I can deadlift a lot more than I can squat. I pull in the mid 400’s but can barely squat 300.
I have long legs, a short torso and long arms. Whenever I squat, I have problems leaning forward or essentially turning it into a good morning; I pull both sumo and conventional, but have better form pulling sumo.
If I go wide stance, I especially lean forward.
Wherein lies the problem? Is it a weakness somewhere?
[quote]Julius_Caesar wrote:
I can deadlift a lot more than I can squat. I pull in the mid 400’s but can barely squat 300.
I have long legs, a short torso and long arms. Whenever I squat, I have problems leaning forward or essentially turning it into a good morning; I pull both sumo and conventional, but have better form pulling sumo.
If I go wide stance, I especially lean forward.
Wherein lies the problem? Is it a weakness somewhere?
[/quote]
Uh you’re not supposed to lean forward when you squat. You’re supposed to sit back. You’re hamstrings aren’t strong enough.
You need to strengthen your hamstrings. You should look into your core strenth more. You sound like you are not too stable. Squat down and observe that your knees do not go over your toes when you bend your legs. point your toes out some more. Practice practice practice. If you know this is a problem area for you then you need to hit it harder.
Leaning forward when you’re deadlifting is bad too.
Your shoulders should be behind the bar, or at least even with it.
[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
Leaning forward when you’re deadlifting is bad too.
Your shoulders should be behind the bar, or at least even with it.[/quote]
Yea, that tip alone helped me a lot, along with teaching my wife.
This article might help you out:
[quote]Julius_Caesar wrote:
If I go wide stance, I especially lean forward.
[/quote]
That might be a flexibility issue. Do you have difficulty getting down?
Besides the things already mentioned, you might want to try looking at the ceiling when you squat, keeping you chest up, and pushing your head back into the bar during the whole movement.
Try some goodmornings as well, really helps with the leaning forward aspect .
Honestly, I think this is common for many lifters, especially long-limbed lifters- and not just novices either- take a look at raw and single ply PL meet results. Up to a point, your raw pull will probably be more than your raw squat. The things that will make you squat go up (stonger hams, glutes, back; better coordination) also make you dead go up. That gap may close some as your squatting technique improves. But, with your leverages, you may well have born to pull.
I used to have that problem.
I don’t know what percentages you’re training with. But you might want to drop it down to a weight you cant squat 12-15 times and focus on your technique. Maybe some box squats? You should feel it in your gultes. Pretend like your about to sit on the toilet.
It may be a number of things, I would say flexibility is a possibility. But also up there is your quad strength. When you reach the part of the squat motion nearing parallel your knees start to come forward, this helps balance out the backward hip swing that started the motion, and your back should straighten out.
Like you were saying you are basically doing a good morning sometimes, which means you are trying to deadlift the weight up. Your quads need work. Your going to have to start light going nice and deep withgood quad involvement. Do some 1 legged stuff too.
I had (and still have to an extent) the same problem as you.
Close stance I can rep all day and stay dead up right but once I take it out wide I start to bend forward.
It’s something I still have to work on but here’s a few things I’ve done that may help you;
-Get Your Butt In Gear I&II by EC and MR, the stretches and exercises in that got my hips much more flexible and amongst other things got rid of some minor back pain
-I dropped the weight back a bit and concentrated on keeping up right on every reps. I really had to focus on driving my head back outta the hole.
-I started wearing me belt more. This made the biggest difference on weights at 75%+ of my belted max. (that probably indicates that i’ve a week core tho)
-I learned how to squat properly!! ie sitting back AND down (as a raw guy like), keeping my upper back arched and attempting to drive my elbows forward HARD under the bar.
Hope this is of some use.
Thanks for the responses. I especially liked the article about biomehanics, that one suited me to the T. I will have to try some of those leg exercises and lay off all of the gms.