Help with Squats?

[EnygmaEve]

So last Monday, I did squats and ended up lightly pulling a groin muscle. I didn't try squats again until today. I did extra dynamic warm ups focusing on my thigh region to make sure that I didn't do it again, because I was REALLY feeling very tight when my pull happened.

I also ordered and used for the first time tonight a Gorillapod for my iPhone, so I could record my squats and see where I was going wrong.

Not ready to go for the empty 45lb bar yet, I opted to try to get my form perfect first using a 20lb barbell.

After watching it, my thoughts are this:

• Holy cheesus, my stomach looks terrible, Weight Loss Fairy, please be kind and visit more often
  
• I might not be looking down enough?
  
• I FEEL like I'm coming down pretty low, but it looks like I'm not making it past parallel with my thighs
  
• The bar is too high, or it works its way up to being too high through the set
  
• My wrists are too bent.
  
• My back could probably stand to be a little flatter (there are a few reps where it could stand to be A LOT flatter)
  
• I'm coming WAY too far out front with the bar due to these factors
  

Here's the video.

Most of the struggling you see me doing in the vid isn't so much with the amount of weight, it's me mentally trying to figure out what my body should be doing. I have really short legs so I'm not 100% sure of what my body mechanics should look like. My camera messed up and I didn't get my last set filmed, but after reviewing the 2 sets, I tried really hard to get the bar further down on my back, and it ended up causing too much pain in my left arm for me to do too many reps in the last set.

I came home and lamented to my bf about how I wasn't happy with my squats and I shit you not he said to me: "Performing a perfect squat isn't feasible [using a free barbell]. You should use the Smith machine."

I swear sometimes he exists only to spite me.

[Rhiarti]

Immediate impression? Look at where your barbell is. Now look at your feet. Now back to the barbell...

It should be over the mid point of your feet at all times! Partly, as you already noticed, you have it too high on your back. But also, you're leaning way forward as you come down - something that only becomes necessary with far heavier weights and even then only because, you guessed it, you're keeping the weight over the mid point of your foot.

Am I right in thinking I'm seeing a few wobbles too? Which suggests you might need to ease off on the weight a bit and work on your form first. A good way to do this can actually be high reps of body weight or an unloaded bar. Making sure your core strength is good will help too.

Having said all that? You're actually doing brilliantly! Nice neutral spine, which is where a lot of beginners fall down. Your squat depth is fine for someone just starting out, though again see how low you can take it with good form and less weight. It's really important to build up all the supporting muscles that'll keep you safe at higher weights.

It would be helpful to see what's happening from the front, too - there's only so much you can gauge from the side. But hopefully that helps a bit?

[161803398874989]

You start good morning-ering about halfway through the first set. Let your shoulders come up at the same pace as your hips. You're also not reaching proper depth (you need just a little more). Don't know if you're squatting high-bar or low-bar, so can't say anything about bar position on the back. Do use a thumbless grip, pressing the bar into your back, though.

Try and shoot another video with a bit higher weight. That way the bar can't come out of the line above mid-foot.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

After watching it, my thoughts are this:

• Holy cheesus, my stomach looks terrible, Weight Loss Fairy, please be kind and visit more often
  
• I might not be looking down enough?
  
• I FEEL like I'm coming down pretty low, but it looks like I'm not making it past parallel with my thighs
  
• The bar is too high, or it works its way up to being too high through the set
  
• My wrists are too bent.
  
• My back could probably stand to be a little flatter (there are a few reps where it could stand to be A LOT flatter)
  
• I'm coming WAY too far out front with the bar due to these factors
  

• Looking down isn't a huge issue , but try to keep your gaze about 5 feet in front of you.
  
• You're almost parallel, could use a few more inches.
  
• Yeah, you'll wanna get the bar position down a little. Try widening your grip, might help. Also, if you do something like rows to strengthen your back, you'll develop an easier shelf to hold it on.
  
• Wrists are bent because they are under the bar. They should be behind or over the bar and holding it down on your back. Focusing on that should help with their angle.
  
• I honestly didn't see too much rounding, will have to take another look just for this.
  
• The bar path and you coming forward is your biggest problem. Watch the video and bar path. The bar should go straight up and down, yours moves a good 6 inches forward by the time you reach the bottom. Also watch your back angle and how much you lean forward as you go down. Your back angle should be near constant. Focus on keeping the back angle constant and try to keep your weight over your midfoot to help with this. You can even exaggerate a bit for now and try to keep your weight a bit on your heels to emphasize staying back.
  

