That's really not terrible at all (actually your bar path looks great even through that long sticking point), but it does look like kind of a high-bar/low-bar fusion squat (as proof, I went to your log to find out which). This happens to practically everyone who switches from low-bar to high-bar especially when the weight gets heavy; it took me the better part of a year to get on top of it and it's still the first leak I look for.

Ultimately what I really had to do was *settle for a lot less weight for a long time* while concentrating on form. More upright and more focus on pure leg drive with a different action in the posterior chain. If you recall the SS teaching tool of a coach touching the small of your back in the hole and telling you to push that straight upwards, high bar actually calls for you to squeeze your glutes and think of pulling them forward while the quads max out.

*While I can't fully see, your arms and hands look like low-bar which is going to lead to bending over. For high-bar you basically pull the bar straight down.
*Elevating your heels a bit more can help with "feeling" the leg action and staying more upright.
*5 second smooth eccentrics and pauses in the hole, with light weight (like warm-ups) trying to keep form and position perfect, taping and reviewing.
*I even think overhead squatting was one of the most helpful things for me, because overhead squatting calls for identical positioning at the top and the bottom (i.e. if you take a picture from the waist up you shouldn't be able to tell which one it is).

I thought this was a pretty good orientation to the OH squat and found a number of points in it (stretches and evaluation ROM) helpful for high bar and front squats as well.

Got some videos of my squat and barbell row yesterday. Did the best I could for angles but their obviously not ideal

Rows:


I've been worried about the flatness of my back during rows. Holliday posted a video in the beginner questions thread that cued me to focus on a proud chest, which was suggested to me for my deadlift as well. These looked better than I expected them to and I think focusing on the chest helped quite a bit.

Squats:


I realized recently that I was likely squatting too low and getting some buttwink, so I tried to eliminate that. Turns out I'm pretty bad at estimating when I've just broken parallel lol. I'm sure there are many other things wrong with my form. I think I tend to activate my hips well before my knees and end up with a disjointed motion, so I've been trying to sync that up.

Both look fine. Buttwink isn't a big deal.

Rows in particular aren't worth nitting over. They look fine.

Rows will get better with practice. You're not lowering it with a "controlled drop" so much as a slow lowering, and you're hitting your hamstring ROM close to the floor pulling your back into somewhat round. You can probably just bend your knees once the bar is past your knees then extend your knees to break the weight up off the floor again, or use 2" blocks like Renton suggested. But drop it faster--your back is already being asked to do a lot of work here holding firm during the pulls.

You could also work on increasing your ROM at the bottom, but probably proper deadlifting and trying to do rows well will get you there shortly anyway.

This is my 1+ deadlift set



It looks like my shoulders are too far forward at set up, is that correct? I respond really well to cues, so any feedback and cues to correct whatever's wrong would be great!

Hard to tell from the angle but you might be stiff legging the last couple of reps. Your knees should be flush with your arms at the starting position. I'd also try a more deliberate slack-pulling phase before each rep, to increase your chances of having a well-set back as the set goes on.

Yes, shoulders too far in front which really means hips are too high.

Before you lift upward, DO NOT MOVE THE BARBELL! Line up to the barbell an inch in front of your shins and bring you shins to meet it.

Take off those shoes. Lower your hips. You want to press your knees outward into your arms and flush means the fronts of your knees don't *quite* protrude past your arms.

45 degrees in front at about hip height is preferred camera angle to see what you're doing with lower body.

Its a bit tough to tell from this angle(hip height from about 15 degrees in front of a direct side view is best) but it seems like the main issue is the squeeze part. You are not quite getting your chest up enough and not setting your low back into rigid extension. Think about showing your nipples to the wall in front of you while arching your lumbar spine(opposite of flexing/rounding). Also breathe only at the bottom.

I thought Rippetoe said do not lower your hips at setup, while keeping the chest up? I could be wrong.

Thanks for the help everyone, I will try and be more rigid and get my shoulders back

This is my AMRAP set, thoughts?

You are not keeping your lower back set tight throughout the squat.

Work on proper bracing technique (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcY3YSW9vX4)
Probably should cut depth for some time until you learn what it feels like when you are losing tightness / lower back position
Possibly (impossible to see from this vid angle) need to open the hips more: feet wider / toes angled out more / push knees out on descent + ascent

ETA: And think about keeping the chest up

Rippetoe is vehement about not cueing hips down, but his 5 step deadlift set up does including bringing your shins in contact with the bar to set the hips at the correct height (probably lower than yours are, at least in the latter reps of that set).

