Hey everyone. I’ve been running the beginner template for about 10 weeks. I’m still on Phase 1, but progress is slowing down so I’ll probably move to Phase 2 next week. Today I squatted sets of 4 at RPE 8, although the last set felt like maybe 8.5 or 9 - I’m not great at judging RPE yet.
For the past few weeks I thought that my low bar squat form felt pretty good, but I recorded my session today and the squats look pretty ugly. So, how bad are these? This is 210lbs @ 205lbs BW.
They don’t look horrible, but some adjustments you could make are:
At the bottom, you are sort of loosening and falling into the hole. Your low back is also flexing at the bottom as a result, which is fine and some flexion is normal, but in this particular case does not lend itself to a more efficient transfer of force. Slowing down your descent and staying tight In the bottom 3rd of the movement will help to clean things up quite a bit. This may require you to lower the weight temporarily.
I would also bring your elbows down by eliminating any flexion in your wrists. Some extension and elbows down is preferable over flexion.
Finally, I would move the rack further away from the wall so your gaze is extended outward 6-8 feet in front of you.
They are not
Thanks for the feedback. Linked below is today’s session. I tried to take these suggestions into account and work on form. This is 180x7 @RPE 8
I think that I mostly fixed my elbows and lack of upper back tightness, and I realized today that I had been squatting with a completely loose upper back in all of my previous sessions. I really tried to avoid lower back movement, but I can’t break parallel without my lower back flexing even with the empty bar. I don’t feel any pain or discomfort in my lower back though.
The uprights of the rack are boxed in by ceiling rafters, so I cant move the rack without taking it apart. I did try to focus on a spot on the floor about four feet in front of me, and it seemed to helped with stability.
How do these look?
These look very solid. My only kinda nitpicky advice would be to continue to work on improving your overall tightness and staying more controlled in your descent, like tfranc suggested. Just something to work on as you continue to get stronger and add weight to the bar.