It's changed anyway and I think it's gone outside of the "acceptable" range. I was up to 95# on 2 sets of 12, did fine. Then moved to 3 sets of 10, also at 95# and did fine on form (but was having a bad day all around and knees hurt before I started). Now tonight, I only did 1 x 10 x 85# and 2 x 10 x 80# -- all with what felt like much different form than before. I felt like I was leaning too far forward. So, after my workout, I had hubby take pics of me at the bottom.
On the left: with just a 15# standard bar for comparison to a heavier weight.
In the middle: Camera at a good angle for you to see where things are lining up but hubby cut my feet off. LOL 80# here.
On the right: Bad camera angle makes it look even more out of whack but it shows my feet in relation to my knees to give you a better idea.
It just feels way farther forward than where I had been before but it's the only place where I could push out of it through my heels. If I tried to straighten up some, it became more of a toe-pushing thing.
I'd appreciate some objective (I'm tired of looking at myself) slaps upside the head before I increase the weight back up.
One thing I see right off is that you are on your toes. My trainer is always telling me to get my toes up. Heck in the last pic your heels are actually off the ground. I am no expert but I would call you way forward. Also I believe I see a rounding in your back in the last pic.
The way I do squats when my trainer is not around is I find a target for my butt to hit. A really low chair or foot stool and then I place it WAY behind me so that I have to actually reach it with my butt which keeps me way back.
The first thing I thought when I saw the pix was that your toes might be pointed out too far. It's okay to widen you stance a bit more also. I'm not sure if you have ever visited stumptuous.com, but it has some of the best information about lifting out there IMHO. She has quite a few pages about squating, including the following:
*nod*
I'd say either bring your toes/knees forward more (direction they're pointing) or widen your stance to be turned out so far. It's hard to tell from this angle for sure, but it looks like your stance is a bit wider with the empty bar. Try going out more, even sumo, and see if that helps. The heavier load changes things sometimes. I find that the heavier I go the more I need to pay attention to that. Also helps to lift the toes up as I go, be sure I'm back on my heels. Also I can lift the bar a smidge with my arms, which keeps it in a better spot on me and aligns me better than if I pull down on the bar. (I donno if that makes sense unless you're really aware of your grip and force your hands place on the bar whilst on your back.)
Props to you for putting your picture up for assistance. It's hard to say from just the pictures what made you end up in the forward position. Is video a possibility? How to fix the issue depends on what got you there.
I agree with widening your stance. It appears your feet are under your shoulders. A bit wider than shoulder width would give you more control. Toe-out only as much as needed to hit depth (which might be just where your toes are, or maybe you can bring your feet to face more forward).
You're holding the bar very high. It appears in the first picture to be on your neck. Watch the Squat Rx on bar positioning again and make sure the bar sits on your traps and not your spine.
The depth in the last picture is fine if you can get your center of gravity back over the middle of your feet. It'd also be informative to see a video from the front so that I could see how your knees are tracking as you ascend. My best guess from the pictures is that you need more glute action (more hip drive).
Thanks for all of the critiquing! I'm going to goof around with a tiny bit of weight today and try the tips. It's just weird that I was doing fine before this week and then suddenly started doing this crap. Even anti-anal hubby and the kids noticed the difference so I knew it was bad. LOL
Nope, my heels never left the ground (or even not pushed through -- horrible wording on that but I've not had enough coffee yet) but the bar does look too high and I was far too forward. I'll try keeping my toes up as well as lowering the bar and further widening my stance.
I'll also try to get a kiddo to take a short video (camera does 10-second vids) of me today sometime from a couple of angles.
I'm definitely no expert, but I don't see a problem with the pictures above. I thought I leaned too far forward too, but I just re-read the page in the book after the pictures of the squat and how to do it. It reads:
Quote:
The Myth of Perfect Form
...They were all sick of "form-nazis", the people who insist there is one way and only one way to do every exercise. If you deviate one degree from the perscribed angles, you deserve whatever injuries the exercise gods inflict upon your apostate muscles and connective tissue.
The problem here... is that different bodies have different shapes and bone lengths, as well as slight variations in range of motion.....
It's probably more useful to think of "ideal form" rather than perfection. Ideally, if you were to look at yourself from the side when you're in the bottom position of the squat, you'd see that your shoulder is directly over the middle of your foot. Your lower legs and torso would be at roughly the same angle in relation to the floor.That angle, however, will change from person to person. Someone with a relatively long torso and short legs would probably have more forward lean in her bottom position, with her knees out over her toes. Someone with longer legs would probably be more upright, with her knees behind her toes. Both would be good form for that particular woman, but neither would be "perfect" form.
In the last picture above, I see that her shoulder is over the middle of her foot, like Lou describes, and her lower legs and torso seem to be at roughly the same angle... so correct me if I'm wrong.. but it appears she's doing fine.....
In the last picture above, I see that her shoulder is over the middle of her foot, like Lou describes, and her lower legs and torso seem to be at roughly the same angle... so correct me if I'm wrong.. but it appears she's doing fine.....