Non Rippetoe smart people will sometimes suggest a setup that involves a bit of a dynamic hips down to start the pull motion. I do this and kidcolin does this but ymmv. I think it's fine as long as you don't roll the bar forward excessively*.

* My main criticism of the Rippetoe setup is that he insists that all 5'2" people to 6'8" people all along the spectrum of femur/tib/fib length stand 1 imperial unit from the bar and not allow it to roll even one millimeter (metric?!) from that point. I think this results in some people being too far away or too close to the bar.


I think your squat looks fine. Some rounding at the bottom but you have enough extension that you're probably not rounding into flexion, just into less extension.

There are some juggernaut videos that talk about "drawing your ribs down" when you brace so you don't hyperextend your back, but I dunno how to do that and am incapable of hyperextending my back.

Also adding a belt will probably help with all this.

Thanks a lot for all the help so far - it's really making me think more about my form.

After reading my feedback, I tried lowering my hips to get my shoulders in line with the bar, and keep my chest up. My starting position looks better, but it looks like my first movement is hips up and then I deadlift the bar. How would I avoid doing this and any other thoughts?

I remembered just after this AMRAP set about taking my shoes off and the angle for the video. I promise next time will be better!

Seems okay but the camera angle isn't ideal for seeing a lot of things like how far away the bar is drifting, how tight your setup is, grip and stance width, and quadricepts girth.

There's still a decent bit of movement in your hips and lower back after you start pulling but before the bar breaks the floor. A deliberate "getting tight phase" before the pull will fix a lot of that. Think about turning a dial to 60% for a solid count before dialing it up to 100% and really initiating the pull.

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This is a heavy but not max set to start a new program. Other than getting a bit deeper does anyone see anything I should focus on?

You are lifting your chest on the way up, rather than staying in your hips which is desired. I would suggest picking a spot on the floor closer to your body(3-5 feet in front) and keeping your eyes there throughout the set. Focus on driving your hips the whole way up. Also toe turnout seems excessive. You do a pretty good job of keeping your knees over your toes but they do cave in a tad. Could experiment with slightly less toe turnout

thanks for the input

I lift my chest that way because when I don't my knees shoot back out of the hole and it creates a pronounced sticking point. Keeping my knees anchored through the sticking point has seemingly added 5% to my squat almost right away. I have found that looking down helps me groove the descent and looking forward helps me groove the ascent if that makes any sense. It might be because I'm used to looking forward when I grind the deadlift and it's just something I associate with pushing up as hard as I can with my hips/back.

Toe turnout is really tricky because they go where they go. You can see the left foot snap into it's preferred position during the first rep's descent. If that's something I need to change then it will be very difficult to fix, I think.

This is the AMRAP set from 531.

I took all your suggestions on board from the last video (thanks everyone!) and tried to make these changes -

1. body tight throughout
2. hips lower, shoulders a bit behind
3. don't move the bar at setup

How do they look now?

You are dropping your hips. This kicks the bar forward, creating a non-vertical bar path which is inefficient. When you touch your shins to the bar LEAVE YOUR HIPS UP. Squeeze your chest up hard. I would also suggest only breathing at the bottom and not switching your grip around. If its heavy enough for mixed grip just do that for the whole set

Who suggested this? Shoulders should start out in front of the bar slightly.

Set looks pretty good, just start with slightly higher hips and shoulders slightly forward. And pick a mixed grip and go with it for the whole set. I think you will have a lot of trouble pulling a truly heavy weight for reps with the constant flip flopping.

Sorry, I meant shoulders behind compared to last time when they were too far forward.

I ran out of chalk and had grip problems, won't happen next time.

Yeah, I think hips a tad higher and shoulders just a bit further forward looks right to me.

Opinions needed here.. This is 160kg which is fairly close to my 1RM atm and after doing 2x150kg so a little spent..
It looks like im starting to far forward which is pushing the weight towards my front foot?..

*bar is starting inline with my mid foot..

You are correct - bar is forward of mid foot

I don't think that can definitely be determined from the video. Pull honestly looks okay and you might just be a round backer. If you felt the weight shift to forefoot during the rep that would be one thing, but the bar path on video looks pretty vertical to me.

Would your back unlock like that with 140x4? Have you tried pause deadlifts?