Quote: (06-05-2015 06:44 AM)Samseau Wrote:
First: You've sold me, I'll try doing squats below the parallel line. I've been trying them out and I feel more pressure in the knees but way less in the hips, and my hips got fucked up recently so I'll switch and see what happens.
Second: In that vid, in the first squat he does, he does not go below the parallel line. Yet in the second set of squats, of three reps, he does go below the parallel line just slightly. He's also wearing knee braces if it makes any difference. Either way, this vid is confusing because he does both.
Cheers, if you switch, remember to go light at first. Give your body time to adjust.
It is confusing because of context. I posted that particular video because I wanted an example of a taller lifter (for his weight class) being the best squatter. For him, the context was a max attempt session where he wanted to see what he could do in competition. In comp, a powerlifter only need to squat just below parallel to get white lights. During warmups, he'd prepare max tightness in the body and catch the rebound early so he might actually bounce before hitting depth, but with the max weight on the bar (closer to comp attempts) he will be pushed below parallel with the same tightness and rebound. It is a very competition specific session and not a regular training session. If you watch his other in-season squat training videos, he'd squat consistently to depth every rep.
Those are neoprene knee sleeves not braces. They only really help to keep the knees warm. Feels nice at the bottom of the squat, but they don't provide any rebound unlike knee wraps.
Quote: (06-05-2015 10:57 AM)storm Wrote:
When lifting at the extremes, I tend to drive with my hips faster than my back comes up, resulting in what I can only describe as leaning over too far.
I've been told it is because of weaker lower back muscles.
Is this right, and what is the best way to work on this?
This is commonly misdiagnosed. What people see (visually) failing at the end is what fail last, not what fail first. Strong quads and abs are what keep you upright while squatting. When they fail (actual muscle weakness, poor position or lack of awareness, or all combined), you will lean over to try using your back to push the weight up. Your back is the strongest, not weakest, which is why it fails last.
Strong quads allow you to stay more upright thus gaining a favourable back angle for the back to work more easily, and also keep your hips closer to the bar so you can push the hips forward (by squeezing the glutes hard) as soon as you get out of the hole. THAT is hip drive, not pushing your ass upwards.
Basically I'm saying you need strong legs to squat heavy weights. Which used to make a lot of sense until people got distracted by bending over to use some weird posterior chain to squat.
The other possibility, if you feel your legs are not actually challenged much, is that you have a significantly weak thoracic / upper back, and due to that, you descend slightly off balance so that the bar tips you a bit forward on the way down already. As you come up, in order to regain balance, you need to bend over more and put yourself in a poor position. But losing balance is an easy thing to notice, so most people wouldn't confuse it with weak muscle groups.
In powerlifting, one easy way to figure this out is to check out the differences between someone's low bar squat and his high bar or front squat (often he's already doing one or both as assistant exercises). The last two are much more quad dominant so if he has weak quads, the ratio will be very poor and the tipping over will be worse in both.