Hi, I’m a beginner and recently my lower back started to ache a little, in my investigations I took a video of my squat, please check my form and tell me if I’m doing anything wrong with it.
I am squatting 75kg, 165lb, 1xBW.
Thanks
Post another vid of you squatting the top set of your session. Your form is going to change drastically as the weight gets heavier and you tire out.
That is the top set. I do Starting Strength 3x5, like I said I’m a beginner so my 5 rep max squat is only 75kg not very impressive.
Or do you mean the very last set of the workout?
I’m not familiar with the terminology.
pretty good, nothing wrong noticed in that vid. post another when you hit 100kg
That weight didn’t seem very challenging for you. I’d suspect something else is the cause of your back pain, not squats. You really do need to keep your eyes fixed on a spot that tilts your head downward just a bit, though, and stay as tight as possible throughout the entire set. You shift around and look around a bit too much.
Straight sets are ok for getting stronger, but you’ll get much more bang for your buck by ramping your sets (that’s what I meant by ‘top set’). By starting low, you’ll get in some good practice, and get the involved muscles amped up. I usually start with approx 60% of my top set and add 10% each set on a 5x5. So if I was planning on hitting 200 for my top set that day, I’d start with 120 and slap a 10 on each side after every set. I’d make sure my form was perfect and make sure I was exploding out of the hole properly. As the weight gets heavier, it gets harder to hold perfect form (and some form breakdown is to be expected) and bar speed slows down, but the intent is the same. You’ll find out pretty quickly that you’re a lot stronger than you think you are, if you start ramping.
If I were you, I’d start using the squat cage in the background of the video. You should always have an exit plan if you can’t lift the weight, or get hurt mid-rep. You should practice dumping the bar in the cage without any weight, so you know what your exit strategy is going to be. I know a lot of people like to dump the bar backwards – I find that incredibly dangerous. My “exit” strategy is, while down (assuming I can’t get the weight up), role the weight forward onto the cage.
This is my favorite “squat set-up tutorial.” Talks about hand placement, grip, elbows, lift off, how to step, head placement.
[quote]MisterT wrote:
Hi, I’m a beginner and recently my lower back started to ache a little, in my investigations I took a video of my squat, please check my form and tell me if I’m doing anything wrong with it.
I am squatting 75kg, 165lb, 1xBW.
Thanks
Thanks for the replies.
[quote]JayPierce wrote:
That weight didn’t seem very challenging for you. I’d suspect something else is the cause of your back pain, not squats. You really do need to keep your eyes fixed on a spot that tilts your head downward just a bit, though, and stay as tight as possible throughout the entire set. You shift around and look around a bit too much.
Straight sets are ok for getting stronger, but you’ll get much more bang for your buck by ramping your sets (that’s what I meant by ‘top set’). By starting low, you’ll get in some good practice, and get the involved muscles amped up. I usually start with approx 60% of my top set and add 10% each set on a 5x5. So if I was planning on hitting 200 for my top set that day, I’d start with 120. I’d make sure my form was perfect and make sure I was exploding out of the hole properly. As the weight gets heavier, it gets harder to hold perfect form (and some form breakdown is to be expected) and bar speed slows down, but the intent is the same. You’ll find out pretty quickly that you’re a lot stronger than you think you are, if you start ramping.[/quote]
Well, I use an excel sheet of Starting Strength, and it starts with 2 sets with an empty bar as a warm up then loading up for 2 more sets I think then max 3x5. I don’t know how to ramp up, and everyone says I should stick to the plan as a noob, so I figured.
I suspect that my back is too arched as I’m pretty flexible, do you have any comments on that?
Coincidentally that part of my back that is arched is where the slight pain is.
Interesting point maybe my back arches too much because I look forward not down?
[quote]fatInIC wrote:
If I were you, I’d start using the squat cage in the background of the video. You should always have an exit plan if you can’t lift the weight, or get hurt mid-rep. You should practice dumping the bar in the cage without any weight, so you know what your exit strategy is going to be. I know a lot of people like to dump the bar backwards – I find that incredibly dangerous. My “exit” strategy is, while down (assuming I can’t get the weight up), role the weight forward onto the cage.
