Rx-Squat Forward Leanage

Hello friends!

I have decided to stop obsessing over my butt winking, and have moved on to worrying about my forward leaning!

I have read a few threads and learned it could be :

Tight things
Low bar position
Certain things being dominant, etc…

I don’t know what my problem is.

I DO squat low bar, but it seems like even when I just do body weight squats my form looks the same.
I stretch and foam roll things a LOT, I don’t feel like a very tight person.
I have no idea what is dominant.

I know my glutes semi-suck, and I am doing those glute bridge thingies 2x’s a day.
My elbows are pointed down.

UM So what are some things people have done to remedy this problem on themselves?
I was going to say something else, now I forget…Hmm… I dunno.

I noticed at my meet that almost everyone butt winked, but very few people forward leaned like I did, so this sucks.

Maybe I should hire I squat coach for an X-mas gift idea or something.

OH I rememebr that thing now, is there some kind of better squat positioning, foot/bar, etc, for people who are really short and have really short legs? Like the whole leverage dealio?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

OH ALSO if anyone has XXtra free time they could judge my form

If they’re willing to go to the Canadian powerlifting union website…

And then click on the 2012 powersurge recorded video’s…

and then go to Flight C + D squats

ANd fast forward to 1 hour 43 mins and 13 seconds-ish
1:43:13

Wall squats Wall squats wall squats

k, first of all… your squat is great, there’s nothing wrong with you.

You have legs right to your chin and you’re going ass to tea kettle. when you hit the hole, you’re pretty upright, but when you come up your glutes and hamstrings completely take over causing you to bendover. The low bar really doesn’t help.

To be more upright you’re going to have to push your knees way way forward, and not sit back, but rather sit between your legs. you’re going to have to increase your front squat like crazy, as your hams/glutes are taking over, so I’d start front squatting as your main movement, and back squat after that. Also, you’ll have to switch to highbar.

Watch the girl before you, see how far her knees for forward? she has similar proportions to you, so use that as a guideline.

Also, watch the girl at 1:46:44… AJ Facendi… she’s amazing and a really great lifter. She’s from Edmonton, so add her on facebook and ask to train with her. You both have the same proportions, see how she’s not going all the way down, but rather optimal depth? notice that she wears weightlifting shoes, this will also help a ton, and is a requirement, get the new Nikes, they have a big heel and you need it.

So to recap:
go deep, but not crazy deep.
push your knees way forward, and sit between your legs. you may need to stretch your calves and ankles.
go highbar, or at the least regular bar, ditch lowbar, it’s not for you.
get weightlifting shoes immediately, at the least squat with a plate under your heels.
Make friends with AJ and train with her.
use front squats as your main move for a while to develop the flexibility and technique you’ll need to make this change.

if you’re still freaked about butt winking, do some dynamic hamstring stretches, such as a rollover into v sit, and hip swings before you squat, pelvic rounding is caused by tight hamstrings. Though in your case, it’s hard to tell as you’re going so deep.

That’s all, you’re a good squatter, continuing to think there’s something wrong with you will just make it so, I officially give you permission to chill.

PM if you have any questions at all, and pay no attention to someone who prescribes good mornings or an exercise to fix your form, exercises don’t fix form, changing form fixes form.

Best of luck.

^^^ Great post.

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
^^^ Great post. [/quote]

thanks man

this is how I want you to squat, maybe a touch deeper, but he’s got long ass legs, and watch how far his knees come forward, watch how upright he is. This guy is one of the top 5 squatters in the world.

Also, I know I said you can’t use an exercise to fix form… but still front squat, it’s an exception to the rule.

Yeah wow, larry10 said virtually everything I would probably have been too lazy to type up myself. Great post, take all of that advice.

I can’t add much other than what Larry has said. When I went over to Newfoundland I had the opportunity to train with Tom Kean. Basically he said there are two types of squats, American and “Russian.” (that’s a huge paraphrase) I squat American, his lifters and himself are more Russian.

There’s really no such thing as American and Russian squats, just the style that each is more famous for. The American squat involves sitting back first, which is what I learned to do. The Russian squat is more knees forward and sitting “down” into the hole. It’s really hard to squat American and stay perfectly upright while lifting raw. You actually do a superb job of staying up right in the hole, it’s just when you leave it that you start getting leaned over, and it really isn’t by that much. Out of curiosity, what’s your initial thought in your head coming out of the hole? It should be chest up, and if it isn’t, making it chest up might help a little bit.

Also, Larry, who are you?

EDIT: That sounds weird. I mean to say, are you a CPU lifter as well?

Hah, you’re the one who walked in to the imperial march. Awesome

Come to the UofA powerlifting club in the afternoon, talk to Alison,(she’s the one squatting at 147:30) she’ll probably help you out.

Oh and get some oly shoes. Fitness town off whyte ave has romaleo 2’s, and they are the tits.

[quote]DaveForner wrote:
I can’t add much other than what Larry has said. When I went over to Newfoundland I had the opportunity to train with Tom Kean. Basically he said there are two types of squats, American and “Russian.” (that’s a huge paraphrase) I squat American, his lifters and himself are more Russian.

