Staying Upright While Squatting

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

What are some tips for staying as upright as possible during the squat?

What I can think of is elevating the heel with a weightlifting shoe, a narrower stance, higher bar placement, more knee drift.

Does flaring the toes out more help with this?

For those that squat this way, what kind of cues to ya’ll use?

Any mobility drills or exercises ya’ll find useful for this? What I can think of off-hand are front squats and goblet squats.

I want to learn to squat better this way so I get more pop out the hole and to take stress off my back and hips.

2

Heavy ab work. For me, front squat holds seem to have helped a lot.

I’ll try to explain the following mobility stretch, but if I mess it up, I’ll try to get a picture of it next week.

I take a strong band and anchor it to something (I use a squat rack) at about shin height. Step into the loop and pull it up so that it’s around the very top of your leg, pretty much sitting right below your hip. Then walk it forward (so that there’s tension pulling your leg back) and get into your squat stance. From there, squat down (you’ll need to lean forward or else you’ll eat it) and lean forward on your hands so that you’re in a mountainclimber position. Then shift backwards so that your legs are bent (as if you were in the bottom of a squat). Simultaneously shift your weight to the side of your body that the band is on and dip your shoulder so that it’s next to your knee.

Once you’re in that weird position and have the band pulling your hip back (what feels like out of its socket), shift your weight from side to side, front and back, circle (clockwise and counter clockwise) and just move it around until it loosens up a bit. This helps me keep my knees out and my hips closer to being directly under the bar.

Let me know if that’s confusing. It likely is, haha

Also, flaring your toes out can help with this if it helps you keep your knees out. If your knees are pointing more out than forward, you’ll squat straight down and be more upright. (As opposed to sitting back and leaning forward.) That stance requires good mobility, though. Also, you can lose some torque in your hips from pointing your toes out like that. It’s worth a shot, though.

3

As far as that explanation, I got a little more than half-way through that paragraph and got totally lost. Read it over a couple more times and the same thing happened lol. I’ll try flaring my toes a little more. Guess I’ll just need stronger quads to make up for the loss of hip torque. But I guess that isn’t so bad since the vain inner bodybuilder in me want’s that anyway :slight_smile:

4

When driving out of the hole, shove your elbows forward, under the bar. Assists in keeping the chest up, head back, and lats locked down.

5

This stretch is AWESOME. Just doing it for three days made it much easier for me to “drop” down in my squat, which also allows me to keep my back up straighter. If it is too hard angle your leg that is being pulled up (the wider the angle the easier it gets).

Use a belt and keep them abs strong…do goblet squats to feel what perfect form should be like and where to aim form.