture.
Thank you guys.
[/quote]
I just wanted to say that it is really good to see a thread such as this where Bob has come on with a genuine concern and received constructive positive answers and has taken it on board.
There has been a lot of posts recently where advice gets ignored or people get slated and it descends into an argument. This is refreshing.
Bravo gentlemen, Bravo.
I used to suffer this same problem. You also probably notice that it takes a long time to warm up your legs when you squat. It all comes down to lack of flexibility and it sucks but it can be corrected. Here is how i did it after 20 years of neglecting it.
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Band traction as illustrated by Dave Tate ; you can find the article here on T-Nation using the search feature. I do the shoulder and hip traction every day religiously.
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Foam rolling - my favorite little torture device (big thanks to Mike Robertson and Eric Cressey) I roll out my legs, and back primarily every night before i go to bed. i have also noticed i don’t wake up in pain anymore. Article can also be found here.
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Static stretching of the worked muscle group after the workout.
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Magnificent Mobility DVD, i don’t use all teh exercises but use the ones pertinent to my issues on days that i don’t train weights.
it sounds like alot but there is not much time consumption here, for instance the foam roller is great while watching the news for 30 minutes at night, turns wasted time into productive time
[quote]morepain wrote:
I used to suffer this same problem. You also probably notice that it takes a long time to warm up your legs when you squat. It all comes down to lack of flexibility and it sucks but it can be corrected. Here is how i did it after 20 years of neglecting it.
-
Band traction as illustrated by Dave Tate ; you can find the article here on T-Nation using the search feature. I do the shoulder and hip traction every day religiously.
-
Foam rolling - my favorite little torture device (big thanks to Mike Robertson and Eric Cressey) I roll out my legs, and back primarily every night before i go to bed. i have also noticed i don’t wake up in pain anymore. Article can also be found here.
-
Static stretching of the worked muscle group after the workout.
-
Magnificent Mobility DVD, i don’t use all teh exercises but use the ones pertinent to my issues on days that i don’t train weights.
it sounds like alot but there is not much time consumption here, for instance the foam roller is great while watching the news for 30 minutes at night, turns wasted time into productive time[/quote]
Damn, you beat me to it! Read “Core Training…” articles by Cressey and Robertson. I though I was doing proper core training until I read these articles…I was way off.
Another suggestion, I switched over to Olympic style and bought some olympic lift shoes. These guys stay about as verticle as you can get and handle some big weight.
Can somebody give me a link to a video demonstrating good Squat form?
I downloaded the one at [ http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm ] and I think it is a joke. He leans forward too much, his knees go forward too much.
All the pictures that I see in BB magazines, the knees are too far forward.
I can do the same thing but I am afraid to ruin my knees and back.
I think you’ve gotten some good advice here, but as I had the same problem I’ll chime in too.
Two things helped me keep from leaning forward too much. One was the static stretching, as someone already posted; in between my warm up sets I do something very similar to that guy’s first stretching pic. The other was to do front hacks, to strenghten my butt & leg biceps. Get in the hack squat machine and plant your face in the middle of the pad, facing the machine, and then squat away. Doing this every leg workout for about a year dramatically improved both my form and strength on the squat.
Good luck.
try this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529481301858251744&q=The+FitCast&hl=en
It takes a little while to get to the squat portion, but it helped me with a similar issue.
I had too narrow of a stance. I couldn’t get my body between my legs so to achieve depth I would bring my torso closer to horizontal.
[quote]BobPit wrote:
I downloaded the one at [ http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm ] and I think it is a joke. He leans forward too much, his knees go forward too much.
All the pictures that I see in BB magazines, the knees are too far forward.
I can do the same thing but I am afraid to ruin my knees and back.
[/quote]
You won’t ruin your knees or back so long as you stay above 5RM weights. You’ll actually strengthen both.
[quote]BobPit wrote:
All the pictures that I see in BB magazines, the knees are too far forward.
I can do the same thing but I am afraid to ruin my knees and back.
[/quote]
Read this article by Eric Cressey:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=603563
it seems you’re focusing too much on the aspect of knees going beyond the toes.
Personally, I squat with as wide a stance as my power rack will allow, this hits the adductors (because I’m pushing my knees out and ‘spreading the floor’), glutes and hamstrings really well. This is the case even when going no more than 1" below parallel.
