Focus a bit more on the squeeze. Big breath, chest up, flat back. Your second rep was the best squeeze. Seems like you move your head around a bit. Try to focus on one spot either on the wall or on the floor 6-12 feet in front of you. And yes, please do lock out better. Tall chest at the top and bring the hips all the way into extension. Nice work

Best bar path for DL is through center of the body. Obv, that can't happen so the next best is to keep it as close to your body as possible and drag it up your shins and thighs.

When your hips rise first or too fast and are ahead of the pull, the bar will drift out away from the shins.

Cranking your butt down just means that you are consciously directing energy/power down through your back, hips and heels as you pull to counter balance the weight of the bar.

I always have visualized this as how you crank the throttle of a motorcycle.

Does all that make sense?

I dunno it just kind of seems like the hips are where they are. If you cue hips down to a beginner I'd be afraid he'd start off with hips too low and scaps behind the bar and then have the exact problem you're talking about of hips rising before the bar breaks the floor.

This is coming from someone who has a lot of trouble with the movement though, so I assume you're more likely to be right. It just came across as a nebulous cue is all. It just sounds like you're saying to be generally tight.

No man, I'm definitely not saying anything about generally tight. Although, obviously be super tight which is always about ten times tighter than you think you are.

My comment may have come off vague to you but it was aimed directly at the video I watched and was specific to that lifter.

The hips are where you drive them. They obv will come up at the top of the lift regardless but you don't want them up at the at the start or too early in the lift when the bar is low. Doing so, for most lifters, will will cause the bar to drift away from you.

Yes, obv, you want to start correctly over the bar. But, you never have to worry about a lifter being behind the pull. When too far behind the bar, once the pull starts the bar will pull them over the bar. You can't deadlift behind the weighted bar.

In general though, you don't actually pull the bar off the floor, you drive your butt, legs and heels down through the floor, your entire body is driving back while your chest comes up. The bar is just along for the ride.

Just in case there are any questions about the Deadlift:

The Deadlift: Perfect Every Time

1. Take your stance, feet a little closer than you think it needs to be and with your toes out more than you like. Your shins should be about one inch from the bar, no more. This places the bar over the mid-foot – the whole foot, not the mid-instep.

2. Take your grip on the bar, leaving your hips up. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR.

3. Drop your knees forward and out until your shins touch the bar. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR.

4. Hard part: squeeze your chest up as hard as you can. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR. This establishes a "wave" of extension that goes all the way down to the lumbar, and sets the back angle from the top down. DO NOT LOWER YOUR HIPS – LIFT THE CHEST TO SET THE BACK ANGLE.

5. Squeeze the bar off the floor and drag it up your legs in contact with your skin/sweats until it locks out at the top. If you have done the above sequence precisely as described, the bar will come off the ground in a perfectly vertical path. All the slack will have come out of the arms and hamstrings in step 4, the bar will not jerk off the ground, and your back will be in good extension. You will perceive that your hips are too high, but if you have completed step 4 correctly, the scapulas, bar, and mid-foot will be in vertical alignment and the pull will be perfect. The pull will seem "shorter" this way.

squatting 200x5

any comments/critiques greatly appreciated

You're setting your back by going into hyperextension in the lumbar region, which causes it to unlock as you get to the bottom of the squat. Its much better to set it by using your ab muscles to pull your sternum to your pelvis and then pushing your abs out 360 degrees. This should help your tendency to lose your chest forward a bit at the bottom (it will just already be at that slightly forward angle all the way through the rep).

I'd also think about bringing your stance in a hair. Maybe.

Tuck your chin (ie stop watching yourself in the mirror!).

thx!

Can I get a form check on my bench? Something is going haywire, the same weight seems to be getting harder by the week.

Here is from today. The first vid is the second set of 170x3, and the second is the 4th set of 130x7x4+

I'd narrow the grip a tad and touch a little higher on the chest(right at the sternum is usually best).

But remember the goal of strength training is obviously...to get stronger. This means adding weight to the bar each week, not keeping it the same. So I'd look at programming and make sure it makes sense. Make sure you're quantifying things objectively. There should be no question of whether a weight "seems" harder or not

Bolded is essential to lifting in general. Think of pushing out to the belt. Speaking of that belt, I question the need at this point. Most people put on a belt thinking that it will keep them from having back issues and do not properly use them nor properly strengthen the ab muscles to stabilize your body.

I have not seen your log (if you have one), but it appears you are doing a "Rip style" LBBS (drive the hips up out of the hole). While this is a good style of squat, you want to keep your back angle the same coming out of the hole. Making that angle more acute coming out of the hole will pose problems when you get more towards your max weight, which will turn a squat into a squat-morning. Hopefully Aidan's tip will help solve that issue for you.

It is tough to tell from the back, but it seems like these might be a bit high. If at all possible try and video some from the side, knee to hip height for the camera.