It's not terrible. It's pretty good and better than a lot of squatters I see. BUT, the bar is over her toes, not the middle of her foot. Her center of gravity is too far forward.
I find that when using the Manta Ray I have better form and lost that tendency to go too far forward. After finding this link and then reading it, I guess that's one of the goals of the Manta Ray -- go figure! I also have a tendency to put the bar more on my neck or spine instead of my traps and it solves that problem, too. Not sure if Lisa would recommend this apparatus, but it does seem to work for me.
Okay, son #2 set up the webcam for me and edited a video of me doing sucky squats. LOL First ones are with the wussy 15# standard bar, second ones are with 75# -- very much not too heavy for me before all of this crap started.
Let's see if I can embed the youtube right...
Yay! Thanks, LisaS, for the embedding how-to!
Jane, I think I'm just going to bite the financial bullet and order a Manta Ray next week. The pipe insulation I tried was a flop and threw my form off even more. Thanks for the link! I'll read it as soon as I figure out this youtube business.
Your video stops at 53 seconds so I'm only seeing the first two camera angles, side and front with the bar. This is a much worse squat than your original pictures showed. You don't have any intra-abdominal pressure so your spine is not braced. You need a lot more thoracic extension. At the bottom of these squats you're sitting on your calves and you relax your back and hump over your upper back. On rep three you even look down. The load is too light so you're not working hard to maintain your posture throughout the lift. I wish I could have seen the heavier set. It might have been better.
To improve your squat begin, before you descend, with a big breath and then bear down on your spine and brace it into a neutral position. This is not sucking your tummy in. This is bracing--contracting everything in your torso to prevent any movement of your spine during your squat. Hold that breath and braced position while you descend, change directions, and drive upwards. Exhale after the point of greatest exertion.*
Only descend as far as you can without losing your back position and without tucking your tailbone under. That will be about as low as you are in the third still picture you posted, but not as low as you went in the videos.
From the front video shot you'll notice that your knees cave in just slightly as you change directions. This indicates that you're not contracting your glutes sufficiently to control the position of your knees. Your quads are contracting out of order. The goal now is to learn inter-muscular coordination--having every fire in the right order and with the right amount of force. The glutes need to fires first at the moment of change of direction. Practice bodyweight attempting to intentionally contract your glutes to drive you upwards. Watch your knees in the mirror during this drill and notice how contracting your glutes will control your knees, which should track directly over your toes throughout the squat movement.
Most of that knee issue is coming from lack of gluteal function, but some of it is also coming from pronation in your feet, especially your left foot. Mike Robertson talks about "standing on the 7." If you don't know what that means, we'll go into it more later. This is getting so long that it might lose its helpfulness.
Try the above tips and see how much things improve. Make another video, preferable with more weight, and we'll go from there.
*This is called the Valsalva maneuver and is contraindicated for some very few people with heart conditions. If you can't hold your breath, then exhale under pressure as you ascend.
Not sure if Lisa would recommend this apparatus, but it does seem to work for me.
If the bar hurts your upper back and you feel that you just must use a pad, then the Manta Ray is the best choice. Foam pads of all varieties cause the bar to roll and are never a good choice. Boris talks about using a Manta Ray in Squat Rx #12, Part II. I'll embed that one because beyond using a Manta Ray he goes on to talk about rounding of the upper back, one of the problems I see with nutbar's squat. So she needs to watch it too even if she's not going to use a Manta Ray.
I, however, work hard to talk my clients out of using the Manta Ray (or any kind of pad). It sits the bar up too high and changes your squat mechanics. I also believe that the pressure of the bar on the traps potentiates stronger contraction of the hip musculature. This is from the Supertraining forum:
Quote:
Description of innervation of a whole system
In a complex action, the contiguous muscles and their activation to either be movers or stabilizers, "affect" the whole chain. For example, when you grip a bar for a pulldown, this in turn potentiates the elbow flexors, which in turn potentiates the shoulder and humerus adductors, and so on. The body has a reflexive "cascading motor system" that one group potentiates and activates the next.
Subtracting a group simply inhibits that reflex and deteriorates overall efficiency.
So I think you're deteriorating the overall efficiency of your body when you spread the load across the Manta Ray.
Lisa~, if you move the slider on her video just past the point where it stops you can see the heavier squats... hope that helps :-)
Cool. Never thought to even try that! It works.
The heavier ones are worse as far as staying tight and losing thoracic extension is concerned. Your knees cave in even worse under the heavier load too. Everything I said above still applies. I don't think that's too much weight either. I just think you've got to get tight, slow down, and control it.
Since there was some earlier discussion of how much toe out to use, I'll add this quote from Eric Cressey's Debunking Exercise Myths, Part I:
Quote:
Adage #3: Your toes should point straight-ahead when squatting.
"Should" and "Can" are two completely different stories. In order to squat, leg press, or do any other closed-chain movement involving considerable knee flexion, we need a certain amount of dorsiflexion range of motion at our ankles.
