Given the way I currently do HBBS, it seems I have a choice:
Keep my heels on the ground and fail to achieve sub-parallel
Lift my heels up off the ground and just barely achieve sub-parallel
Keep my heels on the ground, achieve sub-parallel, fall on my ass
Empty barbell vs 275 lbs makes no difference. Yes, I can get plenty low and heels on the ground if I hold onto something.
I’ve tried a wider stance
I’ve tried focusing on pushing knees out
I’ve tried focusing on pushing ass back
Here are the things I’ve been offered as suggestions that I haven’t tried and the reasons I haven’t yet tried them:
Lifting shoes (would rather not spend the $$ if I don’t have to, and I’m not confident they will solve the problem)
LBBS (willing to switch over time, but unsure this will actually solve the problem or not)
Practicing Downward Facing Dog and 3rd world dog (I’d really rather not resort to daily yoga, and I’ve read in several places it’s not really necessary to do it this way)
Current approach is to let heels come up and continue squatting to depth. I realize it’s inefficient, but technically I think, it’s still a “legal” squat?
Could you post a video?
It sounds like the problem I had that was fixed by letting my back round a little (which is fine!!!). Hard to say without a video though.
Lifting shoes (would rather not spend the $$ if I don’t have to, and I’m not confident they will solve the problem)
LBBS (willing to switch over time, but unsure this will actually solve the problem or not)
Your right heel comes up halfway down on your first rep suggesting your weight is forward on your toes causing your heel to come up. The heel then seems to go back down once you catch your balance at the bottom. @OP Do you think this is a balance issue or an ankle mobility issue?
Lifting shoes can help with balance because they are firmer but will help more with ankle mobility. To quickly assess the benefit of lifting shoes for ankle mobility I would place a 5 or 10 pound plate under each heel and squat with an empty bar. If you still have problems my guess is your issue is balance and practice not mobility. $100+ for lifting shoes can put people off and if youre happy enough lifting in gym-shoes consider VersaLifts V2™ heel lift inserts (pair) which are significantly cheaper and can be placed into any pair of shoes giving you the same heel lift for about $30.
LBBS requires less ankle mobility because there is less forward knee travel. If ankle mobility is your issue, give LBBS a try before buying anything. I think you over estimate how challenging the switch would be.
Based on how I feel while squatting I feel very well balanced and stable. I didn’t even notice that the heels come up until someone mentioned it to me. That would lead me believe it’s an “ankle mobility” issue, however, I get the impression there is a camp (Barbell medicine) that doesn’t acknowledge flexibility is ever a problem and that proper squat form can be attained without working on mobility. Is that an accurate summary?
To my eye the bar travels forward as you descend, causing your center of mass to be forward of the middle of your foot. It’s something I had a big problem with and still have to think about from time to time. Shoes will help, because they’ll provide a stable surface to balance on. Barefoot would be better than soft soles shoes. The cue I would recommend is just keeping your balance mid foot or focus on keeping the bar path straight and vertical.
You SHOULD buy weightlifting shoes, as I think they would probably fix your problem. You could try to keep your thorax a bit more extended and sit back more as you squat, since the weight is a little forward on your toes.
No, would love to try, but it was -7 when I got up to lift today, so I’ll have to wait a couple months anyway to give it a go.
For those suggesting weight lifting shoes, do they actually “solve” the problem or do they just mask it? What’s the difference between using the shoes or a pair of 10lbs iron plates under my heels?
Finally, any thoughts on using plates under my toes instead of my heels to force me to sit back a bit more?
For me, the nice part of using the heeled shoe is that they provide a really solid, flat base and I feel very connected to the floor, throughout my foot (hope that makes sense).
My thought about squatting barefoot is that at the very least, you can better visualize what your feet are doing during the movement. The first thing I thought when I saw the video is that maybe your shoes are a little “squishy” like a typical athletic style shoe, so maybe you just have a slightly less-stable base than what a lifting shoe or barefoot could provide? I wouldn’t want to make any further purchases until I knew what my foot was really doing, you know? Maybe you don’t really have the “problem” you think you have? Maybe by seeing what’s going on down there some of the more knowledgeable folks here can give you better information.
