So I filmed myself today, I noticed that my heels raise slightly in the bottom. It seems like no matter what I do it keeps happening, whether I try a wider stance, mobility exercises for ankle mobility, or playing with foot placement overall. I even wear weightlifting shoes, which should only make it better
The question is whether this degree that I have is acceptable or not. And how is my form overall. If not what can I do?
I choose highbar and relatively narrow stance, because it just feels the most natural and stable for me.
There is no degree of heels coming off the floor that is acceptable, it is an injury waiting to happen. Your stance is too narrow, move your feet out a bit and keep the weight evenly distributed between the balls of your feet and your heels throughout the whole movement.
Do you have any other suggestions? Because I actually tried wider and less pointed out and it only worsened the problem. Only when I exaggerated even more the pointing out and did it really close, my heels didnât come off the floor.
You could try bringing your hands out maybe an inch each. I noticed if my hands are too close I canât get in the best position. It almost pulls me over
Feet are pointing out too much and the movement is coming from your ankle judging by how your knees track. So ankle inversion/eversion limitations also show up in the heel lifting up. Oly lifting shoes do ankle dorsiflexion not so much inversion/eversion⊠actually I think they might limit those movements lel. Also flat fleet or collapsing arches would cause a similar heel lifting off.
Feet pointing out is meant to be from external rotation at the hip not from movement at the ankle joint. This means your knees should track in line with your toes. Might be the camera angle but this looks like a problem for you. Widening your stance or pointing your toes in at the ankle wonât help the issue.
A sequence I learnt a while back to find a good foot/knee/hip position:
Pick one foot slightly off the ground and flex your glutes and quad as hard as you can.
This will make your hip do some combination of externally rotating (rotating your whole leg and thus pointing your feet out) and abducting/moving your leg and feet away from midline i.e. stance width.
Repeat with the other foot and you have your stance. Tweak it a bit to taste but remember itâs all in the hips.
So I tried what you said, I attempted it with a light sub maximal weight. Maybe I did it wrong, what you asked to do with the glutes and quads, but I actually saw that it forced my stance even closer (dafuk). The messed up part is that it actually feels even better and more stable, despite being stupidly narrow. Youâd think that because of my long legs squatting narrow will feel worse.
It actually seemed to help it, but I donât know if itâs okay now. It seems like my stupid ankles are still hell bent on going up ever so slightly, but maybe itâs just my imagination, so what do you think?
What the actual fuck do you mean âimaginationâ? Do you have no sensation or proprioceptive/kinesthetic awareness of your foot. Itâs either lifting up or itâs not. I canât see shit and I sure as hell donât know what your imagination is doing.
The why/how to fix is our concern. I highly doubt itâs lack of weight bearing ankle dorsiflexion because for it to be so bad that oly shoes canât disguise it youâd pretty much have a foot deformity.
As others have mentioned the weight distribution in the your foot and your balance or loss of it can bring you onto your toes. If your weight is forward on your foot the tendency will be to come onto your toes when you push through this point.
But if I will be going purely by feeling, the thing is I actually feel my foot flat on the ground, and never really had problems with balance. Itâs just when I filmed, it looks like I can see my heel lifting up slightly. When I mean heels, I mean the back of the shoe, not my actual ankle, maybe thatâs the confusion? Maybe, there was no problem to begin with?
The weird thing is that my squats feel really good for me in that narrow position that I did today.
When I posted my first squat video, was it clear that my heels raise?
Thatâs weird mane. Your foot and the shoe should be as one so if your doing it right you should if thereâs heel lift or shifts in balance. The straps and laces lock your foot into the shoe and the shoe itself has no give.
If you really canât feel it maybe itâs not a big of a problem or as dangerous as suggested. Still worth fixing.
Yes. A little.
Do you mane. Tweak it until you find a relatively narrow stance that works well.
Man thereâs a wide range of squat stances. Peopleâs hips are literally built differently enough to make certain styles more comfortable and other styles cause injury e.g. impingement.
In the JTS strength video and the playlist its in one of the lifters Marisa Inda squats really narrow and sheâs a world champion. Narrow squats like that are not typical but if it works for youâŠ
Tho to know for sure which stance is better for you youâd have to srsly give wider squatting a go for at least a few weeks.
I can see the back edge of your shoes come up slightly, like half a centimetre. Itâs obvious that you have little or no pressure on your heels, so consciously try to push through your heels next time. Try widening your stance a bit too, nothing crazy but try different widths between where you are now and heels at shoulder width and see how that goes.