Unfortunately, as Mike Robertson and I pointed out in our Neanderthal No More series, a large percentage of the population has tight calves and tends to over-pronate at the subtalar joints (leading to flat feet). As a result, dorsiflexion ROM is compromised, and if the lifter tries to squat deep with the toes pointing straight ahead, he must compensate by a) rising up on the toes, b) increasing the amount of hip flexion, or c) combining the two in what makes for an extremely ugly squat.
Fortunately, you can alleviate these problems by simply externally rotating the feet (pointing the toes outward); doing so "unlocks" the ankles and gives you the requisite amount of dorsiflexion you'll need to squat. You should still, however, work toward a point where you can squat with the feet pointing nearly straight ahead; this "work" should consist of loosening up the hip flexors and plantarflexors.
Nutbar, in your squat I think you'd be well served to toe out a bit less than you are now. You're not having any problems getting depth. Keeping your toes pointing a bit straighter ahead might make you more stable and assist your efforts to control the change of direction from descent to ascent.
Thanks SO very much, Lisa! My homework over the next couple of nights is to watch the entire Squat RX series. I've already seen a few of them but this time I'm watching them all and taking notes.
Yes, I was very "loosey goosey"! I, too, noticed the back rounding at the bottom, the looking down, and a million other things. Argh. I've done 3 million squats in the past couple of days, trying to nail down different things and my quads are jelly. I need to just rest them for a couple of days while I read and watch and just absorb, then I'll try again and maybe redo another vid as I improve (or not LOL). Seeing myself in the video really, really let me see so many thing I did wrong, rather than just the forward lean I had thought.
And thanks for the input on the Manta Ray. I'd have never known about that issue. I'll just go without for now (and put that money towards the MM/IO DVDs instead ). I saw in another of the Rx vids he demonstrates how to put the bar on the rear delts instead of the traps. I think I'll try that, too, and see if it's any more comfy.
Thanks to everyone for bringing up questions and pointing out things I may not have seen!
I'll give it a try. I watched the video and my form looks nothing like that. I'm way too high, almost a 90 degree angle because all my life I've heard 90 degrees, 90 degrees so I'm afraid to go below that.
Nutbar, you are a brave, brave squatter to put your form on YouTube like that! But now I want to do it so I can get an Official Lisa Critique, too.
I've been squatting front squats. I do them ATG, too, and when I started the first week of Jan, I couldn't do 5 reps (bodyweight only) without falling over and becoming one with the floor.
I've been working my way up and yesterday did:
8/ bodyweight as a warmup
8/ 12# dumbbells
8/ 15# dumbbells
6/ 20# dumbbells and finished up with
4/ 15# dumbbells because I am a BABY.
I started front squats because I hate the feel of a bar on my back or dumbbells on my shoulders. I feel like it's easier for me to do front squats with good form (although probably if I posted a video of me doing a front squat I might discover I'm doing them wrong).
And the point of this post is??? Now I'm all freaked out that I'm not doing good form. Maybe I SHOULD post a video here.
I am so glad Lisa jumped in here. I saw this video before I went to the gym and was quite frankly worried for you for the form I saw. That is an injury waiting to happen I think. I don't have much to add to what Lisa said but I do want you to look at how you look down and round out your back at the bottom of the squats. That will help you to see the "dangerous" back thing that you are doing I think. I always think toes up and look up when I go down in a squat and that really helps me.
Everyone who doesn't have access to a worthy trainer should post their videos here. If you guys are doing these with bad form that just simply won't do. Actually bad form isn't so bad in and of itself but we don't want anyone hurt.
Nutbar, you are a brave, brave squatter to put your form on YouTube like that!
Knowing how bad my form is right now, believe me, it did take quite a bit of bravery! But my form was feeling so UN-right that drastic measures were called for. LOL
I'm diligently watching the Squat Rx series right now and taking notes. I'm picking up some really good info and quite a few things are ringing bells with me. I keep wanting to get up and try everything he talks about as I hear it but, man, my body is really pooped from all of the squats I've done in the last couple of days trying to fix this. I must have done a couple hundred. Ouch.
Knowing how bad my form is right now, believe me, it did take quite a bit of bravery! But my form was feeling so UN-right that drastic measures were called for. LOL
I'm diligently watching the Squat Rx series right now and taking notes. I'm picking up some really good info and quite a few things are ringing bells with me. I keep wanting to get up and try everything he talks about as I hear it but, man, my body is really pooped from all of the squats I've done in the last couple of days trying to fix this. I must have done a couple hundred. Ouch.
But hasn't this kept you out of trouble ... or have you just been to tired to report any side lounge shows?
__________________ Just because your mother thinks you're special doesn't mean I do
Squat form gone to crap
). I saw in another of the Rx vids he demonstrates how to put the bar on the rear delts instead of the traps. I think I'll try that, too, and see if it's any more comfy. 
Actually bad form isn't so bad in and of itself but we don't want anyone hurt.
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