Yeah I'm probably going to parallel in the vid since the bar is going an inch or two or three above the guardrail.

I'm gonna make a beautiful atg squat vid one of these days. Gonna make you all jelly.

The bar doesn't dictate parallel. Your ass does (well hips really). If you're parallel and the camera is deceiving me, then you are just at parallel. Demand better.

Loco is a super massive hater and juicer and should prob be ignored. He's right though that my high bar weren't a2g. I lack the ankle mobility. Plus big hams. Loco wouldn't know about it. They were merely nice and deep.

Not possible. You go high, KC will hate them. You go too low, and Cha will hate them because surely you will buttwink. To make everyone happy, they have to be exactly KC's depth. 1.8" below parallel. I measured and look to squat just like that.

But I really think you are confusing the two type of squats. Compare downtowns HBBS to KC's LBBS. They are very different and both look great. Figure out which one you want to do.

I'll just stick to leg press then

Agree BTM is confused. We live in modern times with a bevy of squat styles to choose from.

I am entertained

I can't do LBBS in the squat racks in my gym. Rails are too high. Have to use the power rack.

I agree you're too high in the vid. Easier to see from the side though.

I thought he looked a bit high (and maybe a bit on his toes?) when I watched the videos for the first time, but I suck at squatting and am totally unqualified to give advice, so I didn't mention it. Slowing down the one from the side, it looks like you get exactly to parallel and no further.

May 8:

Squats:

So I am trying to improve my form and go lower in my squat so I scaled back the weight at the beginning of my set to try and figure out how much weight I can handle. I did some warmups and then started at 275, then did 295, 315 and 315 again.

I took videos from the side and combined them into one video here:



Depth is much improved but the bar still is taking too long of a path on my way up. Since I'm moving forward I suppose that means I'm going up my toes more than heels which means that I'm using my quads more than my hamstrings, right? What else do you see?

OHP:

140lbs, sets of 5, 4, and then 5 again. It was weird. My first set was great. My second set I must not have been ready. I took about 3 minutes but perhaps that wasn't enough or I didn't set up properly bc it was hard. After this set I took a much longer break and then eventually did my 5 reps very easily.

Deadlift:

I switched from my rack to the bumper plates bc of space issues. The dude before my had used chalk on the bar and it was awesome. I crushed 5 reps of 385. Next time I'll try 395.

You've decided these are LBBS, right?

Your knees seem to be moving way too far forward on these.

Yeah, LBBS

I noticed that as well but perhaps it's due to my proportions? Or is it something I'm inherently doing incorrectly? I ask because it seems like the bar is starting above my midfoot and falling in a straight line so I think that the descend is correct, and yet, that is where my knees seem to shoot out too much.

I'm looking at about 2:20 and to me it looks like the bar is coming forward a few inches. Hard to tell with the angle. Some knee cave might be doing it too, but can't tell if there is any from the angle.

Idk about proportions. Could be part of it. My knees used to slide forward, but I figured out it was a problem when I started getting shooting pains in my hips.

...

Ok, I see you saw the bar moving forward in the form check thread. FYI, I felt weaker for awhile when I was fixing this. When you go forward like that you're lifting more with your quads, so I think I had built up a bit of an imbalance that way.

Yeah I definitely see it now when I look for it. I should reset and work on form. But how do I engage my hamstrings? Is there a trick?

btw, it's hard to tell from this video, but my stance is so much better than it used to be. Feet are closer together and more V-like. My stance is now what it would be if I squatted all the way to the ground like a baby. Best part about it is no knee pain of any kind. It's so great.

It looks like your trying to squat with high bar cues but with the bar in low bar position. You should do the drill rip says where you put a block of wood in front of your toes so you get the feeling of hinging at the hips to start the squat instead of having your knees shoot out way in front of your toes at the beginning of your squat

yeah that may be what I need to do in order to get the proper feeling down. In my head I feel like it's going to be hard to focus on using my hamstrings more, but this drill could definitely help. Let's say I don't want to bring a block of wood with me to the gym. Can I just use a couple 5lb weights under my toes?

No dont do that. If you have a power rack with the for posts, you can do that drill in front of one of the posts

I don't think you need to think about engaging your hamstrings. You just need to work on sitting back more. "Squat between your legs" not on top.

The only thing I think about when squatting is moving my trunk (not my legs) to maximize hip drive, and that cue helped me immensely

Yeah, I like the cue where you have someone puts their hand on your lower back and you push up through that point.

Okay, great, I'll try it.

boom.

but really they aren't awful so don't be too discouraged. just a bit more knees out ass back.

next time you squat, after you do 135 for whatever as your warm up, rack it, then do 135 or 185 with a 5s pause at the bottom. do 2-3 reps. record it. bring it here.

sure thing, sounds reasonable enough. I'll do that Sunday. Mark your calendars.

Twas a nice day yesterday so I went for a lil run outside. I'm gonna start running more frequently so I loaded up my runkeeper app which I've used a few times and went at it. Once I started I figured out that I wanted to do a 6mi run so I went down my normal path until I hit 3mi and turned around.

It was horrible. I'm so slow. Before I started SS and before I bulked I would run every now and then and I'd average like 8mph over any distance pretty much. I frequently went for 4-6mi runs and it was an easy game. Now my legs feel like I have concrete blocks around my quads....they're just so incredibly heavy and it makes running so damn hard.

Anyways, I did the 6.04 miles in 56:12 and it says I burned 887 calories. I'll take it for now but really need to improve.

Lol, running... Close thread

May 12:

Weight: 205.5. Wow a whole half pound less than before! :[

Squats:

I took amplify's advice and moved my feet a lot further out and I think I liked it. It was hard on my hip flexors but still felt natural. I think I moved them out about 50% further than where they were.

kc asked me to record myself paused at the bottom of my squat for 5 seconds and record it so I did. Except I can't estimate 5 seconds very well at the bottom of the squat so it's more like 3 seconds. Anyways here it is:





Here are my 3 worksets that I recorded:

295x5x3


I think that when I track the bar up and down it looks a lot better.

Bench Press:
235lbs + clips: 4,3,4 were my reps. I suck. Technically it's progress since last time tho.

DL:
Last time I was able to do 385x5 so I wanted to move up to 405 this time. Maybe too big of a jump but I was able to get 3 reps. 3rd rep was worse than the others tho. Here's the vid:



Here is the vid of my 315x2 warmup: