I have recently been lifting at a powerlifting gym and have been getting coached on my form but I’m having most trouble with squats. Mainly keeping my knees out and putting the weight on the right part of my foot. I have 2 main questions.
Do you have any advice on how to keep your knees out better, specifically when coming back up? Apparently mine bow in slightly.
Where do I place the weight on my foot? I have been reading a few EFTS articles and they say that you dont really put the weight on your heels but more pressed out on the side of your foot. Is this true? I was told to press on the side and back so its basically on the outside portion of my heel, I had a really hard time with this though. Can someone clear this up for me.
[quote]brauny96 wrote:
Spread the floor. Strengthen the hips. You still want to sit back on your heels, but try to push your feet out and spread the floor.[/quote]
x2
but if you don’t use gear don’t tr to purely sit back. i made this mistake myself after coming back from a short layoff and only just figured out that if i sit back and let my knees fall forward then i squat much better and stronger. (raw anyways)
Like Chuck Vogelpohl said…“This whole sitting back thing is overrated…Eventually you have to squat down”. The movement should begin with your hips breaking and your ass going backwards. Then squat down. If you keep “sitting back” you’ll more or less be doing a goodmorning.
like the guy above said aim your feet outwards at a 45* or so angle. If your feet are straight forward the knees will cave in no matter how hard you “push out”. Remember to stand wide to spread the weight out to every muscle possible. If you want to do squats for quad development do olympic squats with a close stance. But this is the powerlifting section right so…
This whole push with the heels/sidfe of foot thing is BS in my opinion. I just had 575 on my back and I didn’t give a shit about where I was pushing from I was just worrying about keeping my chest up, pushing and driving thru with my hips. That whole foot thing will take care of itself. Good luck party monster!
I’ve recently found these to be the steps i have to take to do my best squatting
1 place bar on back, tense upper back and lift off rack
2 take 1 step back while remaining tight, and set stance
3 stand completely erect,
4 break at hips and knees while flexing lower back and descend until depth is reached
5 drive with hip flexors and hamstrings out of the hole, allow knees to come back until shins are vertical and stand up
repeat steps 3-5 for repetitions
pushing the knees out always helps me get depth.
i have use the spread the floor thought as well as lifting my big toe up in my shoe in the past. now it just comes naturally, i don’t think of too much.
Thanks guys, I’ll try to take a slightly wider stance. I lift raw and plan to stay that way but I heard having such a wide stance was more for geared lifters. I’ll maybe take it out and few inches and point my toes out more. I’ll also focus on constantly pressing out against my shoes and trying to spread the floor. Any other tips or advice.
A few guys at my gym are 600-800lb squatters so they are the ones looking at my squat so this is what my squat workouts have mainly been focused on, fixing this problem.
if you have 800 lb squatters helping you out, there’s no reason to come here for advice. you have a valuable resource that many don’t have access to. use it for all its worth.