So I can’t find how to create a new thread on this website. I’m a simple man with simple needs…
So someone take pity on me and direct my pea brain to the location of the “start new thread” directive on the site.
If I may chime in on this particular issue, I’d say the OP needs to try elevating his heels with 10-pound plates, and work on calf flexibility, both of which suggestions have already been posted here.
Selfishly, I’d like to ask a related question about squats, which I’ll post here:
I’ve been lifting for a long time (17 years or so)…I’m not that huge or strong (my competitive sport is triathlon, but sometimes I like to get bigger in the off-season for fun and to keep the wife happy…“Bigger” for me is 190 lbs at 6’, so I’m on the ectomorphic side).
Anyway, when I squat, be it heavy, light, high volume or low, my quads are only slightly sore, if at all, the next day. What tends to be sore are my ADDUCTORS. Now I know that soreness isn’t always the best indicator of growth, and that some people are soreness junkies, but it doesn’t make sense to me that my adductors would be working harder than my quads on “the King of All Lower Body Moves”/“The Best Exercise in the World for Everything”…
I squat, flat footed, shoulder width stance, to at least parallel and my form is impeccable. Trainers at the gym tell me so, unsolicited, and I’m a certified personal trainer myself (which I realize doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot) so I figure I’m in the ballpark, at least, with form.
Anyone else have this issue? Any thoughts or suggestions? Something I’m missing? Jeers about my sorry-ass proportions?
Thanks
You probably already thought of this but maybe your adductors are really weak in comparison to your quads because of all the triathlon training you do, so they get tired before your quads do.
Is there any leg exercise that does make your quads sore (like Bulgarian split squats)?
Bulgarians do fry my quads pretty well. I’ve been hammering it out on those lately and yes, at times I get sore quads for days…so perhaps I should just leave it at that.
It is possible that my triathlon training has contributed to asymmetrical development–though I had the sore-adductor issue with squats prior to my triathlon work.
Thanks for the insight; I may open this up on a new thread if I can finally figure out how to start a new one…
[quote]ahab wrote:
try this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529481301858251744&q=The+FitCast&hl=en
It takes a little while to get to the squat portion, but it helped me with a similar issue.
I had too narrow of a stance. I couldn’t get my body between my legs so to achieve depth I would bring my torso closer to horizontal.[/quote]
BOB I recommend you watch and study this video!!! Dan John is an excellent coach. Also check out his site at www.DanJohn.org, he is also one of the authors here at T-Nation.
This video help me fix my squat (I was shifting my weight to my toes, big no,no), and for the first time I can do a Snatch!
I also recommend u do Overhead Squats, they’r great for ur posture (since u can’t do them otherwise). Oh and start with broom sticks or PVC pipes, do lots of reps to get the posture and the motion right, then move back to weights and u’ll see the difference.
good luck,
Dan John’s video suggest spreading the legs wide. So did the recent posters.
When I do it, with the broomstick) my form looks very good. When I put the legs shoulder width, there is not way to do it right. Is that it?
OK, I will try some regular weights with wide stance.
Thanks
[quote]BobPit wrote:
Dan John’s video suggest spreading the legs wide. So did the recent posters.
When I do it, with the broomstick) my form looks very good. When I put the legs shoulder width, there is not way to do it right. Is that it?
OK, I will try some regular weights with wide stance.
Thanks[/quote]
Yep! Thats it Bob. When u put ur legs shoulder width its impossible for ur body to drop between ur legs, so it puts undo stress on ur knees.
When u spread them out (keep ur weight on ur heels) ur body just drops and fits in between ur legs.
Look at the picture of the femur and pelvis.
So all these athletes that have good form. They also use wide stance?
Still, can somebody point me to a video of a real squat lift with good form?
8 months later…
This is my Squat form now:
August 22, 5x63 kgrs: Squat ATG - YouTube
My legs touch my calves when I go down. I guess this is ATG!
My 5RM is about 90 kgr.
I think I made good progress since those older videos:
Just two months ago (22 June 2007) I would not go as low:
72 kgrs: 72 kgr squat - YouTube
52 kgrs: 52 kgr squat - YouTube
And this is me on June 12 2007:
52 kgrs: 52 kgr squat - b - YouTube
I bought the book “Starting Strength” and practiced Squat end of May 2007. It helped me tremendously and cleared all the missconceptons I had about Squat.
Nice work.
Those squats look great just keep adding strength to the lift and a superior set of legs are definitely in your future!