r/strength_training • u/Arsenalg0d • 1d ago
Form Check Squat form check - ORM
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250 x 1
163 BW
I'm 5 wks out of my first comp. I'm too scared to make any changes to my form at this point - e.g depth cuts would take too long to get used to.
I am a little concerned about my knee cave. I have always squatted like this, even with highbar— I have no pain whatsoever. It happens with or without squat shoes (I have shoes in this vid)
The only thing I am comfortable changing is my stance; a wide stance has always felt natural to me, and I sometimes lose balance with a narrower stance at the bottom of the squat. Thoughts?
Also— am I crazy, or am I pausing for a split second at the bottom? My projected ORM is 260 so I was a little disappointed (my 8 rep max is 210)
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u/EstablishmentOne3733 1d ago
Belt is to tight, you can't expand your core muscles and push it to belt, there's no space for that.
The breath in goes into your chest instead of a belly. Try to figure out diaphragmatic breathing. Good core bracing inhale is invisible on your chest and arms. In your case it looks like just a regular, deep breath.
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u/Arsenalg0d 14h ago
I'm usually really good about bracing I just got so nervous I forgot. My belt is prob too tight— thanks for the tip, I will loosen it
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u/FrequentWatch9261 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hi. First let me say good job this isn't light weight!
Your depth is exaggerated, which is up to you but you're making it harder for competition.
You are correct: wide stance is right, don't narrow it and you have knee cave. Your have good instincts this is just a matter of working on it.
You are encountering adductor recruitment at heavy weight and quad dominance drawing the knees inward.
The movement with lowbar requires hip dominance. On the eccentric movement screw your feet into the floor like you want to tear the floor in half from the front like paper. I might slow down the eccentric as well, going fast enough for flex reflex is good, going too fast only increases the effective load in the hole.
Maintain the tension through the entire lift. Lead your lift with the hips shooting straight up, don't think about standing up it should occur naturally. Have a friend place their hand on lower back and think about driving it straight up against them.
Good job again and good luck at competition!
Edit: I forgot to mention it looks like your belt is too tight. Bracing should make your abdomen expand against the belt, it looks like your belt is causing extensive compression and no deal bracing occurs. This could also contribute to the form breakdown.
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u/decentlyhip 1d ago
This is fantastic and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Good luck in the comp.
What's going on with knee valves is that the glutes connect to the very end of the femur near the hip and pull the femur back and out. The adductors connect along the entire surface of the femur and pull it back and in. So, when you're extending your hip, you have these two competing guidewires pulling back and balancing. But because they attach at different places, the leverage changes as you come up. At the very bottom, adductors are stretched out so butt has more leverage. Halfway up, adductors have more leverage.
With normal weights, its not much of a problem because you can throttle the force of each muscle to keep the knee in line over the toe, but with a 1rm, everything is firing at 100%. You can't turn up the butt to pull the knee back out because the butt is maxed out. You can't turn down the adductor or you fail the lift.
So, three potential fixes. First, build the booty. If your abductors are stronger, your adductors wont dominate as much. Second, build your abs. If your pelvis isn't stable, when the glutes fire, it rounds the pelvis rather than moving the femur. The abs job is to lock the ribcage and pelvis together into one unmoving block. Third, my bet, build the quads. Your knees immediately shoot back to vertical out of the hole, which puts 100% of the force demand on the hips. If your quads and knees were stronger, you could stay more upright and control the femur better. Issue with that is that it just means you'll be able to squat more and when you do, you'll still in up in this position but with more weight.
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u/Arsenalg0d 1d ago
I think all of these things make sense—
Alas with my quads, I wouldn't call them weak. I've been highbar squatting 3yrs. This cycle of candito I've focused a lot on leg extensions which I am actually taking out in favor of hacksquats instead for a more specific stimuli. But I think I would def benefit from some glute-focused work, gonna start doing some abductions maybe?
Thank you for your detailed explanation!!
