I am a 22 year old male, who has been doing consistent barbell training for two years. I trained with barbells in high school, but had nowhere near the level of consistency and concern for form as I have had during these last two years (didn’t squat to depth for example). I have had no major injuries. I do have a minor issue with my right ankle; about 6 months ago I tweaked my ankle (had a physical labor job and was squatting in an odd fashion, multiple times and putting unnecessary amounts of pressure on right foot/ankle). Ever since, I have had slightly less mobility in this ankle. It doesn’t affect me too much though.
My topic is about the low-bar squat and comparing different squat depths for the low-bar squat. The outcome that I am looking for (the reason why I train) is to increase strength.
When I low-bar squat, about 50% of the time, I experience a tingling sensation in my left leg; it feels like it occurs in my hamstring (entire hamstring) and foot (midfoot) and it only lasts for a second. It occurs when I hit the bottom of my squat and start my ascent (stretch reflex?). It seems to occur more often when I squat at normal speed as opposed to when I try to control my descent. Also, it seems that the lower I squat the more likely it is to happen; I’m pretty sure I don’t feel it when I’m at parallel, which probably makes this question/discussion moot. I guess I’m just curious why it might be happening when I try to squat lower. I have no problems with this when I deadlift. The only time I feel this sensation is when I squat. Also, it is not a painful feeling; it almost feels like that feeling when you hit your “funny bone”. Imagine that, but in the hamstring/foot instead of arm.
Other background information: right arm is more developed than left arm (so shoulders are probably different sizes as well) due to throwing. May have different flexibility in these shoulders because of this as well. The barbell tends to be lower on my left side for some reason; my grip is fine – equal distance and everything. Maybe this occurs because of a posterior deltoid size difference. I’ve tried correcting this (thinking it was the cause of this tingling sensation) by staying extremely tight with my upper back. Anyway, I have noticed that my left leg is more explosive than my right leg – doing skips has led me to this conclusion; however, there isn’t a noticeable size difference in my legs (unlike my arms). When I was really young, I played basketball and would only jump off my left leg when doing lay-up drills; to this day I feel awkward when I try doing a lay-up off my right leg. This probably explains the explosive difference.
Sorry that I don’t have a video; I know it could definitely help. I’m not looking for an exact diagnosis because that is unreasonable given the circumstances (online without video), but I do think about this squat issue a lot because I enjoy squatting (and barbell training/training in general) and am curious as to potential reasons for why this might be occurring based on the information that I have provided. If you read this far, thanks for reading! haha