Long story short, my squat and deadlift used to look atrocious - tons of lumbar rounding. I’ve been trying to re-learn these lifts, as well as strengthen my glutes, hamstrings, and abs, in order to prevent myself from getting injured. I’ve been able to reduce most of the lumbar rounding, but I notice that when I execute both of these lifts (especially the squat), I have a tendency to extend my knees first, and once my knees are almost fully extended (and my hips are still flexed almost 90 degrees), I do a hip extension that looks like a good morning.
Here’s a video to illustrate the point:
(Pardon the shirtlessness, I’m trying to keep an eye on my lower back to see if I’m rounding it.)
Is there anything I can be doing to improve this? Might this be due to some muscle imbalance, or is this just something that I need to improve by repeatedly working on my squat form? Any pointers, tips, advice, or whatever would be greatly appreciated.
To be honest, I think your form looks pretty good there. You certainly aren’t nearly as bad (with respect to your but coming up first) as you think you are.
you need to get your chest up more it seems. your not bad at all, but you would be stronger if you led with your chest more, as soon as you get out of the hole get your chest up as high as you can, the legs will follow.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
You’re going straight down. You need to sit back so that your knees don’t go forward past your toes.[/quote]
In a suit, probably, raw, no, definately not.
OP - put more weight on the bar and put up a new video.[/quote]
Are you kidding? His first movement is breaking at the knees.
OP, post another video and make sure to get your feet in the picture. [/quote]
What is so bad exactly about the knees going past the toes? I thought this myth had been dispelled long ago.
[quote]OBoile wrote:
What is so bad exactly about the knees going past the toes? I thought this myth had been dispelled long ago.[/quote]
When talking about knees going forward, one study jumps out. Fry, Smith, and Schilling (2003) examined joint kinetics during back squats under two conditions.
The first condition placed a board in front of the participants’ shins, which restricted forward displacement of the knee. In the second condition, movement wasn’t restricted at all. They squatted normally and the knees were allowed to pass the toes.
The researchers found that restricting the forward excursion of the knees during the squat increased anterior lean of the trunk and promoted an increased “internal angle at the knees and ankles.”
The results showed a 22% decrease in knee torque and a 1070% increase in hip torque! That stress has to go somewhere. Keeping the knees behind the toes definitely reduces the forces on the knee, but those forces were transferred more than tenfold to the hips and lower back.
Looks pretty much fine to me, just get those elbows under the bar and pull down hard. This invariably corrects any tendency to let the chest drop. You could sit in a little more too, but pretty decent nonetheless.
[quote]ninearms wrote:
Looks pretty much fine to me, just get those elbows under the bar and pull down hard. This invariably corrects any tendency to let the chest drop. You could sit in a little more too, but pretty decent nonetheless.[/quote]
Ditto. Don’t let the elbows drift back, otherwise the shoulders and chest will drop and you get stapled to the floor. Pull the elbows forward and chest up.
[quote]ninearms wrote:
Looks pretty much fine to me, just get those elbows under the bar and pull down hard. This invariably corrects any tendency to let the chest drop. You could sit in a little more too, but pretty decent nonetheless.[/quote]
Wow, awesome to see so many responses - thanks to everyone who offered their input.
I have a tendency to side with the people who say that knees over the toes is fine, especially for raw squatters. I realize that those of you who compete geared, do a lot of box squats, or squat really wide probably sit back a lot more on your squats.
I think the piece of advice that is probably most relevant is to keep my elbows under the bar. I usually focus on keeping my abs and upper back tight, so my torso is pretty much perfectly straight throughout the lift, which accentuates the resemblance of my top end to a good morning. I’ll try bringing my elbows forward and trying to get my chest up, and see if this has any effect.
I’ll post a video the next time I squat. I’ll use a weight closer to my one-rep max so that it will give a good idea of where my form starts to break down, although I’ll still probably be fairly conservative because I’m just coming off a back injury.