[jdanger]

• I FEEL like I'm coming down pretty low, but it looks like I'm not making it past parallel with my thighs
  
• The bar is too high, or it works its way up to being too high through the set
  
• My wrists are too bent.
  
• My back could probably stand to be a little flatter (there are a few reps where it could stand to be A LOT flatter)
  
• I'm coming WAY too far out front with the bar due to these factors
  

Most of the struggling you see me doing in the vid isn't so much with the amount of weight, it's me mentally trying to figure out what my body should be doing. I have really short legs so I'm not 100% sure of what my body mechanics should look like. My camera messed up and I didn't get my last set filmed, but after reviewing the 2 sets, I tried really hard to get the bar further down on my back, and it ended up causing too much pain in my left arm for me to do too many reps in the last set.

I came home and lamented to my bf about how I wasn't happy with my squats and I shit you not he said to me: "Performing a perfect squat isn't feasible [using a free barbell]. You should use the Smith machine."

I swear sometimes he exists only to spite me.

First: high bar back squat, you're doing it. Keep doing it. People with short legs are built to high bar back squat. Ask this guy:

That's a perfectly designed (and enhanced) squatting machine right there.

Point 1: You feel like you're hitting depth due to the excessive lean which creates the illusion of depth to the braino.

Point 2: See above. As long as you're shrugging your shoulders back and resting the bar on your traps/rear shoulder mass and not your spine you're doing it right.

Point 3: Think about driving your elbows down/to the front.

Point 4: Your back is ok but the movement needs major fixes.

Point 5: Yes, but not really due to those factors. The problems start at the ground and in the braino. More below..

Watch the video of super Chinese squatting machine again. Notice the differences in how he initiates his motion. You're obviously thinking "hips back" or "bend at the hips" or some variation thereof whereas our example is just squatting straight down to his ankles. Easy peasy.

Of course saying is easier than doing. The first problems you're going to run into are balance issues and ankle restrictions. To rectify these I'd practice squatting with your heels on plates or a board. You're basically looking for 1-2" of elevation to reduce the mobility demands on the ankles and allow you to practice holding a much more vertical torso. Start doing ankle mobility yesterday.

The other "money drill" to start reinforcing this upright "squat to your ankles" posture is the goblet squat. Tons of vids out there but the basic idea is to hold a weight in front of your chest and practice squatting. The weight acts as a counter balance to your body and actually makes squatting easier (assuming you're not using big weight).

In the beginning of squat sessions I'd also work on pole squats. We call them stripper squats where you basically grab on to a rack, support or any other solid pole and squat down. Hang out at the bottom and try to drive your hips forward onto your ankles. If you have a hard time getting into an upright torso position put the blocks under your ankles and note the difference in the positions you're able to get into.

Remember, getting there will take time and probably be frustrating at many points along the way. Keep plugging away because the end state is worth it. Recap of the tools to get you there:

Ankle and hip mobilizations

Stripper squats (TRX/Ring squats also good variation)

Raised heel squats

Goblet squats

(pay attention at :50 for extra bit of topical goodness)

Wall squats

Front squats

[msuroo]

Start doing ankle mobility yesterday.

This made me lol. And so true. My squat gets better with every day that I spend working on my ankle mobility (and worse with every day that I don't).

[Blueberries]

Yeah, I was going to ask if you are trying to high-bar or low-bar squat. It kind of looks like you're trying to low-bar squat with the bar in a high-bar position. As you can see from the bar path, that doesn't work real well. You can either:

A. As jdanger suggested, high-bar squat

or

B. Get the bar farther down your back, which will take some time to get your shoulder(s) more flexible so that your arm(s) will stop hurting. I went through this when I started. See this thread for more info if you're dealing with the same thing. For low-bar, your wrists definitely should not be under the bar like they are.

Here's a Rippetoe video about bar placement for low-bar if that's the route you choose.

[jdanger]

Yeah, I was going to ask if you are trying to high-bar or low-bar squat. It kind of looks like you're trying to low-bar squat with the bar in a high-bar position. As you can see from the bar path, that doesn't work real well. You can either:

A. As jdanger suggested, high-bar squat

or

B. As jdanger suggested, high-bar squat

FTFY

[Blueberries]

FTFY

Haha... perfect!

[EnygmaEve]

Wow thanks for all of the tips guys. Some great feedback you've given me here.

