Owehn's Squat Form Check

[Owehn]

Hello everyone,

Hopefully I embedded the video correctly. Would you mind critiquing my form?

Thanks,
Owehn

[muddy]

Pretty good, but you may be better off not going quite so deep (but still below parallel). Ye olde butte winke starts creeping in pretty heavy at the bottom of those deep squats as the set goes on, and this is causing you to start to lose back integrity at both the lumbar area and upper back area.

Any chance you can try again, cutting the depth a little? And can you get a shot from behind? Or a 3/4 view?

[DeadStrength]

Pretty good, but you may be better off not going quite so deep (but still below parallel). Ye olde butte winke starts creeping in pretty heavy at the bottom of those deep squats as the set goes on, and this is causing you to start to lose back integrity at both the lumbar area and upper back area.

Yeah right at the end it starts to wink a little so cutting just a little depth might be good.

The two other things I saw:

1. Your wrists are going to kill you at higher weight. Try to keep your hands in line with your wrists, elbows up higher to get a good "shelf" with your delts, and push the bar with your hands into your back. This will also help you achieve the proper chest tightness.

2. Regarding depth and the safety pins (bar): At the depth you reach in that vid sometimes the barbell would touch the safety pins. If this happens you can lose all of the tension stored up in your glutes/hams since the load is transferred to the pins. This makes the move much more difficulty because you cannot use the stretch reflex properly. Right now it might not be too noticeable, but an inadvertent pin squat from the hole on your last rep when the weight gets higher is murder.

[Pseudonym]

Agreed on the arm position comment. You'll find you have to shove your elbows back and up as you reach more challenging weights. Also, stop swaying your hips forward in between reps.

[Owehn]

Thank you all for your criticisms. I kept them all in mind this morning and tried following all your pieces of advice. Especially not hitting the pins at the bottom - it never occurred to me that that could be hindering my progress, which I'm now sure it was.

I recorded a second film today from a different angle and incorporating what I've learned. (Excepting a few sways between reps, but now that I'm aware of those, I'll be able to eliminate them.) Would you mind telling me if anything still needs addressing, or if I haven't properly addressed what you've told me so far? I apologize for the strange angle; it was the best I could rig up at the time, but I can try again if you need another view.

Edit: Whoa, sorry that the one still youtube decided was representative was that one.

[DeadStrength]

Hey Owehn, looks a lot better at least from this angle. You seem to be able to maintain good lumbar extension even at this depth. Censoring your depth is definitely good, and over time you won't have to concentrate on doing it.

The only real thing I noticed is you seem to lock out and then you throw in this extra pelvic tilt on reps 1 and 3 but not really on reps 2 and 4.

At lockout you want to squeeze your glutes hard and lock out, but the extra tilt is a) superfluous and b) reduces your stability and places more strain on the lumbar spine, which you won't want to do at higher weights.

Lose the tilt and you'll be straight. YAY FOR PUNS

[JorickDD]

I think the form looks very good. Cant really find any flaws!

Most beginners have a hard time hitting that depth

[Owehn]

Thank you very much for the reviews! I'll concentrate on locking out properly from now on, as well as the other advice.

If anyone else sees something I should work on, let me know!

Thanks again,
Owehn

[LudwigVan]

You're much too deep, so you're rounding your back at the bottom, but you're also hyperextending your back at the beginning of the movement. Squeeze your abs at the beginning of each rep and stop going so deep.