I think it’s important at this point to ask what you think the problem here really is. There are a lot of good responses in this thread, but your questions in this post don’t seem to be aligned with the reasoning provided in those responses.
It’s a good question. I’m honestly not sure. Whenever I squat (nothing on my back) without holding onto anything and continue to descend below parallel, I fall backward. If I was ok with squatting just to parallel, based on the videos I’ve been taking, I can squat without my heels coming up and nearly a vertical bar path.
That last 1-2" results in my heels coming up and the bar taking a less vertical path.
I don’t consider it to be a large enough deficiency to stop all squatting and focus on fixing it, however, I’d like to (especially in warm up sets) work over time at correcting it (or with flexibility exercises, or with shoes, or with giving LBBS a try, etc.).
As for question alignment, I thought I was asking something reasonable based on the information provided, but maybe I’m an idiot?
The weight is drifting way in front of mid foot, it should ideally move straight up and down. Try some tempo squats with a lighter weight, slowing things down and focusing on keeping balanced on the mid foot should help
It would seem to me that something needs to bend/stretch in a way I’m unaccustomed to having it bend or stretch OR my mind is visualizing the squat motion incorrectly and there’s another way to do it that, for whatever reason, isn’t natural to me.
If the problem is one of these, I see weight lifting shoes as a reasonable work around (i.e. something I can use to help in the short term while I work on the long term problem).
It seems, however, that people have fixed their problems in the past without using weight lifting shoes, so I was looking for some advice on working towards a long term solution where I could squat in the same shoes I keep at work for running/etc in.
To those ends I was hoping for some advice on either exercises or drills I could do either between sets/during warm ups/on off days to provide a more permanent fix.
I could be way off base with all of this, I don’t have any expertise here.
So there is a lot of information out there about mobility and stretching with all sorts of drills and tests to focus on… I used to have this complicated routine prior to squatting where I’d stretch everything in my hips… It was from one of those mobility enthusiasts on the internet. Years later I would just focus on one or two particular stretches for things that tended to hurt… And in hindsight none of it helped me get stronger or avoid pain, it just took up a lot of valuable training time.
So you could go down that rabbit hole, and maybe it would help you, but I can’t recommend any of it.
What I can recommend, which I know goes against your intuition, is that you have to practice keeping your balance during the squat, and the best way I know to do that is to squat more on a stable surface. When you descend count to 3 on the way down, and only think about your weight staying on the middle of your foot. Same thing on the way back up, just go slow and keep your balance. Take more videos and watch your feet to see how you’re doing. Try different things and see what works.
Thanks! Yes, I posted because my inclination was to perform stretching/etc, however, I’ve read enough around here to know that that isn’t generally the recommendation, so, while I have a chrome tab with “downward dog yoga” in it, I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.
I’ve been doing exactly 2–every set including warm ups is videoed, watched, then next set performed. Wide stance, narrow stance, angling toes, focus on pushing knees out, just pushing/forcing down (this usually ends up with me just bent way over at the hips instead of bringing hips lower. /sigh).
Was just looking for more tips/cues/things to experiment with. Will try mentally focusing on keeping weight on middle of foot, bar paths and studying videos.
Millzner’s recommendation falls right in line with what I was thinking.
It’s possible “mobility” is an issue, but the fix is to work on your bar path, and in my (limited) experience, sans coaching, the best thing to do to work on bar path is tempo squats. The Bridge programs 3-0-3, 2 count paused, and pin squats, and in my own personal experience, these went a long ways towards unfucking my own squirley bar path. 3-0-3s with a moderate weight demand good control of the bar path on both the ascent and decent, and heavy 2ct paused squats will drill in having that bar centered over the mid-foot at the bottom, because your body will demand that of you.