I am trying to do a low bar squat...so I guess doing some shoulder dislocations are in order, though that exercise does look intimidating. And ankle mobility...that's something I keep reading about in my swimming books, so I guess it's gonna be one of those all-around good-to-do things. Besides propping my heels up, are there any other suggestions for this? Also gonna try to look up/discuss with yoga instructor yoga poses that can help.

[msuroo]

I like this one a lot.

[jdanger]

I've lost another one. *sulk*

[EnygmaEve]

I like this one a lot.

Nice. Looks like I'll have to dig my bands out of my closet.

[EnygmaEve]

I've lost another one. *sulk*

Lol, no you haven't. I said that I was TRYING to do a low bar squat, but now I have to go and look up how high-bar squat differs because I've spent all my time learning low-bar.

[jdanger]

*perks up*

High bar squat differs in that it's super awesome and the low bar is an abomination. And that's only a little bit of an exaggeration.

If you practice the way I outlined you'll be working towards a solid high bar squat. The final piece will be actually putting the bar high on your back and squatting the crap out of it.

[EnygmaEve]

High bar squat differs in that it's super awesome and the low bar is an abomination.

LOL.

[Morrigainz]

Jdanger, I know you are super smart and awesome, so I would like to hear your thoughts on why low-bar is an abomination.

Just 'cause I don't know. And I still haven't learned low-bar and according to you I shouldn't.

/hijack

[EnygmaEve]

Just found this article. Thoughts?

[jdanger]

Oh man, I'll try to keep it short. Part of the problem is it wasn't even a problem until Rip and his acolytes starting trying to declare the supremacy of the low bar squat for anyone and everyone. It's like a Creationist arguing against evolution. Anyone who actually understands evolution understands there really isn't a debate but it becomes an issue anyway through the shear persistence, zealotry and volume of the believers. (Sorry Creationists)

It's been beaten to death but the fact of the matter is that outside of powerlifting specific styles a low bar squat just isn't used hardly anywhere in the sporting world. Appeal to authority? Maybe. But success leaves clues and it's pretty hard to argue away decades of elite sport performance training from around the globe. No matter what your endeavor is outside the gym it is better served by the so called athletic high bar back squat.

And it gets worse. In true scientific curiosity driven fashion most people with solid squats who switch to the low bar squat in their training don't get better at their sport, they get worse. This is literally millions of instances in which all the armchair bio-mechanical analysis is proven to be found wanting. At a certain point the experiential evidence just so far outweighs how some people "think" it should work that it's silly to continue taking their points seriously. Theory is meaningless if it doesn't stand up in practice. These people talk about "low bar squat musculature" well guess what, it's an imaginary thing. Everything the low bar squat supposedly does can be done more directly and efficiently with other things.

I believe that the best way to train for life is to train like an athlete. It keeps people moving in healthy and safe ways and able to actively pursue their interests, whatever they are. The low bar squat not only doesn't help towards this end but actively works against it just like it works against full time athletes. People who use it are slower, tighter and generally less resilient than people who squat "properly". So does all this matter? Absolutely it does. But it didn't until a few people decided they knew better than the rest of the world. Which, hell, they might. But they haven't even begun to prove it where it really matters. In sport. In real life. In movement. And the open minded folks who have tried it often learn the opposite is likely true.

[bigm141414]

*...waits patiently for jdanger's manifesto...*

Seriously, when is your book coming out?

I agree low bar squatting is not done much outside of power lifting circles and the reason is that low you can squat a lot more weight, correct?

[gymell]

Couple of differences things to keep in mind about high bar vs. low bar that I don't think have been mentioned. One is that you don't use the thumb-less grip for high bar. Also you don't look down as you would with low bar. The reason to look down for low bar (as Rip explains) is that it helps with hip drive. On the SS DVD, he demonstrates how looking up will kill hip drive. But high bar is not about that. With high bar you want to think about leading with your chest and trying to keep that torso as vertical as possible. I take a narrower grip with high bar than low bar, and as I'm coming up from the bottom, I try to actively pull down (into myself) on the bar with my hands, which helps keep the chest from collapsing, and also really driving my knees out actively as I come up. Again that helps keep my torso more vertical.

I've gone back and forth between low bar and high bar. I feel like I'm better at low bar - 1RM of 175lb vs. 155/160lb for high bar. And it feels more natural to me. When I lifted in a power lifting meet back in February, that's what I did. But it has no carryover to Olympic lifting. So I have conceded that although I can squat more low bar, it's just not an athletic movement and doesn't translate for anything else I want to do. If your end goal is to be able to simply squat more weight (for example as a power lifter) then low bar will work for that. But if you want the squat to help in other areas, then high bar seems to be much more beneficial. So I'm redoubling my efforts to get better at high bar!

