Squats - constructive criticism please

[kitionel]

Sets of 5 at 125 kg

Side view:


Back view:

[Wilhelm]

Those look really good, @kitionel

What are your thoughts about your squat?

Also, welcome to the site. : )

[mgil]

I think you’re relaxing a bit too much at the very bottom for that extra bit of depth. Otherwise, no real issues.

[Wilhelm]

I think you’re relaxing a bit too much at the very bottom for that extra bit of depth. Otherwise, no real issues.

I can see what you are saying there. Gil.
Relatively small bit of butt wink.
I'm not sure that could be eliminated, or needs to be.
Back angle is well maintained, so i didn't (kind of don't?) see a bunch of relaxing.

Even after the wink starts above parallel, the lower back angle ends up looking really not bad at all to my eyes.

For whatever that is worth. I'm willing to admit i could be way off.
Not disagreeing in an absolute sense, just adding my perspective to the discussion.

I'm wondering how heels might affect this.
Again, not sure it's needed, but i am curious.

[mgil]

I think you’re relaxing a bit too much at the very bottom for that extra bit of depth. Otherwise, no real issues.

I can see what you are saying there. Gil.
Relatively small bit of butt wink.
I'm not sure that could be eliminated, or needs to be.
Back angle is well maintained, so i didn't (kind of don't?) see a bunch of relaxing.

Even after the wink starts above parallel, the lower back angle ends up looking really not bad at all to my eyes.

For whatever that is worth. I'm willing to admit i could be way off.
Not disagreeing in an absolute sense, just adding my perspective to the discussion.

I'm wondering how heels might affect this.
Again, not sure it's needed, but i am curious.

Yeah it’s just a little bit. My own personal opinion is that if he stays tighter and cuts those squats off about 1” higher (still plenty deep), he might see better velocity on the concentric and the hips and chest would rise at the same speed. It’s slight in reps 3-5, but the hips come up before the chest. My suspicion is that there is a bit of slack at the bottom and the barbell gets a little forward.

Again, these are small things. For general training purposes, these are fine squats. If the goal is ultimate display of strength, I’d probably dial these in just a touch.

But yeah, we do need some motivation as to why these were posted, @kitionel. Responses will vary based on what you’re looking to get out of a form check and what is going on currently in your training.

[Wilhelm]

Thanks, @mgil

Yeah, i can see that better when i'm not focusing on the other parts.

[kitionel]

Yeah it’s just a little bit. My own personal opinion is that if he stays tighter and cuts those squats off about 1” higher (still plenty deep), he might see better velocity on the concentric and the hips and chest would rise at the same speed. It’s slight in reps 3-5, but the hips come up before the chest. My suspicion is that there is a bit of slack at the bottom and the barbell gets a little forward.

Yes this was a relatively good day of training, I was expecting an RPE 8.5 here but they felt more like a 7.5 and perhaps this is why the issues you see are minor. I should've posted something from a harder day, but these were the videos I had.

On said harder days I have felt the barbell go forward on more than one occasion, and usually that's later in the set. So perhaps the matters you raise might need a bit more fatigue to show themselves more obviously.

I've had an intuition for some time that I need to cut the depth a bit, so to have this confirmed here is useful info.

But yeah, we do need some motivation as to why these were posted, @kitionel. Responses will vary based on what you’re looking to get out of a form check and what is going on currently in your training.

Sorry didn't want to taint the jury pool, but your point is well taken

[Cellist]

I agree with the above points a) slight lumbar rounding getting depth, b) tendency to lose tightness in the upper back towards the end of the set. These are minor in the videos you post. If you want a quick and dirty way to avoid deterioration of form at heavier weights, you could 1) cut depth, 2) decrease load, 3) decrease number of reps. Any of those could be factored into your exertion rating, ie. form breakdown is automatically a RPE 10. If you're not happy with your squat or how it's progressing, you could consider some alternatives to barefoot low bar as accessories or supplemental lifts, eg. weightlifting shoes, front squats, pause or tempo squats, SSB, high bar, etc... You could program them together with other accessories in a way to directly address back fatigue if you feel that is a point you want to improve.

