This is the 5/3/1 week of my squats - a few things that I noticed:
I tend to look down after unracking the weight, I need to visually-verify my feet are okay, for some reason I don’t trust my preconception
My lower back tends to lose it’s arch towards the bottom - I’m not sure if it’s lower back strength or hamstring flexibility: My lower back has always seemed strong to me and I can almost palm the ground doing a forward bend w/o warming up.
When the weight gets hard for me (3rd rep of 317 and last set) I think I see myself shifting the weight forward taking some of the load off my hamstrings
General note: this was my first squat session in 6 weeks - life got in the way, so I’m pretty happy overall.
yeah you are well built for squats man those looks great haha.
Just focus on moving faster and smoother, and putting more weight on the bar. Analyzing technique is great but theres comes a time when there aint nothing to it but to do it haha. Strong and fast buddy, you have the technique down.
Thanks for the input guys - it definitely is a bit of a relief to hear the positive comments! All my lifts are slow grinders, might be time to try throwing in some speed work/trying to accelerate the bar harder during the lift.
Take this for what it is worth. Your form is pretty good. It appears to me that your abs are not tight enough or not strong enough. You tend to over arch your lower back. You’ll have a more rigid torso with a neutral low back and tight abs and thus be able to transfer more power to the bar. This will also make your torso slightly more upright as it will lengthen your spine a bit. In order to do this without a belt take in a huge breath and try to push it out with your abs. You’ll feel your torso lock super tight and I bet you’ll see your bar speed increase to boot, because you will have recovered the power you were losing due to relying only on your back to transfer the power of your legs into the bar.
Good luck
To train for stonger abs for squatting try standing ab crunches with a cable, weighted planks, or the glorious ab-wheel.
You looked very in control of the weight, which is very important. However, I’m going to suggest one thing that might cause a fair amount of controversy.
Don’t break at your hips first.
I know online that’s usually how they say to squat, but I think most of them are written for equipped lifters. Sometimes in the gym I would ‘hinge’ at the knees very slightly by accident first before breaking my hips, and it felt a lot easier. I thought I was squatting wrong but yet it felt easier. When I hinge at the knees I like to then sit down, and not back, into the hole. Just to clarify I squat with a low bar position. I’m sure the breaking at the hips first and sitting back cue is for multiply equipped lifters, I’m not so sure about singleply lifters.
After I saw this video I then knew what I discovered in the gym is what 99 of elite raw lifters do.
At the very least give it a go. You may be in the 1 who don’t finding ‘hinging’ at their knees first helpful. However I don’t think it would hurt for your descent to become more fluid, you have a very very noticeable break at the hips first which is perhaps putting you in a less than optimal position for a raw lifter. Perhaps it wasn’t so fluid though because of a 6 week break and you’re not as confident with the weights. I know when I lose confidence with weights I revert back to a style not too dissimilar to yours.
thanks guys - I know this is blasphemy to say, but I don’t directly do anything for my abs - i’ve been relying on squats/deadlifts/strict presses to strengthen them. I know westside basically says that your abs can’t be too strong, looks like maybe I should add some of those in.
As far as the other comment about breaking at the knees first, my squat technique came from equipped lifters (elite and westside). I’ve always thought that breaking at the hips first was universal and that breaking at the knees first was poor form. Apparently that can’t be a 100% true statement just b/c of how immensely strong some of those raw lifters were in that video. I guess it would make sense for an equipped lifter to sit back more as they can utilize their suits more…and where I don’t use a suit I’m not getting that advantage.
[quote]95whtgst wrote:
thanks guys - I know this is blasphemy to say, but I don’t directly do anything for my abs - i’ve been relying on squats/deadlifts/strict presses to strengthen them. I know westside basically says that your abs can’t be too strong, looks like maybe I should add some of those in.
As far as the other comment about breaking at the knees first, my squat technique came from equipped lifters (elite and westside). I’ve always thought that breaking at the hips first was universal and that breaking at the knees first was poor form. Apparently that can’t be a 100% true statement just b/c of how immensely strong some of those raw lifters were in that video. I guess it would make sense for an equipped lifter to sit back more as they can utilize their suits more…and where I don’t use a suit I’m not getting that advantage.[/quote]
As for abs, just add some hanging leg raises at the end of squat/dl workouts at first. They’re quick, kick your ass, and have been the most effective movement I’ve found for building core strength for squat/dl.
Other good ones (some mentioned already): Front squat holds, fall-outs, side bends, standing sit-ups. Stay away from shit where you’re lying on your back in some kind of fetal position.
Once you’ve strengthened those abs, be sure to take advantage of it. Fill that sternum and belly with air, and push your abs out hard throughout the entire lift. Most helpful technique advise I’ve gotten so far from everything Louie’s written.
