Well extending the upper back requires a degree of retraction, right?

I'm basically not arching my upper back at all.

Will try the cue of tightening lats. I'm already pushing out the core and driving up the elbows as hard as I can. Those ****ers just don't want to stay up

Trying looking slightly up as well.

How is Reza's form here? Some forward lean yeah? Can't tell what his upper back is doing due to how massive it is

Stay neutral. Don't extend. The cue to keep your chest up is to keep it neutral. Not to literally extend it. Its the same as the cues for HBBS regarding lumbar extension.

Ty.

Here's a form check from today.






If I'm repping with very good form up to 70kg/80%, barely passable at 85%, and progressively deteriorating after, what's my best bet for loading? Just hammer volume around 75-80%? Or keep form perfect on my warmups and deal with some form deterioration on my max set(s) around 85%+?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2EDp4gn7k

Look at how vertical Tian is compared to you. Sit down between your legs.

Apparently some guy from catalyst athletics thinks that holding the bar with your whole hand prevents this rounding. Could be something useful? Try it and TR?

Me:



Azn dude:



Sort of looks like if I could pull the hips in without rolling under my back would be straighter

that is good advice in a perfect world and is certainly something to work toward. I think you will find that you do not have the mobility to squat like that though.

If you keep that upright you will likely either have to cut depth like crazy or the bar will start to move too far back of your midfoot, causing you to round to get it back in the proper line. I suggest allowing yourself the minimum amount of torso lean you need to keep the bar over midfoot. It's better to plan for it than to round in the bottom.

The other thing is you are probably also just running into leg weakness. Your legs can't finish the movement so your back takes over. Nothing to do about that other than to work with loads light enough that this doesn't happen.

The grip advice is good also, there are a lot of things to experiment with that can make a big difference and your current grip looks pretty bad.

*this advice is coming from someone who has the same fs problem as you and I still haven't solved them at max intensity. I could be completely wrong

Frontsquat down on the midfoot, push up through the heels. Your torso will straighten.

abra,

For sure. My advice is pretty limited as I see a ton of that and no good solutions. Its a problem that plagues many people. I assume it doesn't occur to me as I clean within 5kg of my max FS. So I don't really gaf about any rounding.

I will implement all of the above advice tonight and report back.

Abra,

The leg strength isn't there on the max attempts. The 60kg feels really light though.

A few things that might influence advice:

-I used to be able to front squat almost completely upright. So it's very doable. Will try to find old videos but lost my old computer ages ago and never backed it up

-I'm having some trouble arching upper and mid back in various lifts. This dates back to a car accident in 2012 and ensuing posture issues that took years to correct. Still improving retraction strength

-I'm lacking mobility in my shoulders in a specific direction. This is part of why my grip is so terrible. I'm not sure if I have the wrist and shoulder flexibility to apply Mihkel's advice re: holding the bar but will try. I have trouble raising my shoulders past a certain position without the right tightening painfully. Can't OHP. Still doing PT for this issue.

One more thought:



This dude's back angle also changed. He was more upright in the very bottom vs. when he starts ascending. The same thing appears to happen to Rezazedeh in the above video.

I'm not saying full hand = better just that you should experiment with different widths, amounts of hand/finger/thumb, elbow position etc.

Also if you have all these injuries why do you even need to fs? It is by no means a requirement unless you are a wl or want to be in the future. Your bs look fine and you could sub belt squats, Bulgarian split squats, lunges, anything else for extra quad work. If I wasn't wling I would probably never fs.

The injuries are soft tissue and transient at this point. They merely effect my mobility. I can still keep my upper back arched up to 275 on a DL. Above that point my lumbar stays in position but the shoulders round.

I guess I just like front squats. They "feel" better than back squats. My back is also already much stronger than my legs. I figured I had pretty good form at front squats and could add weight very quickly. Guess part of that isn't true. I front squatted something like 120-130kg 7+ years ago and wanted to get there again. I also felt like they were better for core strength than back squats, which is crucial for me. Don't they work the neck as well?

Am certainly taking your advice into consideration. Ty.

If I can't fix this I may have to switch to back squats, if only temporarily

re: grips, if I do more than two fingers they just peel out. I try to do 2 and maintain them throughout the lift. I've never tried fully holding the barbell, sounds promising if I can manage to get my shoulders/elbows up

My lifts are starting to feel heavy.

Squat: 95kgx5,5,6

(Third set)

Deadlift: 92,5kgx5



I put up some more videos of my deadlift warm-ups in my log:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/85...ition-1653367/

Squats look pretty solid to me, if I'd had to say one thing it's to look up slightly in stead of down as it will help a lot with keeping your chest up.

Deads are good to go too imo. You could maybe put some more effort into your setup by squeezing ultra tight and pulling your chest up as high as you can which will take all the slack out of the bar and bring your back a little bit more neutral - but you're already showing better technique than 95% of people deadlifting imo so keep at it! Also when you go back down you unlock your knees first which is causing than funny "Z" bar path.

OK. so you can get deeper than I was expecting. That's good. Skel has it right in his response. Your back is losing tension, position to "accomodate" the need to get to depth.

Overall I think your squat videos look ok. You have some issues but you are working on them.

