190kg (418lb) Squat

I talk about it a bit - but I can get myself into some pretty bad head space. These few weeks have been those times.
I wont lie - I was so nervous before this video I was almost sick. I’m not sure why. But I can do that to myself. Both a bit of fear, this is my heaviest squat ever. And over blown self doubt right now.

But here it is. The most amount of weight I’ve ever squatted. For 3 reps.
For reference in August I was struggling with 160kg 5x5.

If I had been at the gym with spotters I would have gone for 4. But I wasn’t. I’m not sure what the out come would have been.
But yeah - feel good today.

Also if there are any comments about form etc please chip in.
Feed back ALWAYS welcome!

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Well earned PR. Good work.

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Thank you.

Awesome work!

Unless you’re competing or in danger of hurting yourself, I think comments about form are unnecessary. I also think a person needs to be in the same ballpark in terms of strength to offer advice so I’m out. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Very good! :+1:

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I’ve had both my strong man shows pulled. But it’s more for safety tbh.
Although I’ve been squatting lots on 2020. Rough estimate about 25 a week. So that’s well over 1000. If I were doing any harm you’d like to think I’d know by now :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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Strong lift.

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Stance appears very wide and you’re not quite hitting parallel at least from this camera angle. I’m not all about ass to grass on heavy lifts either but I think you need to drop down another couple inches. Maybe strip a little weight off, form check, and reclimb. It wouldn’t take very long to make it competition legal.

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Congrats on a well earned PR mate

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Yeah my both things I know about.
My depth issue as you say is small. I think I’m 50mm (2 inches) high for power lifting I think. Which is frustrating BUT I’m also not a power lifter… I will address it. But its not like I’m stopping 1/3 of the way down. And I’m not getting higher as the weights go up. So it’s not urgent.
My stance width is wide. And I have no idea why. But every time I move it in I feel weaker. It’s never really caused too much issue. Im worried that changing this will make more problems than it solves. I’m not sure.

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>_<, true.

As per @Frank_C s comment I have no business on commenting on the execution of your lift.

FWIW, I recall hearing/reading that Dave Tate will have his powerlifters train to the depth of hip joint parallell to knee which is not competition depth. Only when the competition is close will they then start going deeper. The reason being that going wide and going deep oftentimes leads to banged up hips. As an addition to that, I’d imagine that people that never compete that still want to squat wide might benefit from periodically going to depth to ensure that they can express their strength through that entire ROM.

What I can comment on, or rather share thoughts on, is perhaps this as I have spent some time of my own adjusting my grip- and stance-widths in the past.

Personally, I do not thrive if I change it up wholesale across all my sets. Mentally, it drains me to feel weaker across all the work I do. Therefore, for me, I’ve used the modified widths on my supplemental work, or my warm-up sets, or any variation thereof and left the main work alone. It takes longer to feel out the new “style”, but it also strikes me as less of an “all eggs in one basket”-affair. The obvious exemption to this strategy being when changing because the “old” way is seemingly injurous.

Having the right motivation also helps. I find that it is best if there is a reason to justify changing the width, such as banged up joints (for me this happened on squats) or not feeling a prime mover participate (triceps on bench) rather than just “it’s odd that I do it like this, in theory it should probably be this”.

It’s obviously really tough to tease apart if the stance is objectively weaker, or if it’s because you haven’t had as much practice with it. I view it as an endogeneity problem. Because the variables in this context travel together, but might not be causally related, i.e. your stance has an impact on your strength potential, and the amount of practice you’ve had in that stance affects how much of that strength potential you can express, and the level of practice you’ve had informs how you feel when you execute the movement.

If you were to change the width for all your work Swede Burns suggests staying with the same training max but work at around 70%

Just some thoughts, you are strong either way, just if you want to play with changing things.

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Good lift, dude! If, as you said, your depth is consistent and doesn’t rise with weight, then screw “parallel”.

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As a on aspiring strongman, pretty sure they don’t judge depth of squat in competition.

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I feel stronger as I move my feet wider. My experience is that my hamstrings, adductors, and gluten start to do more work when I do that. It shifts the work to my posterior chain and I seem to be dominant in that manner.

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@dagill2 @flappinit

I agree with both. The only reason I mentioned it is the purist always gave me shit on my heavy lifts. The first time I hit a 500lb squat I videoed it and was getting shit left and right about my depth. I reset back, worked on form, and made sure there from thereon out that my form was good. Lets be honest, good depth is what the exercise was intended for but outside of that if the OP doesn’t give a crap than who cares… right? He just asked for feedback on form so I was giving it. Not to be a rude just to offer insight. Cheers!

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They look good. A bit high, but good. If I wasn’t PLing, I would probably just squat like that all the time. It is much easier for me to keep back position a bit high. I don’t get nearly as beat up just a bit high either.

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No worries dude, wasn’t a shot at you. I am of the personal belief that the standard of parallel, while it seems like a good universal standard, is useless outside of powerlifting competitions. As long as you’re near parallel, I could care less. If you wanna stop your Bench an inch from your chest, or hitch your deadlift, go for it. Just my opinion. But nobody’s gonna care if you drop some form tips, I don’t think anyone took offense to it.

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Oh, and the quotes around parallel were to signify the idea of parallel itself- just reread it and it did look like a shot at you, haha. Not my intention.

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Take as such man. Feed back is always welcome when its insightful.

I saw a video of a guy doing 5x5 with 200kg once. Guess what comment number 3 was about - the height on some of the reps. Not all - just some. And then the guy expressed that as a percentage of the total reps. I was just in awe people where able to squat 200kg.

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Yeah - I did have signifigant hip pain last year. And I brought my squat in a touch. And now I’m okay. I do have a coach. I’ll ask him when I see him. In the mean time I’m hoping my lack of pain indicated no “damage”…
But thanks for the input!