Been a while since my last form check. Starting to feel comfortable so need someone to rip into me

My thoughts:

1. Hips are rising out of the hole slightly faster than the bar is moving up - this isn't excessive yet.

2. It looks like you either have a lack of ankle mobility or you are keeping the weight too far forward on your foot. You can see your heel coming off of the ground a few of these reps, especially as the sets go on. This may be partly causing or being caused by 1.

I definitely have a tendency of leading with the hips. Thinking of trying to squat with a pull up belt instead of a bar (as an accessory). I saw somewhere that it could help. Might help with your second point as well although my ankle mobility isn't great

You don't keep the bar over midfoot, you pretty clearly have forward bar travel while you descend. Seems like box squats may help to cue proper pathing?

Agree with Mikey.

Every rep, your upper back is rounding. The weight shifts forward and pulls you up off your heels. With the weight forward, your leverage is jacked and you have to work very hard to get the weight back and up. sometimes you are about a half a foot forward...that's no bueno.

Your hips rise first for the same as above and makes the lift harder. When it happens, your hips slow and your face grimaces as you exert extra effort to get your chest out of the hole.

When you watch the video you see this effect when your hips bounce up out of the hole but the weight stays stationary, moves forward, drops or some combo of those.

This is all a by-product of your back failing before your legs. Which is pretty typical.

I think this is cured by learning how to focus on keeping your back locked in place during the lift. You get your hips below parallel by dropping in the hole. Not by leaning down, etc.

A good cue is chest up, also, and more so for you, chest against the wall. You think of your chest needing to be pressed flat against a wall during the lift.

The easiest way to understand how you need to change the focus is to do some front squats. You can't lean forward, round your back etc doing a front squat. If you do, weight will dump. It forces you to direct energy into the same things that will fix your back squat issues.

Thanks I'll try out the box squats and front squats

I thought it was actually a case of my back being stronger than my legs, so most of the vertical portion of the bar path ends up being with the back, not the other way around. I can squat this weight pretty quickly/easily if I weren't actively trying not to shoot my hips up and 'good morning' squat. I can also deadlift far more than my squat.

If you watch the video, looks to be the exact opposite.

Either way not hard to fix.

Am I doing these right? It does feel like my wrists are taking some of the weight on the front squats, but not as bad as when I was trying to do them 6 months ago. For box squats should I be going lower?

Box squats look good. Height is fine. They look like they are doing what Mikey wanted which is forcing/training you to keep correct position/bar path etc.

Front squats are actually not good. But, they are showing you exactly what's wrong with the bs vids. You are doing the same thing with your upper back.

At the start of the lift, you round forward and that is what's putting weight on your wrists.

That's the exact same thing you do in the BS. Keep your back straight and you are going to be good.

Took a session with a trainer. He felt most of the problem was mobility issues. Suggested a bunch of foam rolling and a couple barbell stretches.

Still not great but looks like a big improvement to me. Second set the better of the two although some butwink showing up as well.

Yeah, you have mobility issues. Foam rolling isn't going to fix it, but static stretching and actual mobility drills will. (You need to passively achieve a ROM before you can control a weight in that ROM, shocker.)

Those FSs make me sad. Maybe someone else can offer help. I'd just stick with the cues from box squats and do BSs while you attempt to figure this out.

Where were you told to foam roll?

FWIW, your front squat looks like mine. We both have kyphosis, which means you likely have terrible thoracic extension and tight lats. There’s a lot of YouTube videos that can help with those issues.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if you have hyperlordosis as your torso dumps when you get halfway down. I have found foam rolling my calves, along with doing banded stretches, have helped with my descent.

Trainer at my gym. I only ever see him doing oly lifting so tend to give him more credit than a random gym PT

He felt that I'm super tight everywhere, but particularly focus on thoracic extension and dorsiflexion.

There are a lot of Youtube videos but most of them just suggest a million different little exercises. I'm aware that foam rolling won't structurally change my body to allow it to front squat, only a lot of front squatting will do that. But maybe foam rolling can allow me to get into the front squat positions in order to accomplish step 2?

I'm trying to research how to optimally deal with all those back positions that you mentioned. 99% of things I find expect me to spend an excessive amount of time on their recommendation and there doesn't seem to be a lot of science in terms of what actually works (or if there is, its well hidden)

Foam rolling won't fix anything. You should do mobility drills before squatting including thoracic extension and then passive stretching if you can't reach the required positions whenever you want.

I think the comment on kyphosis is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyphosis

You can feel free to ask about something here, which may result in the same mixed bag of advice. But I may actually type out long and thoughtful explanations if exceptionally triggered. (Which obviously delve far beyond beginner questions.) I'd personally focus on using the box as a cue until you can squat without the box normally, while also doing technique work with FS. (Warming up with FSs is fine or doing it at the end. You aren't at a point where it should make a whole lot of difference... I think.) Mastering a FS is a technique like learning to power clean that has immense value for all people so it should be a goal. Your problem is pretty simple. You drift toward your toes on descent for ??? reason which is fixed when you actively sit back toward a box. (Or maybe because the weight is lighter.)

BTW a foam roller can be used to just lay on and stretch your thoracic spine.