Squat Help Please

I have a squatting problem that I hope you can help me with, basically, I can�??t squat!!!

Let me go into a bit more detail, I�??m 24 years old, 14.6 stones, 6�??2, waist size 36, been training on and off for 2 years but never started a decent program that I could stick to for longer than a couple of weeks.

Been reading quite a lot recently and am starting to realize some of the important things, full bodies are better than splits for beginners, compound exercises with perfect form are the way forward, good diet comes before anything else and it�??s a must to work the legs hard.

So I believe I�??ve got the foundation knowledge now and am putting that into practice but I am still struggling hugely with the free weight squat. Basically, I�??m not overly flexible, and literally as soon as I start to bend my knees whilst keeping my feet flat on the floor I start to fall backwards, the only possible way for me to get anywhere near countering this is for me to lean over so my upper body is almost parallel to the floor.

Obviously this just won�??t do, and I�??m desperate to learn proper squat technique, even if it means practicing with the bar for the first few months. I�??ve had a personal trainer look over my technique but to be honest he didn�??t really tell me much and just told me to squat with plates under my heels, something I�??m not particularly comfortable about doing. He did however help me ident

ify where the problem could be laying. It�??s fairly hard to describe but it seems to be the muscle that runs from the top of my foot up the front of my shins. If you lift your foot up off the floor, and then try lift your toes as high as you can, it�??s whatever joint / muscle that�??s working there that I seem to be having trouble with.

When I attempt to do that movement, my range of movement is about an inch at most, however when he did it, he could lift his foot much higher. I notice that when you attempt to squat down, that joint / movement is required to be fairly flexible.

Has anyone ever had / seen this problem before?

Thanks for any replies

CG

Doesn’t deal w. your problem exactly, but start here: Squat Rx #1 - YouTube

and here: