Don - thanks man!

Golden - I was mainly commenting towards Weasel. But I guess I am commenting towards you too. My knees do end up at the position they start in. I'm not sure why there is so much confusion over what knee cave is. My knees start at what I'd call neutral and I push them out, where they stay until the bottom of my squat, then when I go up they come in back to around neutral. If they don't actually go inwards past neutral then it's not knee cave or whatever. I think using that term to just discuss knee movement isn't very helpful or meaningful.

Having said all this I may, in fact, have a bit of knee cave but I really don't see it. I guess I really would want to take screen shots and overlay them to know for sure, but I've watched it quite a few times and don't think I see knee cave.

As long as you don't completely over-analyze things and ignore good advice, I predict you'll figure it out

Well yeah.

Although what good advice am I ignoring? I can't follow "don't let your knees cave" if they aren't caving. I'm really happy with my knees not caving in that set. I'm not happy with what my ankles are doing. It seems I've been so focused on what my knees are doing I still haven't corrected what my ankles are doing properly.

I know man, I felt like butting in is all. Wait until you're in a deep discussion with your wife. Feel a presence, look over your shoulder...oh hey fakeB

Yugo - The thing about your knee issue is this: even if they are not caving in far enough to cause any damage, its not optimal to have your legs wobbling back and forth like that during a squat.

Well, from that article about the Chinese power lifters it may actually be optimal to bring your knees in and then go up. Also, I wouldn't call what my knees are doing on those reps buckling. Maybe on one of the reps. I think what's buckling or almost buckling are my ankles. But, I agree with your statement. Although I'm not sure it's realistic to keep my knees so far out coming out of the hole, that is pretty darn wide.

I think I will definitely try what KC is saying again. Pointing my toes out to 30 degrees or something like that and then really try to keep my feet from buckling at all. Trying to drive hard against the floor with my entire foot and not think about my knees. See if that helps.

U trollin bro? Please recall that we call the best squatters weightlifters, not power lifters.

Not trolling, not correct, not accurate. My apologies. But, yeah, my point is that I'm not positive that knee movement is actually bad, it could be a good thing. I'm not trying to do it, though, so in that sense it's not good. I'd prefer having basically no knee movement/leg movement side-to-side anywhere in my body on squats. I can get fancy 10 years from now if I go pro.

Yugo,

Serious question; why are you so invested in aggressively avoiding taking the advice from the experienced people ITT? I legit don't get your line here.

*sigh*

I feel like people don't actually remember what I have and haven't tried, which is fine, but I guess it leads to me coming off as ignoring advice, which I think is unfair. I try to implement well over 50% of the advice I get in this log. I probably aggressive try to follow advice TOO MUCH, rather than too little.

What would be most helpful is reasoning and advice on how to actually try to fix what people are seeing. Saying "your knees move" is helpful, but it's not advice. Saying "your knees are caving" when they aren't, is not really helpful and is also not advice. Saying "you need to fix your ankle stuff and knee movement b/c I think it's leading to eventual knee cave" is helpful, actual advice, but lacks details or thoughts on how I should try to execute it.

I think if someone went back and tried to demonstrate that I willfully ignore a bunch of advice, they'd simply be wrong. I also get seemingly conflicting advice. E.g. KC and others keep saying to point my toes out more, Cha says not to unless it seems like it helps. When I've tired it, it doesn't seem to help. People keep saying to point toes out more.

So, that leaves me in a tough spot since I honestly don't know how to permanently improve my squat from that information.

Does that make sense?

Go ahead and point your toes out for a while. See if you can get that to work. But make sure your knees dont come in if you do that.

makes sense Y, When I was running I had my technique, posture and a bunch of other things professionally analyzed and it was really worth it. why not book a sesh with someone that has some studies under his belt, and ask him a bunch of this questions?

I dont know anything about what you guys are discussing, but an injury because of a "bad" technique would be so lame

Don - I avoid bad technique for the most part, but doing so (imo at least) has really hindered my ability to make gains and actually get stronger. I.e. I would say I actually have overall good to very good form most of the time but I achieve it at the expensive of potentially being able to push myself harder.

But yeah, getting a really good power lifting technique coach would probably be awesome. Cha went to a bench seminar recently by a world class bencher and learned a lot. That was just like a $25 group thing. I could find a local coach or try one out online and go with some sort of arrangement where I'd get detailed feedback.

I'm not sure who I would want to go to in that case but probably someone good and likely quite expensive. I don't know of any PTs locally who could run me through a battery of tests and give me great feedback. That would be ideal but I mean, most PTs likely are garbage at this sort of thing.