This is my favorite “squat set-up tutorial.” Talks about hand placement, grip, elbows, lift off, how to step, head placement.
[/quote]
Nice video mate, lots of help.
My exit strategy was going to be just that: Dumping the weight backwards, I didn’t know it wasn’t safe…Unfortunately I don’t have access to a cage or power rack, in any of the gyms I can afford.
[quote]MisterT wrote:
Well, I use an excel sheet of Starting Strength, and it starts with 2 sets with an empty bar as a warm up then loading up for 2 more sets I think then max 3x5. I don’t know how to ramp up, and everyone says I should stick to the plan as a noob, so I figured.[/quote]
It’s not a magic plan, by any means, but it is a good starting point. Just starting by doing two sets with an empty bar is a waste of valuable gym time for sure. I warm up by stretching ankles, hams, glutes, and quads. Then I do three goblet squats, focusing on getting a good stretch and good posture at the bottom, and getting stance width right (I do full-depth front squats, but the same works well for back squats). Then I do two warm-up sets with ~40% of 1RM. Finally, I take a few minutes to rest and then start my work sets. Sounds like a lot, but it only takes about ten minutes. Using a focused approach to warming up is a much better use of your time than just squatting miniscule weight.
[quote]I suspect that my back is too arched as I’m pretty flexible, do you have any comments on that?
Coincidentally that part of my back that is arched is where the slight pain is.
Interesting point maybe my back arches too much because I look forward not down?[/quote]
Stay tight, like you’re about to get hit. Not necessarily arched to the max.
[quote]fatInIC wrote:
If I were you, I’d start using the squat cage in the background of the video. You should always have an exit plan if you can’t lift the weight, or get hurt mid-rep. You should practice dumping the bar in the cage without any weight, so you know what your exit strategy is going to be. I know a lot of people like to dump the bar backwards – I find that incredibly dangerous. My “exit” strategy is, while down (assuming I can’t get the weight up), role the weight forward onto the cage.
This is my favorite “squat set-up tutorial.” Talks about hand placement, grip, elbows, lift off, how to step, head placement.
[/quote]
Awesome vid. Only thing left to touch on is stance width, but that’s fairly unimportant at this point. Just make sure your knees track straight over your toes, no matter what stance width you choose.
I don’t think I stay tight, I tilt my pelvis back and I sit down.
Should I deload to work on this?
Also, how do you stretch? I was told that static stretching before I lift is bad.
[quote]MisterT wrote:
I don’t think I stay tight, I tilt my pelvis back and I sit down.
Should I deload to work on this?[/quote]
Just get your spine in the neutral position and lock it down tight. Only allow your hips and knees to move. If you photoshopped your legs out of the video, it should look like your torso is a picture being moved up and down on a gym backdrop. Make sense?
No need to deload unless you’ve been using your back to compensate for leg weakness. (If the weight is too heavy for your legs, you’ll raise your hips first, then stand up. Turns the movement into a retarded-looking Good Morning). You should feel much stronger once you tighten up.
That’s one of the most terrible myths to ever circulate in the fitness world. Now, it’s not absolutely necessary for all lifts, but on movements that rely on flexibility and mobility to keep you injury free, you’re asking for trouble if you don’t take a little time and limber up before you lift heavy.
Especially on squats, because of the joint dynamics involved. Lack of ankle flexion has to be compensated for with extra hip flexion. And then, if your hip mobility is hampered by glutes and/or hams that are too tight, you have to compensate with lower-back flexion. And then if your lower back can’t handle that flexion with a load on it, you compensate with an ER visit and a life-long relationship with a chiro.
I just run through a circuit of light stretches, holding each for about 20sec and repeating three times (ankles, quads, glutes, hams). Then the goblet squats (holding for 20sec at the bottom), gets the whole system to work together.
I know anybody can go out and find one scientific article to support their position, but the literature appears to be converging on a consensus that long, static stretching is bad, hurts performance, and leads to increased injury. Dynamic stretching, at least according to the science/literature, appears to have almost no effect (in other words, at least it does not hurt performance – but does not appear to help either). Dynamic stretching is simply the act of moving a muscle, as opposed to holding it in a stretched position for a given amount of time.
