My squat form sucks. I know it sucks, and I have been working to improve it. I think it’s gotten better some through some trial and error and self-checking, but I still have some work to do on it so here I am. Video below of a set of 4 pause squats (which is probably not as good as competition squats I guess for form checking, but it’s the most recent video I have) from today.
Things I see that seem to be problems (correct me if I’m wrong)-
-Rocking forward out of the hole: this has always been my biggest issue. I have improved on it some, but I still do it to a lesser degree and would like to get rid of it.
-A little bit of butt winking, especially on the first 2 reps (I think I felt myself doing it early on in the set and consciously tried to stay tight at the bottom for the 3rd and 4th reps).
-This one I am less certain about, but it seems to me that my knees are staying out over my toes for too long on the ascent. I don’t know if this is more of a symptom or a cause, but when I watch people squat with good form it seems like their knees come back under their center of mass quicker on the ascent than mine do.
I would love to hear from others on this stuff and some suggestions on what I need to focus on to fix this. I have watched much of Alan Thrall’s squat form videos, including the “Common Squat Errors” video with Austin, and I believe they have helped me, but I think I’m at the point where I need instruction specific to me to figure this out. Thanks in advance!
1 You brace at the top, take a deep breath, and then you freeze for a second. After your big breath, just go for it.
2 I’d say your going a tad to low
3 Maybe its the camera angle- it looks like the pins are set too low to actually assist.
I don’t think these paused squats look bad at all.
1- Noted, will work on that next time
2- That’s interesting. I have previously worried that I was squatting too high so I’ve tried to consciously go lower. I’ll get a vid up next week after doing comp squats as I think I might be going lower in pause squats than I normally do.
3- They were definitely set too low to actually assist- I had just done rack pulls earlier so they were set for that and I didn’t actually move them for my pause squats because I didn’t think there was any real chance of needing them. In retrospect I probably should have because some of the reps were more grindy than I expected them to be.
I think your depth is fine, your third squat is probably as high as you would want to go for a competition style squat. You are right, you rock forward out of the bottom which can probably be fixed with either cueing yourself to drive your butt up like Rippetoe cues, think about sitting back into the squat, try a slightly more upright squat, a better brace on the way down, moving your hands closer to your body so you are getting your scapulas as retracted and tight as possible (if you are losing upper back tension causing thoracic rounding). As far as butt wink, I think that has more to do with the depth than anything, on your two first squats you went deeper than the last two and the butt wink was more noticable on the first two than the last two. Also, its probably not something to be concerned about from an injury or efficiency standpoint (unless you decide to start twerking under the bar).
Yea, these aren’t too bad at all man. I think you might be a bit to hyperfocused on form.
I’d suggest on the drive up, focus on making your hips and shoulder rise at the same rate. On a few reps I think you get forward a bit because you’re driving you hips up without the shoulders rising at the same rate.