My other worry is they really wouldn't say anything I haven't already heard. Although maybe they'd know what I should focus on and what is just noise. That's always my biggest challenge. I get so much advice that doesn't seem to work it's very hard to determine if it's noise, not for me, or I F'd it up somehow and it actually is the correct direction to go in.

A great coach could be *cue fakeB drumroll* GREAT! They might repeat advice you've heard over and over, but they can help you finally make sense of what SEEMED to make sense. They'll show you where you're truly weak, what modifications to make, etc. Remember what happened when loco was given in-person squat coaching? Immediate (tho temporary) improvement.

I'd just say **** it, and get strong. Theres a certain amount of internet aspy-tarding going on and the form issues are (probably?) minor. Stop reading technical stuff, read more motivational and CnP style stuff, eat big, lift big, die trying.

Possibly. You are a good example of someone who could aspy it up for sure but don't really. You seem to get stronger on a steady program of....lifting heavy stuff.

But, your technique has always seemed good to excellent and doesn't seem to often go to ****. If there are any little niggling things you seem to clear them up really quickly. Are you just a good/gifted lifter (whatever that means)?

I would say something similar about FakeB. There is all sorts of junk in his log about this and that but it looks like he has little problem just lifting and following direction when lifting. I don't really know what to say besides I try really hard when lifting to follow cues and directions. I've also tried really hard to just "go hard" instead. But then my technique starts to fall apart in unacceptable ways and things like lots of back rounding come into play and I have to spend a lot of time fixing it again, erasing any gains I just made by just going harder.

Im not good or gifted (at least I dont think so), I work like a dog on my technique. I take on board all the different advice I get, or can find in articles, and test it out. I discard as much as I take on, but I have a reason to do so at least . At some point though, there are diminishing returns and the energy is better spent in the gym, or working on a different lift, or muscle ups, or olytarding.

I have noticed recently with a bit of involvement in the PL team that cues that work for me are just confusing to other people. It takes experiment to find what works for an individual. Sometimes coming back to a cue you've discarded previously works out, because something else has changed and now it makes sense, or you can find that feeling.

Anyway, id try and determine whether the minor errors are poor motor patterning or particular muscular weaknesses. Once you've figured out that then it's easier to address. Squat shoes will almost certainly have some positive impact.

Agree.

And flare your toes.

Take your time to find the right person, guys that helped me took videos and analyzed them with a software, where I could see with angles and stuff where I was going wrong, why that happened, ie needed to work on a few muscles because I was compensating*, simple stuff but really makes a difference.. That $25 seminar seems like will lead you to the right direction, glglgl

The guy who ran that seminar coaches people. I can get you his contact info if you want.

or this^

Aidan - how do you properly investigate a cue or technique advice? Do you try it for a few sets and then discard it if things "feel" worse? Do you tape those sets and if they don't look any better discard it. Or do you just pick one (or maybe a couple) and try to use them for a few weeks/sessions and then take a look to see if anything good happened?

Mostly it depends on how big a thing it is. Ive been rebuilding my bench form lately, so i was dedicating my secondary bench day to trying out all sorts of different setups and cues and seeing what ones felt better AND looked better on vid. Just watching how other people do it, or recommend doing it, and seeing if incorporating doing it that way works.

But minor things like bench bar path we were just focusing on getting it right every rep of every set for a few weeks while not thinking other aspects of bench form. Once bar path was better starting to incorporate it with perfection in other areas. Then getting to a point of not thinking about it but still getting it right. Im still on step one for now...

Some things you know immediately they won't work for you. Other things take a while before realising it isnt for you. Then readdressing things later on down the path that you though weren't for you because maybe mobility/psychology whatever has changed and now they do work.

Ygos,

The thing that I feel got my squat on track was narrowing my stance to a width where my knee bridge felt strongest. It just takes so much effort for me to keep my knees shoved out with a wide stance, and though this thing KC told me a while back that my weak points would diminish simply by me getting stronger, tbh I'm still terrible at keeping my knees out. I can easily lose 10, 20, 30, more?! lbs off my max squat by widening my stance.

So the width your knees collapse to when you start your ascent, have you tried narrowing you stance so that your knees stay at that width through the entire ROM?

+1 Aidan

Figuring out what works for you is a long and hard path. Some stuff doesn't click as right or wrong for a long time. I mean look at cha. He is still figuring out ways to improve his bench form.

I think the knee cave that the Chinese do has to be controlled and deliberate to be of use. I don't like it and won't advise anyone to do it, especially a non-elite lifter with some general body movement control issues. The non-deliberate movement of your knees when you squat isn't good and should be stopped ASAP.

Your knees may be moving in to compensate for your ankles moving outward. I would actually advice some toe raise type exercises to strengthen your ankles. It helped get my ankle stable and a bit stronger after breaking it playing soccer (rolled outward while playing like yours are doing now).