It seems you think weight lifting shoes might be a crutch. I see them comparably to wearing cleats playing sports on grass or track spikes for sprinting. Just a tool for what you’re doing.
I found pinkish Adidas lifting shoes at nearly half price on Amazon, I assume because the color wasn’t selling well. Might be worth shopping around.
I found the flatness and stiffness of the shoe made me much more aware, more quickly when my weight was shifting forward or backward and that was as helpful as anything.
I believe it was Austin that I saw recommended the cue to “keep your shoes glued flat to the floor” that I think has helped my squat as much as anything. Also the lifting shoes make it alot easier to “sense” what my feet are doing.
You guys have been very helpful. That is a ton of things to experiment with/try. A friend of mine today offered some very helpful pointers for setting up for LBBS. I should be sub-parallel squatting with feet fully on ground and vertical bar motion in no time.
It looks to me like you have pretty poor mobility in general. Are you knew to exercise?
I would have you do three things:
Practice squatting A LOT. Basically whenever you find yourself standing around the house , crank out 5 reps of bodyweight squats. Do them slowly, with your hands together like you’re praying, pause at or close to parallel, and use your elbows to push your knees out. Focus on “keeping your shoes glued to the floor” as Austin says. Google image search “tripod foot” for a nice visual of how to distribute your weight.
Very simple stretches on your calves every day and particularly before training. No need to go crazy, just stand on a step with your heels “hanging” over it for 20s between your warm up sets.
A couple of sets of 10-20 Superman’s or bird dog crunches before training or between warm up/ramp up sets. This is more to practice lumbar extension.
I’ve found these work well in gym members/clients with similar issues to yours. You shouldn’t have to do these for very long either, the squat itself is the best way to get better.
Others have mentioned weightlifting or at least hard soled shoes. I second that
I’ve been working on regularly squatting, trying to get my knees out more and bought some weight lifting shoes. Here’s a video from a few days ago:
No, I’m not new to exercise. Until I started the bridge a few weeks ago, I could count the number of weeks in the last 15 years I didn’t run at least 20 miles on one hand and sport wise I play basetball, softball, tennis. RHR = 48 and my TDEE is 3700. I’m pretty active for a desk job, but I’m not sure what in that list would give me good mobility in general.
The difference is: stability. With the plates you’re making an already less stable shoe even less stable. If that’s your gym in the video, I think all you’re missing is the shoes. And no need for $100+. I got mine on sale for $67, many choices in the $75-99 range. I’ve had my shoes for four years and they show no signs of wearing out.
Other than that, I agree with others: center of mass over mid foot. Try the tempo squats, also consider other variations like SSB and front squats, I found these all helpful for improving awareness of my body in space, and correcting my tendency to good-morning the back squat. Good luck!
A bit of unsolicited advice: if your space is unheated or hardly heated, keep your bar inside until you lift if not already doing so. You might be able to lose the gloves at least for during your sets. I leave mine on a baseboard heater so it’s nice and toasty.
Sorry for being late to the party. I think your balance issues may stem from your foot position. It’s more apparent in your most recent video than the first, but it appears like you’re turning your toes out at a pretty extreme angle (looks to be close to 45 deg, but it’s difficult to tell from the side view). Because you lack the mobility and/or hip structure to open your hips up wide enough to track your knees over your toes when they’re turned out that much and get anywhere near depth, your knees have no choice but to cave inward which throws you off balance. If you watch your heels on the descent, you can see how it isn’t the whole heel that comes off the ground (usually indicating poor ankle mobility), but rather the outside of the soles of your shoes come up as you roll onto the insides of your feet. Since you appear very willing to post videos, I would love to see a video of your squats from a front facing angle to confirm or deny my suspicions about your foot angle relative to your knees.
If this is, in fact, your problem, I suggest rotating your toes in a bit from where they currently are, try to track your knees in line over your toes, and see if that helps you stay on balance and while hitting proper depth. That would be a good, simple starting point. You may need to play with your stance width as well, but just start with the toe angle for now.
Ok. Those actually are squat shoes, I went ahead and got them.
Good idea on the barbell. I can’t remember what it was temperature wise that day but it’s been below 0 (F) a few times when working out. I usually use gloves for squat/bench and then gut out the cold for pulls.
That’s actually an “adaptation” from my normal squat position to try to hit depth. XD I’m usually more like 20-30 degrees from straight forward, not 45. I don’t seem to have a problem getting ass to grass if I hold onto a post of the rack, but I fall backwards when I keep my weight back far enough and I’m not holding onto something.
Will try to get a video of things from the front tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback.
Completely forgot video from front, though honestly there’s actually not enough room in front to take a video in my garage