There’s really no such thing as American and Russian squats, just the style that each is more famous for. The American squat involves sitting back first, which is what I learned to do. The Russian squat is more knees forward and sitting “down” into the hole. It’s really hard to squat American and stay perfectly upright while lifting raw. You actually do a superb job of staying up right in the hole, it’s just when you leave it that you start getting leaned over, and it really isn’t by that much. Out of curiosity, what’s your initial thought in your head coming out of the hole? It should be chest up, and if it isn’t, making it chest up might help a little bit.

Also, Larry, who are you?

EDIT: That sounds weird. I mean to say, are you a CPU lifter as well?[/quote]

Congrats on training with Tom, he’s the man, I don’t know him very well but my gf was fairly close for a while. He has perfect technique.

I’d have to take a look at her head, but it’s a combo of weak quads, strong glutes/nams and just her proportions that get her so bent over, as well as everything else I listed up there.

My real name is Mathew Bertrand, I’ve lifted in the CPU at the start of my career, and currently lift in CPF… I’ve also competed in strongman fairly regularly but I’ve taken the last couple years off as I need to focus exclusively on the 3 lifts.

Who are you man? lol

[quote]308smk wrote:
Hah, you’re the one who walked in to the imperial march. Awesome

Come to the UofA powerlifting club in the afternoon, talk to Alison,(she’s the one squatting at 147:30) she’ll probably help you out.

Oh and get some oly shoes. Fitness town off whyte ave has romaleo 2’s, and they are the tits. [/quote]

That’s perfect!

[quote]Larry10 wrote:

[quote]DaveForner wrote:
I can’t add much other than what Larry has said. When I went over to Newfoundland I had the opportunity to train with Tom Kean. Basically he said there are two types of squats, American and “Russian.” (that’s a huge paraphrase) I squat American, his lifters and himself are more Russian.

There’s really no such thing as American and Russian squats, just the style that each is more famous for. The American squat involves sitting back first, which is what I learned to do. The Russian squat is more knees forward and sitting “down” into the hole. It’s really hard to squat American and stay perfectly upright while lifting raw. You actually do a superb job of staying up right in the hole, it’s just when you leave it that you start getting leaned over, and it really isn’t by that much. Out of curiosity, what’s your initial thought in your head coming out of the hole? It should be chest up, and if it isn’t, making it chest up might help a little bit.

Also, Larry, who are you?

EDIT: That sounds weird. I mean to say, are you a CPU lifter as well?[/quote]

Congrats on training with Tom, he’s the man, I don’t know him very well but my gf was fairly close for a while. He has perfect technique.

I’d have to take a look at her head, but it’s a combo of weak quads, strong glutes/nams and just her proportions that get her so bent over, as well as everything else I listed up there.

My real name is Mathew Bertrand, I’ve lifted in the CPU at the start of my career, and currently lift in CPF… I’ve also competed in strongman fairly regularly but I’ve taken the last couple years off as I need to focus exclusively on the 3 lifts.

Who are you man? lol[/quote]

He’s an extremely nice individual as well. It was great to train with him and his crew.

I’m just new to lifting, I think 4-5 competitions or something. First was July 2011. All in the CPU.

you don’t train at Naturally Fit in PEI do you?

My gf is from there and trained with Tom Nichols.

Where you were competing in your avatar, I was training there for 2 weeks in September when my gf was visiting her family, a really solid place to train.

haha Indeed I do. I’ve also trained with Tom. It’s more so John now, though.

Hijacked thread/10.

EDIT:

Did you recently post on John’s squat video?

[quote]DaveForner wrote:
haha Indeed I do. I’ve also trained with Tom. It’s more so John now, though.

Hijacked thread/10.

EDIT:

Did you recently post on John’s squat video?[/quote]

lol, yeah total hijack, but I think Spock will get over it.

Yeah, I just posted on Johns vid, he’s a total beast

OMG OVERWHELMED

I can just like, go into the U of A powerlifting club and be all
“Hey, help me squat.”

?

That seems odd, what if everyone is busy…

The first thing I am thinking of when I get out of the hole is “KNEES NO CAVEY!”

Um, i have these shoes I bought called, do wins or something, are those good? THey were expensive :s.

308smk WHOOO ARE YOU WHO WHO
WHO WHO

THANKS to larry for taking the time to type out that huge helpful thing :)!

[quote]Larry10 wrote:

lol, yeah total hijack, but I think Spock will get over it.

[/quote]

NEVAHHHHHHHHH!

[quote]Spock81 wrote:
OMG OVERWHELMED

I can just like, go into the U of A powerlifting club and be all
“Hey, help me squat.”

?

That seems odd, what if everyone is busy…

The first thing I am thinking of when I get out of the hole is “KNEES NO CAVEY!”

Um, i have these shoes I bought called, do wins or something, are those good? THey were expensive :s.

308smk WHOOO ARE YOU WHO WHO
WHO WHO

THANKS to larry for taking the time to type out that huge helpful thing :)![/quote]

that’s actually exactly what I’d do, but make sure they actually know what they’re doing first. Try to find a guy named Loren Chu… he’s flat out brilliant and will teach you more about the squat then you’ll ever be able to learn.

What do you mean by no knee cave? some ppls knees come in a fair bit and that’s their way of activating their glutes, watch the vid I posted above, his knees come in a fair bit, and he’s awesome.

oh and do wins are perfect, wear those and start front squatting your butt off… or on I guess