Repost from unmoderated to moderated forum: Squats falling apart

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I’m 22 years old, ~140-155lbs depending on where I’m at wrt a bulk or a cut (currently 145-146lbs) with current PRs:

S: 300lb (been stuck on this weight as my max for close to a year now, B: 205lb, D: 325lb.

Current E1rm in peaking block: S: practically random, B: 225lb, D: 345lb.

My squats used to PR constantly and were the only lift I wouldn’t ever really have a problem with. Now though, my strength fluctuates heavily day to day and my legs seem to have shrunken up a bit as well when comparing current vs older photos of myself. I deal with shoulder & bicep tendon pain on the left side, groin pain (this one really scares me. I can’t push explosively and I get scared to squat anything really), wrist pain on both sides, and now I have a knee issue sprouting up on the right side. I don’t know what’s going on but I really don’t know what to do at this point. My bench and deadlift allow me to either repeat weight from one week to the next, or just add 5 lbs. With the amount of issues on my squat, should I submit a form check? I’m just at a loss right now and it’s the first time in a while where I’ve been totally stumped. When things were progressing at their best, I was running either Strength I or powerlifting II, with the only change in programming being that the second, higher rep squat slot would be changed to leg press for weeks 6-12, and occasionally doing leg extensions instead of leg press if I felt super fatigued and had reason to believe a flare up of some kind was on the horizon.

Currently, I run PLII with some different exercise selection as I’ve reached that intermediate stage where I believe there’s some benefit to personalizing a bit more. The changes for bench and DL have been really good for me, but clearly the squats have not. Changes to squat: Overload variations as a whole I just found myself not responding well to after running them for a couple years, and instead run paused deadlifts in that slot, and do lower rep tempo work for squats and bench. I find that they set my technique up a bit better for the remainder of the program, and I avoid flare ups entirely. The other changes were doing high bar squat instead of 3-0-3 tempo squats (never doing this again, 3-0-3s seemed like a blessing in disguise), leg press for weeks 5-8, and hack squats for weeks 9-12 since both leg press and hack squats feel better on my groin region than the pause squats)

I’ve also been doing the adductors & abductor machines 1x a week for GPP for 3 sets each with some hope that they may help condition my hips a bit and aid in rehabilitation, but I’m not entirely convinced they’re doing a whole lot for me.

I believe with squats it’s possible I changed too much at once, or my technique has just broken down over time. I’m not entirely sure how to troubleshoot them by myself. Regardless, I’m positive they’ll eventually start moving well again and that I will have learned a lot through this process.
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2

B,

Thanks for the post, though I wish it were under better circumstances. Do you have a video of your most recent squat? Also, I’m not clear on what your question(s) is/are. Can you clarify?

-Jordan

3

My apologizes. My questions I suppose are: how should I handle programming from this point on (should I revert back to how I used to handle squat programming as seen above, and what immediate changes to volume and intensity should I add for the time being for the sake of recovery), and what corrections to my technique might help me with my issues.

4

BM,

Thanks for the videos. Form-wise, these are pretty good. I do think a few tweaks would likely improve the consistency and performance. While balance is good based on what I can see of your feet, you do pitch forward out of the bottom on both reps here. I think this is because your depth is a bit excessive. I’d try to cut depth to 1" below parallel. I’d also move your gaze down and pull your elbows down into your sides. This depth is also compromising your bounce. The paused squat’s pause is also short, but I think you knew that.

I also see a lot of preparation to get under the bar here for these singles and I’m wondering if there’s a bit too much going on between the ears here. I’m not sure if this is due to a fear of injury as you state, concern over performance, or something else. Regardless, would try and rely less on psyche to do a rep, but rather try and approach things more calmly. It’s just training and we have a lifetime of doing it in front of is. This type of approach also leaves you another gear to grab when you need it.

Programming-wise, I’d probably do something without singles for a while without sets above ~ RPE 8 on the squat. I’m thinking something like General S/C I and then re-evaluating what you like, what you want, and using those things to suss out what you need.

-Jordan

2 Likes
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Thanks for the advice. I have been utilizing this advice and everything is feeling much better. Everything still feels slow and sluggish, but I realized looking back at old videos that my squat used to look so much cleaner, consistent, and I stayed far more upright. I used to basically follow that sentiment of rarely hitting > RPE 8 just in general on squats. That seems to just hone in a lot of speed out of the hole and allowed me to squat with minimal pain. I’ll introduce singles again once my confidence has regained, but I might keep the reduced intensity on squats since they allow me to focus on consistent reps. One more thing is that I appeared to have a “high” low bar setup (I guess I’d call it that) right on top of my rear delts, whereas now it’s considerably below my rear delts, and I think that also is why I used to not pitch forward quite so much.

I do enjoy getting hyped before sets, but it definitely has been a detriment especially since so many issues are present. it seemed to create a lot of ego problems and sort of created a snowball effect of worsening technique since I would never listen to my gut feeling that I should reduce weight 5-10% and correct any technique breakdowns that were starting to consistently sprout up.

I think I’m starting to understand what allowed my squats to progress so well, and what exactly it is I need to change in order to have a similar result. Overall your advice helped me to slow down and re evaluate several variables without a mental block, so thanks again!

6

Happy to hear. This sort of thing has happened to me too, so you’re not alone!