I’ve started running SS, today I decided to video my second working set.
My back is far more horizontal than I’d realized and I’m not quite breaking parallel. How do I fix this?
Many thanks
Upload to YouTube and then copy and past URL so I can see it please.
There’s a multitude of things that need fixing, but the biggest thing I see is that you’re not staying tight! You’re wiggling all of the place throughout the entire movement. Stay tight as hell and try to make the bar path as vertical as possible. Some of the other stuff might work itself out if you just do that. Also, load the hips more.
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Put he bar a bit higher on your traps; once you’re more experienced, you’ll be able to try lower bar, if you wish
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puff your chest out as hard as you can (easier with bar on upper traps, that’s why #1)
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treat each repetition as a single one, as the most important one; this leads to #4
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GET THE RIGHT SET-UP EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU START A REPETITION: chest out, fill your gut with air, then brace it; stay tight, always
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as you go down think: “Chest up, butt back, knees out”; you’ll get uncomfortable tension on hamstrings and adductors, just get used to it. If it doesn’t happen, you’re doing it wrong (chest collapsing down and/or knees caving in and/or lumbar spine flexing);
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as you go up, think: “Chest up” and brace you abs;
get on the u toobz and search for wall squats. You’ll have no choice but to squat correctly that way.
[quote]fabiop wrote:
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Put he bar a bit higher on your traps; once you’re more experienced, you’ll be able to try lower bar, if you wish
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puff your chest out as hard as you can (easier with bar on upper traps, that’s why #1)
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treat each repetition as a single one, as the most important one; this leads to #4
-
GET THE RIGHT SET-UP EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU START A REPETITION: chest out, fill your gut with air, then brace it; stay tight, always
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as you go down think: “Chest up, butt back, knees out”; you’ll get uncomfortable tension on hamstrings and adductors, just get used to it. If it doesn’t happen, you’re doing it wrong (chest collapsing down and/or knees caving in and/or lumbar spine flexing);
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as you go up, think: “Chest up” and brace you abs;[/quote]
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So put it above the spine of the scapula?
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I thought having my butt too far back was the reason I’d bent over like this
[quote]OmniStyx wrote:
There’s a multitude of things that need fixing, but the biggest thing I see is that you’re not staying tight! You’re wiggling all of the place throughout the entire movement. Stay tight as hell and try to make the bar path as vertical as possible. Some of the other stuff might work itself out if you just do that. Also, load the hips more.[/quote]
So hard arch, but what do you mean by load the hips more?
[quote]StrengthDawg wrote:
get on the u toobz and search for wall squats. You’ll have no choice but to squat correctly that way. [/quote]
looks to me like you’re sitting back too much. maybe try to push your knees out more, stay more upright and squat down. and stay tighter
Head up, chest out, shoulders back. That’s what My coach use to tell me. You’re not really doing any of those three things.
Your back is just following your head and you’re almost looking straight down. Keep your head up and look straight ahead and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the other suggestions posters have made start to fall right into place for you.
It actually looks to me like you are attempting to get your chest out and shoulders back, but you’re not having a lot of success because everything is following your head. Take a look at your spine/back in the video and notice that it is perfectly in line with your head.
Give that a try for a week or two and if it doesn’t get you where you want to be you may want to try moving the bar a little higher as someone else suggested. I like where your bar is now and it appears you are doing a good job squeezing your scapulae together to support it, but you may not be ready for that low bar position yet.
Hard arch is a very misleading cue. You don’t want your back massively arched, rather you want it in a neutral position by bracing your abs and lats while keeping some tension in the hip extenders. Loading the hips is a cue with a similar idea to the sitting back cue, but is more intuitive for me because thinking about sitting back makes me cave forward like you tend to.
Start the lift with your head & shoulders before you drive your legs - this will get real important when you put more wieght on the bar. You’re pushing you butt up -
[quote]itchygoose wrote:
[quote]fabiop wrote:
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as you go down think: “Chest up, butt back, knees out”;[/quote]
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So put it above the spine of the scapula?
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I thought having my butt too far back was the reason I’d bent over like this
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yes
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'cause you forgot (or didn’t know/care) about the two other clues.
You received a lot of useful answers, get some work done, and make videos, lots of them.
To reiterate the sentiments of others.
Head up out of the hole. Work keeping abs tight. Might need some more ab strength. I know I keep more upright when I work on my abs.
In addition to wall squats. Goblet squats. Look for articles on here by Dan John. He’s a big advocate of them.
- Your head needs to be neutral and your neck packed. Search this site for instructions - I saw an article awhile back.
- Your eyes should be focused straight ahead or slightly down but no way to the extent you are looking down. I am impressed you stood up at all looking that far down. I got dizzy watching.
- Never take your eyes off of the mark you make and don’t move your head - keep it packed in your neck - your eyes should rotate slightly up as you go down in order to keep on the mark. But your head never moves - it should be plastered into your neck.
