[quote]beastwalker wrote:
Not sure I’m convinced that a narrow stance is “better”. Its what most people do and what most people are used to I know. But everyone has different bio-mechanics and there is more glute and posterior chain activation in the wide stance squats. [/quote]
If your objective is hip and glute development at the expense of you quads then the wide stance is appropriate. If quad development is the goal then the narror stance generally works better.
[quote]Mina293 wrote:
[quote]beastwalker wrote:
why should i lose the lifting gloves?[/quote]
Because it doesn’t match your purse lol.[/quote]
That made me pee a little.
On the other hand, if you stick with that stance and do decide to compete you’ll be a great geared squatter. But on a more serious note, I have personally experienced more muscle growth since I closed up my stance and gone deeper (as in actually to parallel). Also you may find it’s easier if you start with your feet at the same width you squat at and step straight back, for me it saves energy for my sets and helps me to be more consistent with my set up.
Beastwalker, sorry for not getting back to you until now.
Since you’re primarily training for health and looks, going deeper is good for many reasons. It helps to more evenly distribute the load between your hips and knees…stopping above or even at parallel generally shifts more stress onto knees only. A 90 degree angle at the knee joint is the most dangerous, unstable part of the squat for the knee, and it follows that stopping and reversing momentum at that point is a bad idea.
Going deeper allows you to reverse the movement at a point where the load is shared more equally between hips and knee, and gets you more quad emphasis, which I’d imagine you want from an aesthetic perspective. However, do plenty of romanian or stiff legged deadlifts as well for your hammies. Having super strong quads and weak hammies is a recipe for disaster, as any imbalanced muscle pairing is. A much greater force potential on one side of the joint is how you hurt yourself.
Having said all this, if you mainly wanna squat for health/looking good purposes, you may be a lot better off using front squats as your primary squatting movement. Easier to get deeper, less spinal loading and risk for injury, even more quad emphasis and sweep.
Couple things I noticed. Some mentioned.
Stance too wide.You are lifting raw obviously, not in a squat suit.
This is one of the reasons you see Powerlifters squat wide, which is to get
the most out of their gear/suit. Other raw lifters see this, and try to mimic.
I know from experience, till I was informed.
From the back,even when warming up with the bar, knees tracked in a little.
If you brought in your feet width(stance) in more narrow, you would have more mobility to track your knees over/inline with your feet.
I am currently improving my form also.
If you want a good strong squat, get a good squat first. Depth will give you better development and keep you honest. As the weight goes up, so does your depth. You probably need at least 3 inches and probably 4. Squats get exponentially harder as you descend those last few inches into the hole so don’t be surprised by the fact that you will need substantially less weight. This will also give you the ability to eventually post a legitimate “250 pound squat form check” instead of a 250 pound failed attempt.
One last thing, please don’t talk about " different bio-mechanics and there is more glute and posterior chain activation." I know I probably sound like a Dick here but you are a novice lifter and really have no clue what your talking about. You are not educating the posters who are trying to help you. You have read some stuff online and at this point only think you understand it. Everyone else who has posted in this thread has a much better grasp on these topics than you. Don’t be discouraged, you are young and new to the game. Be man enough to accept that you have a lot to learn and do it. You are in a good place here, spend a few years soaking up information and applying it.
You’re bracing your feet against the inside corners of the rack itself, you should at least have your stance narrow enough that you’re using only your own body to control the bar, and not getting the assistance of pushing your feet against the rack.
Your knees look a little shaky at times, possibly because of your ultra wide stance, or because you haven’t developed the proper control yet because you’re bracing your feet against the rack.
You seem to argue against everyone’s advice here, and took the time to create a screen shot to ask about your depth. I’m assuming since you put music to your video and thought it was necessary to include your warm up sets of just the bar with lifting gloves, you are very… confident in yourself. If you post to a site like this asking for advice, keep an open mind and take it. Everyone that has commented on your videos has been spot on, if you’re not going to take the advice with an open mind (which is why you posted in the first place, no?) then your progress will be limited.
Good luck!
I had difficulty squatting to depth in the past. I also had the issue of my knees caving in when the weight got heavy (for me) or I reached a fatigued state.
I tried heel lift shoes, but the problem remained.
So I researched form at great length. Also researched assistance lifts that would provide carryover to the squat.
And what finally fixed things for me was mobility work. I currently use Jordan Syatt’s lower body warm-up routine on squat days, which includes self-myofascial release with a tennis ball, foam rolling, and mobility drills (ankle, hips, etc.). DeFranco’s Agile 8 or Limber 11 are also highly recommended routines that seem to generate rave reviews here. I no longer touch a weight before spending 15 minutes doing this stuff.
Now I squat to proper depth with a moderate width stance in flat soled shoes and am setting PR’s as we speak. My knees no longer cave in under load, and I feel more confident in the hole than ever before. All of this took a major stepping back in weight, but over time I am better now (form, strength, confidence in the lift) than I was before taking the time to try to master the lift.
The squat takes time to develop for many of us. Stick with it - it’ll pay off in the end most likely.
THanks hungry4more and Dozer! I appreciate all the comments. The knees tracking is definitely something im working to fix.
