I asked about my deadlift form about a month ago and people said it wasn’t that bad. Perhaps just watch how much I round my back, but it was not excessive. So now, I want to know how my squat and box squat forms are looking. I feel like they’ve gotten better, but there could be things I’m not seeing. I’m training for athletics and not the sport of powerlifting, but the powerlifting principles have helped my athleticism so I do want to get better at it. Also, I have a training log on here, so if you could comment every once in a while, I’d appreciate it.
The real benefit from squatting comes from going below parallel. You’re close but not quite there. Overall from the angle I can’t tell what your stance is really like, but nothing looked unusual. Your back angle changed quite a bit on the concentric portion of you squats. I’d focus on that and going below parallel.
Looks to me like you are pushing through your toes instead of your heels.
I take that back, it may just be how you are exploding at the top.
I’m going to stop giving advice now.
athletics is a broad term, what qualities are you trying to improve?
one thing I can offer with no further information is that you need to stay tight on the box.
I want to improve all aspects. My top three in order would be, 1)Vertical/Running 2 legged jump 2)Short sprint/Explosiveness 3)Change of direction. I am in a strength phase right now though, so I want to drive up my squat a lot(around 405lbs as soon as I can) so when I change to a speed/vert phase, I’ll get better gains. And what do you mean stay tighter on the box? Am I not suppose to rock back? How would I relax my hip flexors?
do this. it will teach you the proper squat technique.
Another thing when you unrack the weight don’t walk back 3 or 4 steps then shuffle your feet around. This wastes energy. Practice taking the bar, stepping back 1 step with one foot then the other. Your feet should be in a ready squat position then huge breath then squat.
sit back farther, your not using enough glutes, you starting from the whole with your quads instead, sit back farther until you hit a 90 degree angle with your legs
keep your chest up, try driving your head back into the bar
[quote]DjSm28 wrote:
I want to improve all aspects. My top three in order would be, 1)Vertical/Running 2 legged jump 2)Short sprint/Explosiveness 3)Change of direction. I am in a strength phase right now though, so I want to drive up my squat a lot(around 405lbs as soon as I can) so when I change to a speed/vert phase, I’ll get better gains. And what do you mean stay tighter on the box? Am I not suppose to rock back? How would I relax my hip flexors?[/quote]
By stay tighter on the box, I think it’s outright dangerous to just let your your pelvis get any posterior tilt and getting some lumbar flexion while sitting with a load on your back. Sure, some big guys will get some slack but you’re not training to step on a platform and just hit one lift. If you’re hurt, you’re not gonna perform at all in the athletic arena so what’s the point?
Here’s a vid of a guy doing some pretty heavy box squats and staying tight on the box
More squatting, less goodmorning.
Focus on driving your head back into the bar and coming out of the hole with your head, not your hips. I had the same problem you have with “shooting” your hips and I still have it to a certain extent. Focusing on those thing and really concentrating on coming off of the box properly on my speed work helped quite a bit. Also, paus squats with an emphasis on coming out of the hole properly helped too.
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do the wall squats.
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you are shooting your hips.
With the normal squat, I’d say a couple of things; try to get a bit lower if you can.
If you are training for athletic performance, I would recommend trying low bar squats (with the bar placed mid-way down your traps), as it places the bar over your hips rather than your knees and will help to develop your hip drive.
It might seem like a silly point but I know that for me, longer shorts(ie below the knee) to some extent prevent me from getting to true depth- If you haven’t tried it yet, try some shorter shorts or just roll the ones you’ve got up over your knees before starting.
Use a spotter if you can, it might give you a bit more confidence to really drop into the hole.
If it is basketball that you are training for, as in your avatar, you may find as a result of your other training (ie on court) that your calves are quite tight; I have a similar problem and find that a thorough stretch helps me get substantially lower.
Not bad technique though!
First off I do agree with most of the advice given. I’m better at giving advice in person but try to bear with me. You do need to work on your tightness on the way down and continue to stay tight while on the box. A good way to do this is to really try to concentrate on tightening(flexing) the hips as you go down, also if you try to expand your stomach and push out while going down and on the box will hopefully keep you tight.
When you get to the box, slowly put pressure on it and sit on it(while staying tight) without rocking your upper body back. If you watch the video that was posted by challer1 this guy does a great job of doing that. Then on your way up lead with the head like people before said but also try to flex your glutes and hams and that will help push your hips forward and bring yourself up, it’s kinda like deadlifting, you push your hips through to bring yourself upright, lever principles.
Last, don’t worry about depth, it’s fine, if you were going to compete in powerlifting meets then yes you could go just a hair deeper, but since you’re not, don’t worry about it, if anything you could increase the box height by just a little bit and practice keeping tight with that setup, it’s easier to stay tight with a higher box, when you go to a deeper box it becomes harder to stay tighter especially if you are just starting to work on staying tight.
Besides in something like sprinting and jumping you never start from below the 90 degree mark, most of the time it’s probably not even close to that, that’s why in Bondarchuk’s book “transfer of training” he lists what elite caliber sprinters and jumpers should be able to squat in terms of half squats not full squats. I’ll prolly get flamed for saying squat higher on this site with all it’s atg nazies to make themselves feel better about their 200lb squats but whatever. Anyway keep working on it and take note of that caller1 video(don’t squat that wide without working on hip flexibility and stretching first though) and any of the elitefts videos. good luck
Tnanks for all the help butI was wondering, as far as box squats, what does it mean to relax the hip flexors? And when doing box squats, should I just sit back as I would for regular squats, then when I hit the box, not sit up like I would in a chair? Rather, just keep my lean, pause, then explode up?
And as far as the half squats, how often should I do them? Right now, my ME workouts are set up where I’ll pick an exercise(squats) and hit a record the first week, then break that record the 2nd week. Then I’ll rotate to a different exercise(usually box squats), then hit a record, then the next week beat it, then deload. So the cycle lasts 5 weeks including the deload. Should I put them in for an ME exercise or should I add them in for reps in my regular workout. My basic template for my ME lower body day is MElift, Single leg work, low back/hamstrings.
[quote]DjSm28 wrote:
Tnanks for all the help butI was wondering, as far as box squats, what does it mean to relax the hip flexors? And when doing box squats, should I just sit back as I would for regular squats, then when I hit the box, not sit up like I would in a chair? Rather, just keep my lean, pause, then explode up?[/quote]
It depends who you listen to. Some people will say to sit back more upright, I would favour keeping your lean in order to keep the bar over your hips. Your hip flexors are the muscles in the hip you can feel activating when you raise your knee out in front of yourself. Try to concentrate on relaxing them before driving off the box. I’m not a big advocate of box squats on the whole though.