- Crank/ratchet/rotate your elbows under the bar - they are too far back and contributing to your forward lean - they’re pushing you over into a good morning.
- Cranking your elbows under and keeping them there will instantly bring your chest up.
- Your body will follow your head and eyes. Thus when you are in the hole, keep the eyes on the mark and drive your head back into the bar.
- BUT, since your head is plastered to your neck which is plastered into your upper back and your elbows are under the bar keeping your chest up and back tight, the whole plastered structure will actually be driving back and up, with no choice but to follow the head - since it is all freakin stuck together.
OP, without actual coaching, you are actually doing a decent job following the squat cues as preached by Rippetoe in his starting strength stuff; check some of the videos of Rip coaching the squat to kids. Lots of people disagree with his cues, as evidenced by all the advice you’re getting, plus the obvious fact that you seem to not want your squat to look like that.
I just saw a great post from SLAINGE: Switching From High Bar to Low Bar Back Squat - Bigger Stronger Leaner - Forums - T Nation
in my opinion this ^
as well as (restating other things already stated)
-try widening your stance more
-when you’re pushing your knees our really try to grip the floor and twist your foot simultaneously
-Learn how to breathe into your stomach and brace your abs and obliques
-Lean how to use your abs, lats, lower back and hips in unison
-as others said use a higher bar position and focus on cues in this order (abs/back/hips braced; chest up,slowly push hips back while keeping your chest up as much as humanly possible until you start falling into that range where you feel like you are going to start leaning forward too much, drop down)
Gear wise
You could buy a good pair of oly shoes. That will automatically make achieving depth easier, and combine that with high bar and you will be upright in no time. You will also build up tremendous power in the glutes, back, and quads as well as build up flexibility.
Training wise try incorporating high bar oly squats, pause squats, high bar pause squats, high bar wide stance squats, and perfect box squats.
Use the pause squats to build strength in the quads, back, and glutes; technique; and comfortable in the bottom position.
When doing the box squats keep your form 100% identical to your desired free squat form and do it with 100% focus. Meaning lower under control, keep your chest up and back type, SOFLTY and GRADUAL release tension onto the box as you statically maintain the exact form you did lowering, than gradually transition from squeezing yourself to exploding off of the box.
Programming try doing something like
A Squats - keep it lighter and maintaining perfect form
B. Box Squats - go heavier and do more sets and fewer reps, never letting form degrade or do medium to higher reps (6-10) to build size and a base
C. High Bar Pause Squat - Do whatever accessory programming you want here and really push it
D through ? whatever programming or assistance exercises you want.
this is just my opinion, hope it helps.
Today was front squats, so I didn’t try to fix this with my working weight (only used 40kg to get a feeling for it) but I sat in a deepish squat for 10 seconds with a much more vertical torso. I managed to put the bar on top of the rear delts properly and get my wrists lined up straight, which was really different, and felt more stable, but I got loads of pain in my front and side delts, is this just a flexibility issue?
Didn’t have the option of videoing it today, but I’ll be able to on thurday for my next squat day.
Is there any way you can make a video showing you from another angle?
I don’t see a ton of problems here, especially considering that you are using the suggested form from Starting Strength. All of the above advice is really solid, so there isn’t much I can add. Remember that no form is meant to be followed exactly. You will need to modify it for your own anatomy (everyone is extremely different).
Your first few reps are right at parallel, and the following ones are a bit higher as you fatigue, but I think this is just because you are afraid to miss a rep, and not necessarily due to a form problem.
I started with Starting Strength as well. I was exactly where you are with the squat-morning type lifts.
I am pretty sure that this about par for a near maximal effort, beltless, low-bar squat.
I trained 2.5 years before I bought a belt. I went from hitting something like 155 for a set of 5, to 370 for a set of 5 without ever wearing a belt. After I hurt my back deadlifting and following it up with a squat session I should have skipped, I purchased a belt, worked on form, and started doing corrective exercises (for me this used to be a ton of light goodmornings and now it is a ton of stiff legged deadlifts and some front squatting).
Let me restate, that when doing beltless-low-bar squats, for 2.5 years, my early reps were gold, and then they slowly turned into squatmornings as I fatigued.
Life is better now. I wouldn’t belt up until you are solidly in the 315 to 350 range for a few reps, however this would probably help you stay upright.
You may also want to try some paused squatting. Just a thought though.
One thing that you may want to try that is a bit counter-intuitive:
Think about driving your ass up. This is a Rippetoe cue. What I find is that if I think about doing this, I don’t let my butt float up without the bar also moving. It helps me keep tension through out.
Also be careful watching videos of Rippetoe coaching. There’s at least one video out there where he’s giving advice for someone who sits up too quickly (the exact opposite of you). Keep in mind that when coaching one on one, the advice is for that specific lifter, not necessarily for you.