Squat 365x5

[Root]

My squat still feels awkward after all these years. How do they look?

[Murelli]

My squat still feels awkward after all these years. How do they look?

What's bothering you about them? If you want general improvement recommendation it's easy to do, but if you want to correct a specific problem we can give better answers.

[Manveer]

My 2c: Stay tighter. Slow down the descent a bit.

[mgil]

Knees out and stay out! There's a little knee slide and inconsistency of their placement. Nothing huge though.

[Root]

My squat still feels awkward after all these years. How do they look?

What's bothering you about them? If you want general improvement recommendation it's easy to do, but if you want to correct a specific problem we can give better answers.

1. They make my elbows hurt.
2. They almost always make me feel like I did something bad. My lower back gets painfully sore, deep pain around my hips, knee tweaks, etc. This stuff usually goes away after half an hour or so. Do you guys experience this?
3. The movement never feels "natural." I know that's vague.

My 2c: Stay tighter. Slow down the descent a bit.

Staying as "tight" as possible is one of the things I'm internally yelling at myself. How does one stay even tighter.

The descent, yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Knees out and stay out! There's a little knee slide and inconsistency of their placement. Nothing huge though.

Another thing I'm internally yelling at myself. But at the bottom, I just can't help them coming in a little. Maybe I need to shove them out less earlier in the movement?

[Manveer]

Staying as "tight" as possible is one of the things I'm internally yelling at myself. How does one stay even tighter.

The descent, yeah, that's probably a good idea.

Slowing down the descent will help. Focusing on bracing your abs hard will help.

[Murelli]

1. They make my elbows hurt.
2. They almost always make me feel like I did something bad. My lower back gets painfully sore, deep pain around my hips, knee tweaks, etc. This stuff usually goes away after half an hour or so. Do you guys experience this?
3. The movement never feels "natural." I know that's vague.

I think your stance and grip are too wide. Try building your stance from the bottom up - unweighted squats, holding the bottom position and changing stance gradually, and the warmups with just the bar with different stance and grip widths.

I begin my warmups with a wide grip (index on the rings) and narrow it by "one finger" every set until my pinky is on the rings. Have you tried that?

[d0uevenlift]

You get on your toes a lot.

[mgil]

Maybe your stance is a smidge wide and that's why you're fighting knee valgus at the bottom?

[fishwife]

Another thing I'm internally yelling at myself. But at the bottom, I just can't help them coming in a little. Maybe I need to shove them out less earlier in the movement?

Agree that first thing I'd try is bringing the stance in a bit. And if it's not difficult for you to keep your femurs in alignment going down, there's no need to exaggerate that for the first part of the descent. Have you tried pulling your knees apart and tensing your abs maximally right as you drive up out of the hole?

Re: elbow pain
What have you tried already in terms of your arms/grip? Any limitations there?

[KDW]

1. Can't tell if bar is too low?
2. Knees are too "out" on the descent. If you look down your thigh, everything from thigh/shin/toe angle should line up in all phases of the squat. At no point, should the knees get wider than the feet. Descend with your knees in the position we see them in on the ascent in this video. Don't go wider than that.
3. Can you take a closer grip? Maybe detach from the thumbs over grip in favor of a thumbs around which may help your grip to come in a bunch..maybe?

Everything else looks okay to me.

[KDW]

Just to explain #2 further, once the knees are as wide as they should go, where should they go?
They should go more forward. So, to really clean it up, find the spot the knees need to go and get them there early. That position might be a little more forward but not more out beyond the line of your leg/toe point. This will get more quad in the lift and blow them up nice and biig.

[damufunman]

Looks like Ina couple reps your back un-extended a smidge. Didn't go into flexion and it wasn't a lot, but you shirt unscrunched a bit coming out of the hole.

[d0uevenlift]

2. Knees are too "out" on the descent. If you look down your thigh, everything from thigh/shin/toe angle should line up in all phases of the squat. At no point, should the knees get wider than the feet. Descend with your knees in the position we see them in on the ascent in this video. Don't go wider than that.

I had this problem in the beginning and I still do, too. It was those damn SS cues of "shove your knees out, knees wall to wall" and so on. That with "lean over more, point your nipples to the floor" caused a fuckload of problems for me like thoracic flexion (me thinking I need to immediately point my nipples to the floor) and rolling to the edges of my feet by literally shoving my knees out as hard as I could.

[fishwife]

That with "lean over more, point your nipples to the floor" caused a fuckload of problems for me

Whoa. Who told you to point your nipples at the floor during the squat? Few cues are unilaterally wrong in all cases, but that one comes pretty close. I'd have to think of some bizarre-ass scenarios to even begin to justify that one.

[Manveer]

That with "lean over more, point your nipples to the floor" caused a fuckload of problems for me

Whoa. Who told you to point your nipples at the floor during the squat? Few cues are unilaterally wrong in all cases, but that one comes pretty close. I'd have to think of some bizarre-ass scenarios to even begin to justify that one.

That seems common if you go to the $$ Facebook page.

[fishwife]

That seems common if you go to the $$ Facebook page.

That's messed up, yo.

[OCG]

That with "lean over more, point your nipples to the floor" caused a fuckload of problems for me

Whoa. Who told you to point your nipples at the floor during the squat? Few cues are unilaterally wrong in all cases, but that one comes pretty close. I'd have to think of some bizarre-ass scenarios to even begin to justify that one.

Yeah "point your nipples to the floor" has been a common cue to get people to bend over more as of late. It did come from Rip/the Q&A. It's meant to be a ridiculous over exaggeration, but, well that doesn't always work out well on the internet.

[fishwife]

Yeah "point your nipples to the floor" has been a common cue to get people to bend over more as of late. It did come from Rip/the Q&A. It's meant to be a ridiculous over exaggeration, but, well that doesn't always work out well on the internet.

Many cues are exaggerations meant to correct something that goes too far in the wrong direction or an especially stubborn problem, but this is just bad, IMO. Pointing the nipples causes people to alter the curvature of their upper spine; that's why "point your nipples at the wall in front of you" works so well to get people into proper thoracic extension when setting up for the deadlift without causing them to open at the hip.

But the last thing you want people to do is to curve their t-spines downward during the squat.
As I said, it may have a legitimate use in some special individual case(s) which I simply lack the experience to imagine, but I'm surprised a cue like that caught on to become commonly used. Especially since correct thoracic extension is a frequent problem with newbies trying to learn the LBBS.

[mgil]

Yeah "point your nipples to the floor" has been a common cue to get people to bend over more as of late. It did come from Rip/the Q&A. It's meant to be a ridiculous over exaggeration, but, well that doesn't always work out well on the internet.

Many cues are exaggerations meant to correct something that goes too far in the wrong direction or an especially stubborn problem, but this is just bad, IMO. Pointing the nipples causes people to alter the curvature of their upper spine; that's why "point your nipples at the wall in front of you" works so well to get people into proper thoracic extension when setting up for the deadlift without causing them to open at the hip.

But the last thing you want people to do is to curve their t-spines downward during the squat.
As I said, it may have a legitimate use in some special individual case(s) which I simply lack the experience to imagine, but I'm surprised a cue like that caught on to become commonly used. Especially since correct thoracic extension is a frequent problem with newbies trying to learn the LBBS.

The stupid "nipples" cue came about the same time as the "look damn near straight down" nonsense. I think these cues are not only ineffective for most trainees, and only potentially useful with novices that are so new that the weight is ridiculously light. Otherwise, the older cues are fine. Of course, these older cues weren't developed in the same environment.