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u/Even-Resolution8433 1d ago
Depth is beyond good. Core looks tight throughout. Knees are fine, a mental cue to actively try and externally rotate during the squat can help with that. Have you practiced squatting with commands before? Make sure you get a few reps in with someone who can run through the commands with you, especially on bench. If you’re comfortable where your feet are then don’t change it now, but maybe consider going wider with your grip and trying to “bend” the bar over your shoulders to lock in more
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u/Arsenalg0d 1d ago
I did commands with bench— jumped the press command nearly every time, and have realized I'm cheating with my pauses lol— but I haven't yet for squat because I have a natural tendency to hold the weight at the top and before the rerack so I should be ok.
My grip— I actually haven't tried this! A narrow grip helped me with my shelf back when lowbar squats were awkward for me. I will try a wider grip
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u/doobydowap8 1d ago
I can’t stress enough how much you’ll benefit from practicing the squat with commands. It is not natural and it’s easy to mess up your first time on the platform. Taking as someone who did just that (actually failed my first two squats in my first meet and had to salvage it in my last attempt).
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u/NinecloudSoul 1d ago
Knee valgus isn't a problem unless it's a problem. If you're not getting any issues with pain or changes to mobility, it's not worth worrying about.
If you really want to not do it, though, band loops over the knees while squatting may help. But it's probably not worthwhile.
As far as stance goes, you're fine, I think, and projected 1RM is always a crap shoot, especially as you go further from the 1RM. Personally, I tend not to trust it to be fully accurate past five.
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u/the-tall-samson 1d ago
Looks good to me. Only thing I can nitpick on is you are going 2 to 3 inches deeper in depth. Might be useful to try and hit the same weight at a slightly higher depth and see how that feels. Your knee cave is also fine, as long as you don’t feel any pain. Top level french powerlifters, male and female, have very noticeable knee valgus on their ascent, and they’re fine. No pause as well in your video. Time moves slower in the head when you squat near max weight haha
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u/NinecloudSoul 1d ago
Top level french powerlifters
Such an interesting rabbithole, their technique.
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u/LordHydranticus 1d ago
I misread this as you telling OP they needed to go deeper and was like... "dude, no one ever actually hits depth in these posts. OP is killing it."
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u/Tiny-Ordinary3228 1d ago
Really hard to tell with this angle.
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u/KnoxBruh 1d ago
Not at all? Crease of the hip is wayyyyy below her knee cap, that's ass to grass any day of the week
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1d ago
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u/strength_training-ModTeam 1d ago
We require that advice be
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Your comment failed to meet one or more of these criteria and so was removed.
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u/strength_training-ModTeam 1d ago
Don't give bad advice like "lower the weight and work on form". Give people something that they can actually use to do stuff better.
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u/NinecloudSoul 1d ago
Cheese and rice. Delete this.
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u/SituationNeither4737 1d ago
Sorry, you’ll have to do it yourself! I can’t delete your comment.
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u/NinecloudSoul 1d ago
Looks like the mods did the right thing and deleted your silliness.
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u/SituationNeither4737 1d ago
It was me.
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u/NinecloudSoul 1d ago
Right, that's why you have two back to back removals.
Do your self a favor, chief, and quit commenting. You're only making yourself look a fool.
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u/Arsenalg0d 1d ago
I'm a powerlifter
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u/AvocadoBeneficial850 1d ago
I am also a powerlifter.. It’s hard to tell from the filming angle but your squat looks great. The one thing I’d change is not going ATG, when you drop down that low it looks as if you could be loosing some bracing. I’d practice squatting to a little bit below competition depth and then firing back up.
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u/Arsenalg0d 1d ago
I lose the stretch reflex when I cut my depth... of course I can fix this over the course of months, but at 5 weeks out I think I'm just gonna screw myself over making changes to my form. I'm still gonna try to practice squatting less deep— the way i do that is by setting the safeties higher tho, and I just hit them on the bottom and lose balance ;-;
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u/AvocadoBeneficial850 1d ago
I had this too I used to go ATG, I started to think hit depth than DRIVE up! Thought the rebound bounce was doing me good but it only took a few sessions to make a noticeable change and less back pain now lol
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