[jdanger]

*...waits patiently for jdanger's manifesto...*

Seriously, when is your book coming out?

I agree low bar squatting is not done much outside of power lifting circles and the reason is that low you can squat a lot more weight, correct?

I'm working on assembling a team of editors. My current editor says I need at least four more people to parse and make sense out of my chaotic brain sap.

As for the second thing, I'm not even sure about that. I began thinking about it a while ago and right now my answer is maybe not? In adult populations with day jobs and the corresponding movement problems the answer is maybe, at first. I think it's easier to fake a low bar back squat to get bigger numbers in the same way it's possible to fake a dead lift for same. I also think the low bar position has a different effect in advanced, geared squatting that maybe doesn't help as much in raw lifting as much as people think. Obviously geared lifters prefer a hip dominant squat to maximize the utility of their suits. We can then explain their raw squatting preference by the principle of specificity. Of course they prefer to squat low bar since it better reflects their competition movement using gear.

This leaves the issue of raw PL'ers wide acceptance of the low bar squat and right now my admittedly less than popular answer is that it's lazy. Lazy for the same reasons as hinted at above. The limiter in a low bar squat is almost always going to be a person's ability to manage shearing force against the spine caused by the large moment between the hips and the bar in the front lean position. It is my firm suspicion that all things being equal (i.e. ideal mobility/technique in either case), a person will be safer and capable of heavier loads in the long term with an upright, more compressively loaded, spine. I don't know if you've seen any videos of elite weightlifters training the squat. They are repping loads not even seen in high level raw PL comps and making it look easy.. with a high bar. Of course it is a case of their accommodation to their specialization but the loads and their movement does not lie.

I feel it is often the case that those who prefer the low bar squat or "are better suited to" it are people who have either trained it a lot or have movement/mobility issues that get exposed in a proper squat or some combination thereof.

Edit: Anecdote time. I currently high bar squat 40lbs off the state PL squat record in my weight class. Would I be able to set this record faster if I switched to a low bar setup for that goal? Maybe, maybe not. What I am sure of is my other training, definitely the Olympic lifts, would suffer dramatically. So what would be better assuming I did pursue this record? Ditching the technique that's gotten me this far for what breaks down to a magic bullet fix or staying the proverbial course?

[gymell]

I feel it is often the case that those who prefer the low bar squat or "are better suited to" it are people who have either trained it a lot or have movement/mobility issues that get exposed in a proper squat or some combination thereof.

That may be true, I don't know. As for myself, I trained high bar exclusively for 2 years under the supervision a good coach (very enthusiastic about Olympic lifting, and I lifted in 2 meets under him.) I came into his gym doing low bar, and he promptly switched me over. My 1RM only went up by 5lb (from 155 to 160) in that time, and it wasn't for lack of trying. My other lifts went up (front squat 150, overhead squat 115), it was just the high bar squat stayed the same. When I left that gym and trained for a power lifting meet, I switched back to low bar and within a couple of months I was up to 175lb on that. I wouldn't say I trained low bar a lot before doing high bar - maybe 6 months. And I'm not cheating depth, or doing any PL tricks on low bar to get a higher number. My PL coach kept telling me I was going too deep, and at the meet the announcer even commented on my depth (see photo below.)

But all that being said, being better at low bar is really irrelevant for me now. I don't want a higher squat number simply for its own sake - I want to get stronger for Olympic lifting, and high bar squats are the way to go. So what I'm really focused on now is not whether my 1RM squat goes up, but whether my O-lifts improve. No more low bar for me!

[EnygmaEve]

Tonight, I think I'm just going to do some BW squatting and some squatting with the kettle bell, and maybe keep that up through the rest of this week and the next, so Monday, July 23 will be my goal date for trying BB squats again with better form.

Please keep the insights coming though, and I'll post the video of my next attempt on this thread. I need all the tips and tricks I can get.

Edit: also working hard on flexibility issues during this timeframe too

[The Tin Man]

I like this one a lot.

My jaw dropped when I saw C.J. Martin's ankle flexibility. *drool*

*perks up*

High bar squat differs in that it's super awesome and the low bar is an abomination. And that's only a little bit of an exaggeration.

jdanger, master of nonbiased reporting. (Yes, I know you followed up with a compelling argument. This line just made me laugh)