A New Animal: JDM135 for 1-2-3-4 plates

Absolutely, I’ll film one this evening and tag when it’s up.

Are you squatting in running shoes by chance?

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@jdm135

I second this 10000% (not that i"m a great squatter LOL)
It might be contributing to:

Most shoes (not just running shoes) are very cushioned and “supportive”, which inherently creates an unstable surface- like squatting on a mattress. Your body feels unstable and tries to protect itself

If you can, try squatting barefoot, in chucks, deadlift slippers or squat shoes.

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Any chance you can video from a little further a way at the side and maybe from behind. Those sets with 255 were simply too heavy, I feel like you would benefit from dropping the weight a little and doing lots and lots of good reps.

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Grabbed a few form check videos as soon as I got home but before seeing @simo74 suggestion about camera positions.

Bar

95lb

165lb

@T3hPwnisher and @anna_5588 totally forgot the shoe thing this morning, that wasn’t smart, but I promise I suck just as bad in my good shoes! The light reps above are barefoot.
@throwawayfitness I got just the bar up there as you suggested.
@simo74 I agree, it’s too heavy for me! I was hoping to find a max triple to use as a TM for 531, guess I should use 235-245 at this point! But considering how weak my squat is after years of training, I hope theres a technical improvement that will help me at least a little bit.

I remember being 20 or 21, all my navy buddies in the gym, even those who never lifted, could squat 225. I could barely do 95! I was like, wtf is my problem! Time to deal with it the right way, no more hiding or excuses. If it means I need to do 20-reppers with 135 3xweek for 3 months I’ll do it.

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From what I’m seeing, you’re attempting to employ a high bar squatting technique with low bar placement, which is most likely jacking you up. If you want to keep the bar where you’re keeping, I’d focus on sitting BACK rather than down. You don’t need shins to be completely vertical, but they shouldn’t shoot straight out at the start of the squat like they’re doing.

I haven’t actually watched/listened to all of this video, but the timestamp I’m linking it at gives a great example

If you want to HIGH bar squat…I have no idea. I’ve never done one, haha.

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I haven’t had much chance to view these in details and I am certainly not an expert. I have to agree with @T3hPwnisher here though. You seem to be struggling to find a strong position all through the lift and end up getting out of position.

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Thanks. This makes sense, I’ll cue to “sit back with it”.

@garagerocker13 really helped me with my squat form, hopefully he’ll see this tag and pop in with some gold nuggets

What I see is the bar is much more over your toes than midfoot. Think about trying to keep the bar in a straight line directly over the arch of your foot, once it creeps out in front you start getting that “good morning squat” and you’ll feel the weight much more on your toes. Whether you need to drop the bar lower on your back, angle your feet out more so it allows you to sit back or maybe widening foot position, I’m not sure.

Keep messing with it until it feels good and powerful and mark your foot placement with tape on the ground so there is one less thing you have to think about while setting up. I break at the hips and knees simultaneously on descent, and once you hit the hole, drive with your whole foot, pushing as hard into the ground as you can. Just keep your whole back locked in as tight as possible.

Cool to see you starting to utilize back squats- you’re going to get strong at them quick

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@boilerman appreciate the tag man!

Honestly I’m thinking JDM should work on building some confidence in his squat before adding much weight. The reps at 165 aren’t too bad. A slightly lower bar position and playing around with stance width, coupled with pushing your ass back a little more would make all the difference you need. Then work on adding weight and getting comfortable at the bottom. Your apprehension with depth looks like what happens when someone divebombs the reps more than controlling them.

Lower bar position might help you stay more upright in the torso while keeping the bar over mid foot rather than over toes. Big caveat is that you need to really flex your delts and upper back hard to support the weight there.

Stance width is a weird thing. You might need to go wider or you might need to go narrower. There will be a stance (or range of stances) that will make you feel strong and stable. So take some time to play around and find that.

Butt back will keep your knees from shooting forward at the beginning of the rep and should help get some of your strongest muscles involved. The hip hinge is not an intuitive motion for most people and will take a lot of practice.

Weight-wise, I would practice all of this with 135 pounds and go barefoot or wear Chuck’s if possible. You need enough weight on your back to balance yourself, but don’t want to be challenging your strength while working on form. Also, make sure you move with purpose, control, and confidence while working on your form. Don’t divebomb, but don’t be so slow with the reps that there’s no carryover to heavier weights. Shoe-wise, it looks like you were lifting in running or basketball shoes, which will cause a lot of instability for you. Barefoot or Chuck’s is a good start.

I haven’t been awake super long and this is word vomit so feel free to ask any questions and good luck!

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Your squats look a lot like how mine did about a year ago (and to a point still do when the weight gets very heavy and bc long legs). I don’t want to turn this into the blind leading the blind, so I will simply say that Juggernaut Training has excellent videos on squat technique that have helped me a lot.

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Thanks @garagerocker13 @Bagsy @boilerman I appreciate this. Most of what y’all are saying converges around bar being too far forward, and too upright of a torso, and footwear, so it gives me a great starting point.
I’ll take a very low TM for my first 2-week iteration of the Dagill2 squat plan, focus on quality not ego, lots of good reps, and try to get another couple videos in 2 weeks.
I’m going to fix my squat. I’m going to fix my squat. I’m going to fix my squat. And having all this community help is just awesome, I wouldn’t make progress otherwise.

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6/3/2021
Last night, swam 10 “laps” in 6 minutes.
(Wanting to make this a regular thing. I’m not a swimmer, so it’s a very inefficient cardio (inefficient meaning GOOD for training purposes). A “lap” is not an olympic lap - it’s just there-and-back in my backyard pool. Roughly 60-64ft total. I hold my breath for each half-lap - again because I’m not a good swimmer. I feel like that has training value, but TBH if I can learn how to breathe while swimming and it makes me a more efficient swimmer, I’ll breathe.)

This morning, BENCH PRESS - setting a TM for next week:
Bar x 10; 2 pullups
95 x 10; 2 pullups
135 x 5; 2 pullups
175 x 3; 2 pullups
195 x 3; 2 pullups
205 x 3; 10 pullups.

205x3 wasn’t pretty but with a little practice it would become much easier. I’ll take that as my TM for the upcoming 2 weeks.
This may be a PR for me, I can’t find my old 531BBB notes to see what my top sets looked like a couple years ago. But maybe, not training bench press for a year and doing tons of strict pressing made/kept my bench strong enough.

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No, no, come on; Focus on the ego. And be sure to record & share. Make this JDM135’s exciting log :+1: :laughing:

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I have nothing to add, so I will just recommend doing them naked.

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Getting some wedge heel lifting shoes really helped my confidence when squatting. I even put them on for leg press and hack squat. (yes, I’m that guy!)

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6/4/2021
10 rounds: press 115lb, 2 pullups, 3 shins-to-bar.
Goal was 5 reps on press every round, no friggin way. I got 5, 3,3,4,4,3,3,2,3,3.
Real grinders too.

Then some cable feel-good stuff, biceps and triceps with the rope grip, shoulder flyes at various angles.

And 10 more pullups bringing me to 30 today and 50 for the week, which I consider a weekly minimum requirement.

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6/5/2021, Saturday
1 mile walk with baby.

Midafternoon during a baby nap:
16 rounds EMOM
2 cleans, 1 push press, 3 front squats
115lb for most of it. Tried 135 but failed miserably on the second round of it.

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Bank of Gains mate

Keep the pennies and pounds flowing

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6/6 Sunday
200 pushups and 10 swim laps

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