For the last 9 months, I have had an extremely tight lower back and quads/hips, mainly from bad form and being too quad dominant. It has mostly affected my low back and getting deep into a squat. I have watched some videos by Jonnie Candito and Chris Duffin and I think I’m starting to turn a corner.
Before, I was breaking at the hips and not pushing my knees out. Now I’m learning to break at the knees and push the knees out. I have noticed that my descent feels weak and slow, which I’m guessing is due to weak glutes and hams. However, accelerating up is not a problem, I’m guessing due to my strong quads/low back.
Also, a little more detail. Over a year ago, I got in a car accident that heavily bruised my left hip flexor. I went to PT about 7 months ago and the PT said my left side was more anteriorly tilted then my right. He told me to stretch my left hip flexor and right hamstring. He also gave me a few exercises but I wasn’t seeing results, which is kind of where I’m at now. I’ve been to 3 more PT’s with not much luck. Another detail is that my left hamstring gets a lot more sore than my right, I’m guessing due to an imbalance?
My comments will be for the 225 video and not being there in person means you should not take this as gospel, but as a general comment trying to help as best as this allows.
I believe the bar is too high in the J hooks. It appears to be shoulder level. You get untight from unracking. Instead, put the bar down around the mid/ upper chest, ie lower the wider you chose to stand. check out this set up video from JL Holdsworth. I believe it will help you stay tight. It also looks as if you are taking a low bar position but standing fairly narrow. Maybe consider widening your stance to take advantage of the PC or moving the bar up a bit.
( I assume those are lifting shoes, and not Nike SHOX?)
I actually said something to my friend about the height of the racks. The 225 set felt like I lost my tightness. I will try to go a little wider next time. Do you think I should just practice my stance with box squats for now and just work on the firing the glutes?
Have done any self-myofascial release on your hamstrings and hips?
That helped me quite a bit with my mobility and depth. I use a foam roller, rumble roller, lacrosse ball combo to try and get all areas.
I do foam rolling and stretching with a rogue fitness band before all of my sessions. I have noticed that the right hamstring is tighter on the right side and the quad/it band is tighter on the left.
Also, I forgot to put this video in. This was how I was squatting before I started to fix up my form.
[quote]bosoxschillfan38 wrote:
And also, what does PC mean? [/quote]
Sorry, “Posterior chain”. Yeah man lower the hooks so that you can STAY tight. It’s kind of like when you bench if you have to push up and over the hooks you’ll likely take the lats out of the movement and leave #'s on the table.
I LOVE box squats. Super easy on the knees and I feel better from doing them BUT for me, it messes up my raw free squat form if I ONLY box squat. So to combat that I Maybe work up to a 3 or 5rm on box then bang a “widow maker” ala DC, aka 20 rep set with the free squat. I will advise that IF you want to specifically work on form, consider doing doubles or singles.
here’s another tool that you can use to dial in form. I do these quite regularly as part of a warm up. All you need is a broomstick or a length of PVC if you lift in the garage or even do an empty bar.
[quote]bosoxschillfan38 wrote:
Here is one more video from the other night [/quote]
Bar height is better but with those racks it often is what it is due to the lack of choices. Better lower than high IMHO in those situations.
Ok so I’d say you should really focus on cranking the elbows DOWN. With your elbows up it making you chest roll over a tad or at least not putting you in an optimal position. If you find it difficulty on getting your elbows down consider using a “3 finger grip” meaning pinkyless. This will allow you to really get under that bar. This will make the upper back tighter BTW.
Ok so if I were judging depth, you’d get red lighted. Looks about 3" high to be considered “legal”. Play with stance width since you’re wearing Romalos. It is likely that the wide PL type stance doesn’t lend itself well when wearing oly shoes, at least I’ve never been able to pull that off. Another thing FWIW, I think part of your issue is you may be intentionally trying to stop at where you feel is “parallel”. Truth is, when you really sink a squat you engage more of the PC muscles so don’t be afraid to go hams on calves.
Recap
If you want to squat wide,low bar, wear a pair of chucks.
If you want to squat shoulder width, medium or higher bar rock the Romalos.
try that and get back to me ok. We’ll get you dialed in.
[quote]bosoxschillfan38 wrote:
Here is one more video from the other night [/quote]
Bar height is better but with those racks it often is what it is due to the lack of choices. Better lower than high IMHO in those situations.
Ok so I’d say you should really focus on cranking the elbows DOWN. With your elbows up it making you chest roll over a tad or at least not putting you in an optimal position. If you find it difficulty on getting your elbows down consider using a “3 finger grip” meaning pinkyless. This will allow you to really get under that bar. This will make the upper back tighter BTW.