[Wilhelm]

There is a lot good about your squat too.
If your later reps looked like the first two, that is more ideal.

I hesitated to mention this, because i've never done highbar, but i noticed right away your grip is fairly wide.
Seems like your elbows are pretty free to swing forward/under on the ascent.
Could help getting that slack out before you squat. Pulling elbows down, or setting your upper back are ways to describe that.
Possibly you can get tighter there from the start without moving grip width at all.

I definitely wouldn't move it in a lot at once, but you might play around with sneaking it inward one finger width at a time, over a long timespan.

Maybe you have issues that prevent that, like shoulder or elbow pain.
Lots of people do.
That's why i favor only making small adjustments if you want to experiment with that.

Maybe someone who does highbar can comment on this.

Cellist mentioned it too, but i remain curious how weightlifting (elevated heel) shoes might affect the lower portion of your movement.

I don't think an external "fix" is primary, but my mind definitely went there.

Consider the points raised, and try to get tighter to hold position better.
Your squat is still not bad.
It's rare that my last rep looks like my first reps if the weight is heavy.

All we can do is try.

[mgil]

@kitionel, glad you came back to this thread!

Understood that you don’t want to overly bias the feedback. I’ve seen how badly those threads can go as well.

Around these parts, seeing a “hard set” like an RPE 9+ might show a few extra things, but the risk/reward benefit just to get some more feedback isn’t worth it, imo.

An aside relating to programming: Ideally, as implied above, you’d want to limit your set counts such that the form is very consistent. This becomes more important as you age as a lifter. The community is seeing lots of data rolling out using sets in the RPE 5/6/7 ranges that seem to confirm that for the bulk amount of your training volume, those are the rep ranges to stay in which likewise correlate to very consistent reps. Heavy singles and doubles are still very useful in skill development.

[Cellist]

Sorry, I looked again and saw that the bar placement is higher. To be clear, this doesn’t look bad at all. To what @Wilhelm said, I think High bar is less of a problem for shoulder mobility, if that’s an issue. I believe upper back tightness is more volitional than positional in that regard. I find both ‘chest up’ and/or squeeze the shoulder blades together good cues for thoracic stability. That could go together with adressing @mgil ’s observation coming out of the hole by leading with the chest.

[kitionel]

I hesitated to mention this, because i've never done highbar, but i noticed right away your grip is fairly wide.
Seems like your elbows are pretty free to swing forward/under on the ascent.
Could help getting that slack out before you squat. Pulling elbows down, or setting your upper back are ways to describe that.
Possibly you can get tighter there from the start without moving grip width at all.

I definitely wouldn't move it in a lot at once, but you might play around with sneaking it inward one finger width at a time, over a long timespan.

Maybe you have issues that prevent that, like shoulder or elbow pain.
Lots of people do.
That's why i favor only making small adjustments if you want to experiment with that.

yes, alot of what you see is a response to some elbow pain, I used to be low bar and narrow grip, and then the left elbow started getting hot a year ago and so I switched to high bar and wide.

As you suggest small adjustments would make sense, if the elbow starts getting hot again then I can back off.

Cellist mentioned it too, but i remain curious how weightlifting (elevated heel) shoes might affect the lower portion of your movement.

These are a bit hard to find in my neck of the woods, and I've been reluctant to buy them online. Maybe once air travel starts again and I get a chance to get off this rock I will investigate further

[kitionel]

... upper back tightness is more volitional than positional ...

sorry, could you explain that a bit further. I don't think I know what "volitional" and "positional" mean in this context.

[Cellist]

... upper back tightness is more volitional than positional ...

sorry, could you explain that a bit further. I don't think I know what "volitional" and "positional" mean in this context.

Sorry, I mean if the bar is resting on your traps, one usually isn’t as limited by shoulder mobility as when the bar is placed lower. You need to get the upper back tight by deciding to pull your chest up and shoulders back and keep the upper back extended and refusing to let the shoulders round, so it’s volitional.

