Greenacre Form Checks: Squat, Bench, OH Press, and More

Hello. Can you please take a look at the attached squat video? Some bro told me that my original squat method was too “hip dominant” because my first move would be breaking at the hips.

He said that the quads are where it’s at, and a real squatter breaks at the knees first in order to get the quads into the movement. I tried doing that (and narrowed my stance; I used to squat wider), but I am not sure if I am doing it correctly.

Can you please provide any comments? Thanks

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Generally your squat looks fine, but I wouldn’t force yourself to break at the knees. People squat differently and people’s bodies work different. I would bet you can get some extra ROM (and squat more weight more safely) by letting your knees and hips break at their natural timing, rather than forcing it. Play with your stance width to get to where you’re strongest.

Also, if you can describe a person as “some bro”, you should probably not take advice from said person.

And,

This is kinda goofy of him to say. Yes, a lot of people over-emphasize breaking at the hips, but forcing a break at the knees first isn’t exactly sound advice either.

Slight detour for a parable here that will explain why I hate one-size-fits-all form nazism. I had a baseball coach in high school that forced everyone to throw exactly like him. He had pitchers that could touch 80 MPH with good control and good off-speed pitches at 15 years old, then would blow up and rebuild their pitching mechanics in his image. We all got worse and most of us have permanent damage to our throwing elbow or shoulder from it.

Bottom line: you gotta figure out what works for you. Over-arching principles hold true, but forcing your lifting form to look like someone else’s isn’t the right way to go.

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First, don’t listen to him. That’s just a silly thing to say.
Second. You looked fine in the video.
What are your goals with squatting? Quad squatting makes my quadriceps tendon ache, personally, but is my unfortunate natural tendency. Focussing on the posterior chain will cause greater development of it, better muscle balance, and a bigger squat than quad squatting for most people. If your goal is big quads, then sure, quad squat. If it’s ANYTHING else, don’t.

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x1000000000

Bang on

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Hello. Can you please take a look at my rack pull and provide any thoughts? I watched a bunch of videos on how to do them (some of the information was inconsistent) so I wanted to get the thoughts of the people here. Thank you.

I’m no expert, but I would say have your shoulders more behind the bar. When your shoulders get forward, the weight goes forward onto your toes.

Hello. Can you please take a look at this overhead press video? My left shoulder (the one on the left side in the video) does not seem like it is rotating correctly and not as fluid as the right one. When my shoulders hurt, it is always the left side, so I don’t know if I am not pressing correctly, or if there is some sort of issue with the left shoulder being stuck. If so, do you have any thoughts on exercises or something else I should be looking at to help? Thanks

Honestly dude, you’ve created 35 topics, and rarely ever reply to them - you have less posts than topics created. Can we just make this the Greenacre form check thread?

As to this video, it looks like you’re depressing your shoulders during the reps. If you’re not, then disregard this next part - keeping shoulders locked down during overhead presses leads to impingement. Everything should move as one - scaps and all. Again, if you’re not trying to keep your shoulders “locked down”, then forget all of this - it just looks that way in the video, a little.

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