I know this goes against everything that your pee-wee league, high-school and college coaches taught you, but then I also know that most of the coaches I’ve seen at these levels were not exactly avid readers of the scientific literature. Nor were they actively training with weights like their athletes were.
“The stretching portion traditionally incorporated static stretching. However, there are a myriad of studies demonstrating static stretch-induced performance impairments. More recently, there are a substantial number of articles with no detrimental effects associated with prior static stretching. The lack of impairment may be related to a number of factors. These include static stretching that is of short duration (<90 s total) with a stretch intensity less than the point of discomfort.”
“The benefits of preexercise muscle stretching have been recently questioned after reports of significant poststretch reductions in force and power production. However, methodological issues and equivocal findings have prevented a clear consensus being reached. As no detailed systematic review exists, the literature describing responses to acute static muscle stretch was comprehensively examined.”
“There is an abundance of literature demonstrating that a single bout of stretching acutely impairs muscle strength, with a lesser effect on power. The extent to which these effects are apparent when stretching is combined with other aspects of a pre-participation warm-up, such as practice drills and low intensity dynamic exercises, is not known.”
[quote]JayPierce wrote:
[quote]MisterT wrote:
That’s one of the most terrible myths to ever circulate in the fitness world. Now, it’s not absolutely necessary for all lifts, but on movements that rely on flexibility and mobility to keep you injury free, you’re asking for trouble if you don’t take a little time and limber up before you lift heavy.
[/quote]
If you stretch hard for 90 seconds prior to lifting, I could see it having some negative effect. Stretching lightly to limber up is not the same as stretching to improve flexibility. I have seen absolutely no decrease in my own strength or power as a result of stretching before lifting.
When you squat, [i]you will stretch[/i]. You have the choice of stretching everything at once with weight on your back (and hoping for the best), or stretching muscles individually and then making sure everything is working together correctly before you get under the bar.
You have to be very careful and pay attention to the methods used in these ‘scientific’ studies. Some of them can be very misleading. And you have to pay particular attention to wording.
From your own quote above:
The Conclusion from the second study you linked:
And this one’s from the third abstract:
And finally, one from you yourself:
You prolly ought not throw stones.
I don’t disagree with anything you said.
[quote]JayPierce wrote:
If you stretch hard for 90 seconds prior to lifting, I could see it having some negative effect. Stretching lightly to limber up is not the same as stretching to improve flexibility. I have seen absolutely no decrease in my own strength or power as a result of stretching before lifting.
When you squat, [i]you will stretch[/i]. You have the choice of stretching everything at once with weight on your back (and hoping for the best), or stretching muscles individually and then making sure everything is working together correctly before you get under the bar.
You have to be very careful and pay attention to the methods used in these ‘scientific’ studies. Some of them can be very misleading. And you have to pay particular attention to wording.
From your own quote above:
The Conclusion from the second study you linked:
And this one’s from the third abstract:
And finally, one from you yourself:
You prolly ought not throw stones.[/quote]
One point, you are moving your head around a lot. Your body/form will follow your head. Hyperextension of the neck as you go down and then too much flexion when you come back up causing to loose your back tightess and causing you to have to reset before you go back down.
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
One point, you are moving your head around a lot. Your body/form will follow your head. Hyperextension of the neck as you go down and then too much flexion when you come back up causing to loose your back tightess and causing you to have to reset before you go back down.[/quote]
That’s a good observation mate. I will try to take care of that.
I’ve asked before but, do you recommend I deload to work on my form? Like I said I’ve been getting lower back pain lately.
Also, the reason my head moves a lot is that I check my form in the mirrors, that’s wrong but how am I supposed to know I’m squatting deep enough?
[quote]MisterT wrote: I’ve asked before but, do you recommend I deload to work on my form? Like I said I’ve been getting lower back pain lately.
Also, the reason my head moves a lot is that I check my form in the mirrors, that’s wrong but how am I supposed to know I’m squatting deep enough?[/quote]
I recommend that you ignore a lot of what has been said and continue squatting (or beginning your squats) with the empty bar until you are comfortable.
Olympic lifters, in the beginning, train with the empty bar for 1000s of repetitions, and the squat is their bread and butter.