@Souldozer thanks for the tip. I have actually improved my depth and made my stance a bit narrower since this post. For example i posted this a couple of weeks after also on this forum of front squats
I dont get the hate against gloves though. Same people that use belts, raised shoes, wrist wraps, preworkout, steroids , other drugs etc but then gloves makes me a pussy. go figure.
here is Chuck Vogelpohl squatting ultra wide 1175lbs
@Waylon Im not a lapdog here to eat up your super amazing awesome advice. If you aren’t interested in constructive conversation (conversation being the critical word here) then you don’t have to comment.
I learnt a lot from this thread including the fact that my depth was not as deep as thought it was, my knees were caving and my stance width makes perhaps may not be ideal. I haven’t heard a single constructive reason to not use gloves though on the other hand.
[quote]beastwalker wrote:
@Souldozer thanks for the tip. I have actually improved my depth and made my stance a bit narrower since this post. For example i posted this a couple of weeks after also on this forum of front squats
I dont get the hate against gloves though. Same people that use belts, raised shoes, wrist wraps, preworkout, steroids , other drugs etc but then gloves makes me a pussy. go figure.
[/quote]
On the glove topic, I think some of the comments you are getting is good ole hazing, or some good natured ribbing. Don’t take it personally.
I’ll give my opinion on them, though I am no expert. I do not use them because I don’t want anything impairing my grip, especially on the deadlift, for example, where my grip strength is truly tested. Gloves add to the circumference of the bar being held and add a variable that most experienced lifters (especially powerlifters) do not want (sort of like wearing soft soled shoes to squat or deadlift in). If anything, you want to ENHANCE your grip strength by using chalk (or, in my case, resin bags that pitchers or bowlers use because chalk is not allowed where I train). If you want to specifically train the grip, do those exercises or use fat bars/Fat Gripz.
So, if you want em, use em, but the purists are gonna hate on you. 
Ditch the wide stance, the running shoes, and the gloves.
The reason you don’t have enough ankle mobility is because of the fact that you are not allowing your torso to change angles toward the bottom of the lift. This is causing your knee to travel farther over your knee than it needs to in order to compensate, which in turn causes you to run out of ankle mobility toward the bottom of your lift.
Your feet are so far out that they are putting a huge torque on your femur, which is transferring all the way up to your hip. My hips ache just watching it haha. One of the things that you are doing wrong as well is that your feet are pointed way too far in. I know some guys recommend that kind of set up so that you can push out on the side wall of your shoe, but to me that just doesn’t seem optimal. It looks like you are just uncomfortable having your body in that contorted position. This is also probably the reason your knees cave slightly when you come up out of the hole.
In fact it looks like you are trying to stay perfectly upright the whole time, which is not possible if you are going to break parallel due to joint angles at the hip, and the circle that is drawn biomechanically around your hip via your femur. At some point, your torso will become more acute to the floor, which is not a terrible thing, because this will allow for your hips to come back in and move between your legs and give you that last bit of depth.
Correct all of these things and do paused squats to learn what it feels like to hit the bottom position and not be resting on your joints. (I mean seriously man, that has to make your hips sore as hell.) Once you fix it all up, your butt will be resting on your calves, and you can just hang out there all day and be comfortable. AND, if you time it right, you can get a little bounce to help you get the bar moving in the other direction.
When you can one rep somewhere between 300 and 365, buy a good belt and use it only for the top set of the day. This will also help you sit down more and help keep you upright if you don’t like falling forward at all.
Other than that, you seem to have made good progress. Not many people ever squat 250 anywhere close to depth.
Maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong so that I could learn as well though?
[quote]beastwalker wrote:
here is Chuck Vogelpohl squatting ultra wide 1175lbs
@Waylon Im not a lapdog here to eat up your super amazing awesome advice. If you aren’t interested in constructive conversation (conversation being the critical word here) then you don’t have to comment.
I learnt a lot from this thread including the fact that my depth was not as deep as thought it was, my knees were caving and my stance width makes perhaps may not be ideal. I haven’t heard a single constructive reason to not use gloves though on the other hand.[/quote]
OP, that guy is wearing gear. You are not. The form is very different when comparing a geared squat to a raw one.
OP, that guy is Chuck Voghelphol. You are not. He has at least 5 people looking at his form every set. Even if you are going to squat wide, you need to clean a few things up.
OP, you say you want big, aesthetic legs. Google Tom Platz. His legs are bigger.
Regarding the gloves. Use some chalk and build callouses. You are only as strong as your hands are hard. You can’t grip heavy weight with soft hands, your skin will rip off. You can’t lift something that you cannot grip. I do realize that we are talking about squatting, which is not grip dependent.
I am also willing to bet that when you do a 600 lb deadlift, it wont matter if you are wearing gloves or not because you are going to have callouses regardless due to the pressure and tug on your skin.
If you were to ask me why I recommend ditching them, I will ask you why you need them in the first place. Over time your hands will thicken up and basically turn into gloves. I have callouses on my palms, all of the joints of my fingers, and even my finger tips at certain points in the week.
When I had to take a break from lifting I would go hang on things to try to keep my hands hard for those very reasons.
Yes, definitely ignore my super amazing awesome advice as listening would obviously make you some sort of lap dog.
I will work on elevating my conversation skills to the level of your response.