Squat Form

[Yev33]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXsE5Htz7ag&feature=youtu.be [/YOUTUBE]

Just want to get some input on form from you guys. I know that the bar is higher on the traps and the stance is narrower from the traditional powerlifting stance, but I figured some of the guys here know a ton about squatting of all kinds and can give me some feed back.

[syssstem]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXsE5Htz7ag&feature=youtu.be [/YOUTUBE]

Just want to get some input on form from you guys. I know that the bar is higher on the traps and the stance is narrower from the traditional powerlifting stance, but I figured some of the guys here know a ton about squatting of all kinds and can give me some feed back.

how tall are you? you have an insanely long femur man lol.

[Yev33]

how tall are you? you have an insanely long femur man lol.

Haha, I'm only 5'9"

[Lock it Up]

Your depth looked good to me, it just looks like you start the movement by breaking at the knees and not sitting back. Think "back" when starting the movement, and also, that high bar placement looks really rough on your back...your hitching on almost every rep on the concentric.

Also, it appears from that angle that your knees are buckling bit, which makes me say to widen up again, and "spread the floor" to help prevent that.

Overall it looks good though, I would just try sitting back on your heels more, maybe widening up the stance just a bit to allow for that, and also have the bar a tad lower on the traps to help you keep upright. Once you start using heavy weight trust me I know it's tough to stay upright, but well worth it in the long run IMO.

Take all that with a grain of salt, as I am not a powerlifter, just looking at what I feel I would do differently if that were me in the video.

Overall though, I think it looked good. If you had posted that in a training journal, I don't think you would have many peole telling you something was wrong with your form. I had to nitpick, lol.

[-AJA14-]

Your depth looked good to me, it just looks like you start the movement by breaking at the knees and not sitting back. Think "back" when starting the movement, and also, that high bar placement looks really rough on your back...your hitching on almost every rep on the concentric.

Also, it appears from that angle that your knees are buckling bit, which makes me say to widen up again, and "spread the floor" to help prevent that.

Overall it looks good though, I would just try sitting back on your heels more, maybe widening up the stance just a bit to allow for that, and also have the bar a tad lower on the traps to help you keep upright. Once you start using heavy weight trust me I know it's tough to stay upright, but well worth it in the long run IMO.

Take all that with a grain of salt, as I am not a powerlifter, just looking at what I feel I would do differently if that were me in the video.

Overall though, I think it looked good. If you had posted that in a training journal, I don't think you would have many peole telling you something was wrong with your form. I had to nitpick, lol.

This is good advice, it is more of an Olympic type squat than a power squat.

[syssstem]

your hitching on almost every rep on the concentric.

what the hell do you mean by hitching on every rep? define a hitch for a squat, this is new to me lol.


also, I would say 2 things that stood out for me is #1 the foot width with the knees coming in slightly, and #2 your back tightness.

You can really tell on the last rep how much your lower, mid, and upper back losens when you come out of the hole.

Keep that shit TIGHT. You will be surprised how much easier it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDaQo3eODrY

[Lock it Up]

what the hell do you mean by hitching on every rep? define a hitch for a squat, this is new to me lol.

The way I meant hitching, was that if you watch, when he comes out of the hole, you can notice his hips kinda "slip" under neath his shoulders, causing an elongated spine position, which in turn forces his low back to round out of the natural curve we want, which causes his shoulders to dip forward...puts a lot of stress on his spine that way. Basically, he's not keeping his chest as high as he should. This is also not helped by the high bar position. That's all I meant. Perhaps a bad choice of words to say hitch...

EDIT: and it's not every rep...you can tell he does it when it gets tough...totally normal, but can be fixed easily with foot placement and lower bar placement. AND like I said, I am nitpicking...I liked his form lol.

[Arkbuilder]

Hips - This is tied in with the arch of the lower back. Your hips/pelvis should be rolled up and back. The first movement of the squat needs to be back, not down, and setting up with your hips facing back makes this first movement MUCH easier.

Here's a good thread to supplement/echo Lock's pointers. I was directed to it recently to help with my squat. Helpful indeed.

edit: To be clear, I'm just passing the link on. No advice from me.

[Yev33]

Thanks for the advice guys.
Bar placement is the first thing that caught my eye when I saw the video for the first time. I thought that I was putting the bar lower than I really was. That's something I am going to expirement with, I think that dropping the bar down to just below my traps will make a difference.
I have tried a wider stance before, and it didn't work for me. That could be because I didn't give it enough time, but the closer stance feels more natural to me.
Overall though this training cycle has been good. I started out with 320 x 4 and 355 for a single, hopefully I can get to 360-370 for 4 and 405 for a single before I stall out.