There are a couple issues that I see in both the squat videos and the two that you did for testing depth and flexibility.

At the top you lean forward which you should not do.

At the bottom you round to get to depth which you should not do.

If you focus on keeping your back in position through the range of motion and let that dictate depth, while you consciously strive for proper depth (just below parallel is fine imo) you will be good to go.

Another thing you can do is program in front squats. Front squats force you to maintain proper form, you literally will drop the weight if you round forward, while putting a lot more pressure on the specific areas that are causing you issues in your back squat.

Other than that, I would not be super stressed. Presently, the difference between hitting proper depth with correct form and what you are doing before you round out to hit depth is only a few inches...that's not a big deal.

Something you can work on and get to overtime.

AJ
Hand position that you have affects your overall position and allows you to have your thoracic position "under arched". Proper hand position for front squats will drive your elbows up and force/encourage you to be correctly upright.

You would want to actively work on getting the flexibility to where you can grip the bar and then ultimately to where you are holding it "correctly" for weightlifting.

Mikhel's right in that you want to drop down in the hole while keeping an upright position...again with proper hand position...different experience.

Overall, I think your front squats are fine. Comparisons to people who will be in Tokyo are good as an overall goal but I wuoldnt be stressed that you don't quite match up to them right now.

In the meantime, you load to whatever you can while maintaining best form you can mange and keep pushing for form improvement. Actively working on what you know is not where it should be. The safety concern is more about losing position during the lift...back rounding on ascent etc. where you are risking injury.

With this lift, for you anyway, you aren't just training to get stronger you're training to correct some issues too and you have to accommodate that.

Again, from what I see on the videos other than needing to get your hand position fixed as soon as possible, I wouldn't be concerned about anything else.

As all of this relates to your question about loading, I would say you should let your position dictate the weight and if lighter than you think it should be ...just increase the reps.
Depending on comfort level, work 3's up to 6's add weight rinse/repeat or if you need lighter weight run 5's up to 8's then increase weight.

Re: the rep range, what if my front squat goals are almost entirely strength oriented? I can't gain much more leg size without effecting sports performance.

I was thinking of working around 70%-85% where my form holds up (without further regression)

I don't think I'm working enough volume/intensity because I wasn't even sore after my last FS session.

Thanks BPA. Great advice as always

Easy solution assuming you believe in rep ranges...

Assuming you are doing sub max work, do more sets of triples, double, singles and keep your rest periods tight...3 minutes apart (enough for ATP recovery).

For example, while maintaining med intensity (for a reason) I am going to try and do four singles in the 93% range on my next DL day.

Without getting into a lot of science I don't have, I am comfortable saying that if my form was breaking down or I had some limitations that were not associated with being sick, I could get similar...SIMILAR...benefit from 5 singles at 89%.

Another example, last BP session. triples up to work sets of 3x3 at 85%

If you are lower than 85%, say 80% 3,3,3,3,3 You are experienced and know your body. You can adjust in the moment as you go. If you approach it this way, you can get max intensity with submax weight and devastate the muscles involved....then try to correctly eat and sleep to accommodate what you did.

None of the above is going to directly add any significant size to you.

Turtle backing a FS is not an injury risk.

Ya. That happened last session and the bar dumped. NP.

Does anyone have a basic low rep squat program they can recommend?

Something less insane than Smolov but better than derping around 2-3x/week and trying to add weight whenever possible.

I'll see what I can do for sets of 3-2-1 around 80-90

I've been increasing warmup volume, figured more reps with good form is worthwhile. Not sure if its detracting from my work sets.

At your weights...no. But not what I was intending with what I wrote either. In fact, I like the FS because if you do fail...you just typically safely fail forward....pretty simple. But, if you are talking to someone who has issues, it's relevant to make a reference about changing from correct position to incorrect position during the lift which to me, anecdotally at least, seems like the greater concern.

@Syndr0m: Thanks for the advice. I tried fixing the "unlocking" at the knees the last time I did a form-check video and this time I focussed on not dropping the weight the last two or three inches. Turns out, I can't focus on two things at once...

His current thoratic spine issues are mobility related, not structural. And given the likelihood of someone rounding their t-spine on a failed FS rep, if that was an injury risk you'd never advise FSs for this person.

Beyond that, there are no risks for anyone related to weights they're lifting it is clearly relative to the individual and their strength. So you're anecdotal allusion to being "strong" is silly. To actually strong people I've lifted with, there is no difference between us. You'd probably be more useful for racking weights, and a liability at mealtimes compared to me.

The final point I'd like to make is your use of "correct" as an exogenous truth relating to form. Many people lift with turlebacks because they have no aspirations to transfer their FS to a clean recovery. This ingrains "poor" form for a lift they likely will never do. Should we tell every person to not FS if they can't rack a clean position? Obviously not. The technique is dependent on the goal. If I did DLs like cha59 I'd get laughed out of the gym, and he would as well if he did them like I performed my DLs. Before we toss around words like "correct" "optimal" or whatever other normative value we're placing on certain technique, we need to understand the goal of the lifter.

Jeff,

Move to a linear program where you move your FS up based on form limitations and then supplement the volume with BS.