This is idea of spending time working the empoty bar as ‘wasting valuable time when you could have been maxing out and going hardcore’ is nonsense. You are a BEGINNER. The coordination in the squat (i.e. the skill of squatting) is heavily based on neural adaption. The longer you give your body to adapt (i.e with an empty bar) - the better you will be in the long run (i.e the more efficient you will be in recruiting the correct muscles, allowing them work separately at points and in unison in others, holding the correct position throughout execution, basically the whole complex pattern of movement squatting requires).
And ignore the early aches, they SHOULD lessen over time. Again, squatting requires a huge amount of adaption from the body. I ached a lot when I began deadlifting and squatting, but it faded over the first couple of months to eventually nothing.
[quote]MisterT wrote:
Also, the reason my head moves a lot is that I check my form in the mirrors, that’s wrong but how am I supposed to know I’m squatting deep enough?[/quote]
Video and review is the best way. Helps to learn the feeling of getting low enough, not just looking for it in the mirror.
[quote]yarni wrote:
I recommend that you ignore a lot of what has been said and continue squatting (or beginning your squats) with the empty bar until you are comfortable.
Olympic lifters, in the beginning, train with the empty bar for 1000s of repetitions, and the squat is their bread and butter.[/quote]
Yes, you are correct, but they spend a lot of time with the empty bar on the oly lifts. They usually don’t spend time squatting an empty bar.
If anyone had posted that, yes, I would agree. You making up a bunch of bullshit that nobody ever said and arguing against it is nonsense, too.
You are grossly over-complicating something that is very simple, and spewing a bunch of misinformation that’s going to confuse people.
You cannot get stronger by squatting an empty bar. You could squat an empty bar for 1000 reps every day for two years, and be no better off ‘in the long run’. The recruitment patterns are not the same, and that is not how neural adaptation works.
There is also no point in a squat where any muscle is working independantly. The entire body executes the squat in unison, or it fails. Don’t believe me? Load up 95% of your max and try to squat it without gripping the bar. (and if you don’t death-grip the bar already, load up 105% of your current max and kill it, because you are currently doing it wrong)
[quote]And ignore the early aches, they SHOULD lessen over time. Again, squatting requires a huge amount of adaption from the body. I ached a lot when I began deadlifting and squatting, but it faded over the first couple of months to eventually nothing.
[/quote]
You may be right about this, but back pain is too dangerous to dismiss. I always give the subject credit for knowing the difference between ‘getting used to this’ pain and ‘something is really wrong’ pain.
Usually, it’s just ‘getting used to this’ pain, but I’m not willing to risk someone else’s health by assuming.
OP, if you are more comfortable deloading, then you should. But, again, that weight looked pretty easy for you. With a proper warm-up, ramped sets, and tight posture, you’ll feel much stronger.
That’s another great thing about ramping sets, too. You’re working up to the top set, so you can adjust on the fly if you need to.
[quote]JayPierce wrote:
[quote]MisterT wrote:
Also, the reason my head moves a lot is that I check my form in the mirrors, that’s wrong but how am I supposed to know I’m squatting deep enough?[/quote]
Video and review is the best way. Helps to learn the feeling of getting low enough, not just looking for it in the mirror.[/quote]
I see, thanks for the advice.
One thing though I’m not trying to dismiss anyone’s advice with the deloading and stuff.
As a noob I’m just gathering votes to see what I should do, I’m just going with the general consensus if there is one.
I’ve been told to do many things that don’t work before, so I’m trying my best to filter stuff.
For example I always used to look down when I squat (like Mark Rippetoe instructs) but a powerlifting coach told me to look up.
Sorry if I offend but sometimes I just don’t know what the fuck to believe man.
No offense at all. Believe me, I understand.
About the looking up or looking down, I always look slightly downward when doing back squats because of the slight forward lean when you have a heavy weight on your back. You want your spine to stay in a neutral position. If you look too far up, you could lose some of the kyphotic posture your thoracic spine is supposed to have. If you look too far down, you lose tightness in the upper back and your support structure goes to shit.
Check this out. It’s usually used in reference to DLs but the concept is the same for squats. http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/packing-the-neck-an-article-inspired-by-clint-darden-and-facebook/
There are a couple of articles about it here on T-Nation as well, but this one illustrates the point pretty well.