This is my most recent training video, and the first part of it is a set of 240 lbs for 4 reps. Right after it, I do 225 for 4 reps (the back-off set) and the 225 set looks cleaner to me than the 240 set. I’ve been getting a few comments lately:
My chest should be higher on the way up
I’m moving my hips and shoulders separately
I’m doing good morning squats
But I’ve also seen this sort of motion in other powerlifting videos online, especially when the RPE goes up. I have seen various responses to this, including whatever I could find on this forum, and the opinions are:
Quads weak
Knees forward more
Do lots of quad accessories
Squat high bar
Lower the weight
Don’t lower the weight
Cue proud chest / don’t cue that
Cue hips / shoulders rise same time
(My favourite) Brace more
I have left knee pain during my squat but it’s mild/mod after squatting, so I can work through that and I don’t think it’s causing my technique to falter. I was just hoping to get a ruling on this in the hopes that I could either keep pushing and “cue harder” lol, or maybe drop back down to 230 and keep working the squat until I can increase the weight without this “hips first” pattern.
Hope you had a good holiday. These are definitely some pretty solid squats as best as I can tell from this video. For coaching purposes, a static shot from profile is usually best, but we can work with what we’ve got.
I cannot say for certain if you’re too horizontal from this video (too far away and it’s from the front). It does appear that you get pretty horizontal during the descent and through the reversal point. I’m not sure if that’s excessive for you from this video. It does appear that you’re not really setting your back (thoracic or lumbar) prior to initiating the descent, and there’s some flexion there. I also think your bounce could be bigger. Lastly, I have concerns the bar may be too low for you, perhaps giving your squat a more horizontal appearance than your anthropometry demands. I cannot say for sure from this video however, but we could definitely work this out with some coaching
As far as what to do about it, I think optimizing efficiency for any lift is a perpetual work in progress. I do not often see a situation where I have to abruptly stop/deload an individual entirely (perhaps on some variations) because of technique. Rather, identifying opportunities for improved efficiency and working on that over time (via exercise selection, cueing, etc.) is the aim.
For you, I suspect raising the bar slightly, setting the back more solidly, and bouncing more out of the hole (while keeping your elbows down) are likely to be useful.
I tried implementing your advice as best as I could, and I think my current left posterior shoulder pain might have been distracting me on setup. I noticed on review that I tried to set my back as much as possible, but then I don’t know if my feet should be further forward on the unrack. I hit a squat PR and I was careful the first couple of reps so depth wasn’t stellar, but then I tried to sink a bit lower and bounced as hard as I could, and it really did seem to make a difference. I set the bar just a bit higher, not sure if the difference is obvious.
During the reps, I think there might be some value to me feeling out the back extension on the rebrace, though I can’t quite tell whether what I’m doing here is the same or better than last time because angles.
Getting to sleep with my shoulder was tough last night, and there was more annoying pain on the squat than there was on the bench, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing me down and I’m doing my band warm-ups and following my macros and general recovery, So I’m going to wait it out. I’m convinced that continued training and continued blood flow is going to heal it, I just need to broaden my horizon to a few months with active training versus a few weeks which is how quickly it commonly heals.
I’m running Powerlifting 1 3-day, which I believe is an offshoot of Strength 2.0, but I honestly haven’t been doing the variations. I’ve just been doing the basic movements (squat, bench, deadlift) as they’ve been mentioned (no pins, no extra pauses etc) and I’ve been doing the accessories, along with trying to get in bicep curls every workout.
Yea, I don’t think that’s what I would do for you re: exercise selection. I think you should be doing the variations, as they would likely greatly benefit you. I also think the load selection may also be an issue re: your shoulder discomfort. I’m wondering if we’re trying to add weight to the bar weekly and maybe out-kicking our “coverage” (rate of strength improvement). I’d be curious to know how you’re going about picking the weights you lift week to week and what your strategy has been for that.
I can’t see what your squats look like from here, as the video is on instagram and I cannot pause, frame through, and otherwise use that. I also think this level of individualized feedback is probably best suited to a consultation or coaching relationship.
I’m going to start making more time for morning workouts so that I can include all of the variations and go through them the way they’re programmed instead of just doing basic SBD or D/B/legpress etc. I’m going to try load reduction and reframing and revisiting my understanding of rpe, because I suppose there’s a good chance I might be overshooting it.
When I started training “more seriously” over the last 9 months, I followed the beginner program and would increase the weights when I felt like I had more than 2 reps left in the tank. At some point, I watched a video online from some unknown source and thought that meant that there’s “a bit of struggling” on my last rep.
I think, over time, I may have lost sight of what exactly “a bit of struggling" entails, because it’s possible that I’m struggling more on that last rep than believable for “2 reps left in the tank”. I genuinely have noticed that the lower weight ranges which used to be very tough for me are easier now, especially with bench press where I used to be physically unable to do 145 for more than 2 reps and now recently did 145 for 4 .. but I think after what you’re saying, it’s worth considering that my top set RPE might be closer to 9-9.5 than I think it is.
I didn’t mean to outrun the advice y’all are giving here and will avoid posting follow up videos for continued advice unless I buy coaching. Thanks for letting me know about all this and I’ll retool my programming, my expectations and my training time accordingly.