Sometimes with the bar lower, for some people, the shoulders will reach the limit of their range of motion as the hands get closer together on the bar. That way, it feels like the bar is wedged in there and pulling the shoulders back by its positioning, so positional. Still low bar isn’t for everyone and not a guarantee for keeping tight and a lot of people lose extension there too, especially when the back angle changes on the ascent.

[Cellist]

I hesitated to mention this, because i've never done highbar, but i noticed right away your grip is fairly wide.
Seems like your elbows are pretty free to swing forward/under on the ascent.
Could help getting that slack out before you squat. Pulling elbows down, or setting your upper back are ways to describe that.
Possibly you can get tighter there from the start without moving grip width at all.

I definitely wouldn't move it in a lot at once, but you might play around with sneaking it inward one finger width at a time, over a long timespan.

Maybe you have issues that prevent that, like shoulder or elbow pain.
Lots of people do.
That's why i favor only making small adjustments if you want to experiment with that.

yes, alot of what you see is a response to some elbow pain, I used to be low bar and narrow grip, and then the left elbow started getting hot a year ago and so I switched to high bar and wide.

As you suggest small adjustments would make sense, if the elbow starts getting hot again then I can back off.

Cellist mentioned it too, but i remain curious how weightlifting (elevated heel) shoes might affect the lower portion of your movement.

These are a bit hard to find in my neck of the woods, and I've been reluctant to buy them online. Maybe once air travel starts again and I get a chance to get off this rock I will investigate further

Shoes are fun pieces of kit, but it’s perfectly fine to raise your heels on some change plates or a wood plank. Just watch out for splinters.

[Wilhelm]

Yeah, buying shoes is a risky proposition if you don't even know if they suit you.

Heels are also something that have a learning curve, imo.
It's not likely you put them on and the squat heavens just open up for you.

I dumped a heavy warmup onto the safeties early on wearing heels b/c i unexpectedly got badly on my toes.

And PLENTY of really heavy squatters squat in flats.

I think i like the stability of the overall construction of my shoes as much as anything, if not more.
Pretty sure i could be happy with them if they were basically flat, but had the same weight, rigidity in the sole and heel, straps, and just big wide footprint.

My feet are planted inside them too.

You have a lot of things already under your control you can use to tune up your form.
i wouldn't waste a lot of thought thinking you desperately need anything you don't have already.

Again, you have a nice squat already.
I wish my knees stayed in place as well as yours out of the hole.

Keep up the good work. +++

[kitionel]

Thanks all, I think the general takeaway here is "make small changes and do them one at a time". I will start with getting tighter at the bottom, and then perhaps in a couple of weeks start to fiddle with my grip if necessary. Shoes is something to consider well down the line (and youse all need to get vaccinated first so I can get on a plane so I'm not even worried about that).

[kitionel]

Thanks all, I think the general takeaway here is "make small changes and do them one at a time". I will start with getting tighter at the bottom, and then perhaps in a couple of weeks start to fiddle with my grip if necessary. Shoes is something to consider well down the line (and youse all need to get vaccinated first so I can get on a plane so I'm not even worried about that).

[kitionel]

I wish my knees stayed in place as well as yours out of the hole.

this is interesting, because I see much knee cave in a many videos out there, but hardly ever in my gym. I've speculated that it is because we spend so much time sitting on the floor in the "criss cross apple sauce"/"indian style" position in this part of the world. Someone should do a study on this.

[DCR]

@kitionel, I don’t have a particularly strong squat and will defer to the much stronger folks here on the merits of this video, but speaking for myself, I’ve found it immensely helpful in terms of avoiding elbow pain/keeping upper back tightness: http://www.lift-run-bang.com/2012/06/fi ... d-and.html.

I’m sure that I’ve posted this before but, at the risk of being repetitive, it’s on the list of stuff that I rewatch every now and then when things are seeming to go awry and I need a reminder.