Hi, so I video’d squats today and noticed more knee collapse than I thought I had.
My main problem with squats is pitching forward onto the balls of my feet or toes on the way up; could knee collapse affect this tendency?
After the workout I tried a slow air squat and experimented at the bottom, coming up out of the hole with collapse and no collapse, and didn’t have any aha! moments where it was clear that correcting knee collapse will help correct the good morning thing, but since you guys have thought long and hard about the mechanical stuff, can there be a connection?
SO,
Thanks for the post and I hope you’re well.
May I see the video?
Thanks!
-Jordan
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Hi Jordan, thanks for asking for the video, and I hope you are also well.
It took me so long to reply because I decided that I should first try extra, extra hard to shove those knees out, so in this video the knees are much better than they were though not perfect. But because I have been struggling mightily with squats, I would appreciate any comments about any form issues you see, knees or not - I’m taking advantage of this rare opportunity to have you look at a video of my form - thanks!
(Full disclosure: I recently did a couple months of Group Programming, which I like, and on which I posted a little bit, which was helpful. I quit recently somewhat for financial reasons but mostly because I’m considering the Beginner Prescription template before going back to GP, since especially after a COVID gym-closing layoff I’m still really a novice.)
As background I am now coming back up from a total squat reset - begun before I discovered BBM - back to literally zero pounds due to serious good-morning/balance form problems. Why reset? Since beginning the Starting Strength NLP I was never a stickler for form, although squats never felt or looked right, but I found that at about 225 lbs. I would reach a critical point where the bar routinely clumped forward onto the base of my neck at the bottom of the squat, and I was on my toes, and sometimes I would crash forward onto the pins mid-rep, due solely to form, not fatigue. Neither all the usual cues - proud chest, bar over mid-foot, etc. - nor in-person coaching helped. I was generally willing to grind through tough reps with imperfect form on all the lifts, but this felt different; therefore at least two times I reset, self-diagnosing myself as being one of those rare special snowflakes that shouldn’t keep going up 5 lbs. every session until I got this figured out. I think kyphosis is the main culprit: the bar sits on top of this little hill back there, and in the relatively horizontal low-bar position even the slightest further horizontalness can cause that fatal clump forward. (And I really would rather not try high bar if I can somehow manage low bar.) I have read a few things on the internet that kyphosis can indeed be one of those things that prevents people from doing decent squats, at least until special adjustments are made.
I don’t expect you to cure me of this problem by looking at one video. However, I am hopeful that one change I have made might get me through this: as you might be able to see in the videos, I have been initially placing the bar where I always have, at what I think is just below the spine of the scapula, but then I bring it down further, what feels like one or two inches, a very-low bar squat. (In the instant before I readjust my back angle, you can see how much lower I bring it.) Also, when I come up out of the hole, I try to remember to press down on the bar to further prevent any sliding forward.
I won’t know if this will work until I get back up to 225; but this new bar position has brought about the most radical change in feeling balanced and more under control since I started NLP.
Any opinions about this extra low bar? Ever hear of it as a partial solution to kyphosis-related good-morning bar-clumping? (KRGMBC)? Might it cause problems at higher weights, if I ever reach them?
And how’s my back angle and bar path?
45-degree view (I think the high camera angle makes the stance look wider than it is; I believe it’s about shoulder width):
Side view:
THANKS!