Ok so if I were judging depth, you’d get red lighted. Looks about 3" high to be considered “legal”. Play with stance width since you’re wearing Romalos. It is likely that the wide PL type stance doesn’t lend itself well when wearing oly shoes, at least I’ve never been able to pull that off. Another thing FWIW, I think part of your issue is you may be intentionally trying to stop at where you feel is “parallel”. Truth is, when you really sink a squat you engage more of the PC muscles so don’t be afraid to go hams on calves.
Recap
If you want to squat wide,low bar, wear a pair of chucks.
If you want to squat shoulder width, medium or higher bar rock the Romalos.
try that and get back to me ok. We’ll get you dialed in.
[/quote]
I’ll try the wider stance, especially with a box at first. However, the reason I’ve been stopping at “parallel” is because whenever I’ve gone deeper, the lower back seems to take over and my low back feels like hell afterwards.
I’ll try the wider stance, especially with a box at first. However, the reason I’ve been stopping at “parallel” is because whenever I’ve gone deeper, the lower back seems to take over and my low back feels like hell afterwards.
[/quote]
What does your ab training look like? I found that squatting hundreds of pounds at a time, thousands of pounds per set, tons of pounds per session then 1/2 assing my ab work wasn’t cutting it and my low back was sore all the time too.
What’s worked for me is doing heavy front squat holds for time, blast strap ab fallouts, and doing some side to side bends with a landmine. Also “stir the pots” on an exercise ball is pretty good to me.
I switched to oly shoes this year and because it was easier to keep my body upright, I got lazy bracing my core while squatting. My abs were never that strong to begin with but it got worse. It was noticeable in all of my attempts at 90+%. Most people can front squat 75% of their back squat but I would have gotten stapled by it lol. In my current training cycle I have split my squat training into half for back squat and half for front squat, incorporating pause work for both.
I also finish my sessions with a few singles of paused breathing front squats (5s at the bottom). I have been following Richard Hawthorne and his advice is to treat every lift as a movement for training the core so I focus on bracing the core as tight as possible for everything, even assistance lifts like good morning, lunges, etc… In the past 6 weeks it has made a huge difference. The first 4 weeks went slow since I looked cautious in all my reps, always thinking about bracing myself, but now it feels natural and the reps are moving more smoothly. I’ll be able quantify the improvement once I go for a PR at the end of the training cycle.
It looked like you were hyperextending your back in the early videos so you could have the same problem I had. Doing paused front squats can teach you how to maintain the most efficient neutral spine positioning.
[quote]lift206 wrote:
I switched to oly shoes this year and because it was easier to keep my body upright, I got lazy bracing my core while squatting. My abs were never that strong to begin with but it got worse. It was noticeable in all of my attempts at 90+%. Most people can front squat 75% of their back squat but I would have gotten stapled by it lol. In my current training cycle I have split my squat training into half for back squat and half for front squat, incorporating pause work for both.
I also finish my sessions with a few singles of paused breathing front squats (5s at the bottom). I have been following Richard Hawthorne and his advice is to treat every lift as a movement for training the core so I focus on bracing the core as tight as possible for everything, even assistance lifts like good morning, lunges, etc… In the past 6 weeks it has made a huge difference. The first 4 weeks went slow since I looked cautious in all my reps, always thinking about bracing myself, but now it feels natural and the reps are moving more smoothly. I’ll be able quantify the improvement once I go for a PR at the end of the training cycle.
It looked like you were hyperextending your back in the early videos so you could have the same problem I had. Doing paused front squats can teach you how to maintain the most efficient neutral spine positioning.[/quote]
I definitely think pauses are really good and learning to brace to core. I decided to return the romaleos and get some of those reebok power shoes. I’m gonna try to widen my stance a bit. My best squat (485) was done with a medium-wide stance. I think over time I went more narrow and forgot to brace the core.
Best thing I could for lower back pain when squatting was widen my stance up a bit. I get the same problem when my feet are in closer than I normally squat now. My butt tucks under and usually my right erector begins to hurt so bad it can literally leave me on the floor for 20-30 mins and pretty much just ruin a entire session. With that being said moving your feet out is nice and all but it does not fix your problem just lets you work around it. I suggest aggressively rolling and stretching your lower back, hams, and glutes. Glutes are the most important any and every time they do not get rolled before a session I am fucked. So I suggest getting a PVC Pipe 3in in diameter hurts like hell at first but has about the same surface force of a slightly forgiving Lacrosse Ball.
Stretch Hips and Hams then. Slowly roll out your lower back both erectors. Then sit up on your butt on top of the roller and pull one foot up and place it on the knee of the other leg. So essentially you are doing a Glute stretch while rolling out your glute. It is enough to make you cry but if you can get a few mins on each glute it will fix a lot of your problem for the session. How ever once again it is temporary and pretty much the second you stop doing it before the session the pain is right back.
Sorry for errors I am using a talk text and driving so I am not really able to double check to much.
Kind of off topic but does anyone else feel that a bit of APT actually helps their squat? I’ve noticed that when I just get a little of it it feels like it actually helps me get in position out of the hole.
