I can front squat without knee pain, but not back squat.

DerickVonD said:
Front Squat form after doing Goblet squats Invalid Link Removed
If anything I'm going lower this time.
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Looking better. You might need to keep after it for a bit, it took me about 2-3 weeks before I could get full depth. Your front squat should have the same depth as your goblet squat, since they are essentially the same movement. If you're having trouble getting depth, it could be because your core isn't tight enough. I always brace my abs really hard before descending when I do front squats.
 
Latest video.Invalid Link Removed As you can see I start off with bad form and get better after each rep. I'm going to focus on making the reps consistent.
 
Generally, for a squat to be parallel, the hip crease is even or a tad below the knees, (or the femurs are like level) so you appear to still be a bit high.
Are you trying to keep the chest up?, (like if you were walking on a beach in front of girls) since that kind of automatically cements the low back arch some.
How have your knees been feeling as far as the pain doing some of those form tweaks?
How much do you have on the bar in the last vid? Since it might help to just squat with the bar to get the feel and your form more perfected.
Have you slowly tried widening your stance to get the feel of your torso dropping between the legs?
 
PaulBlack said:
Generally, for a squat to be parallel, the hip crease is even or a tad below the knees, (or the femurs are like level) so you appear to still be a bit high.
Are you trying to keep the chest up?, (like if you were walking on a beach in front of girls) since that kind of automatically cements the low back arch some.
How have your knees been feeling as far as the pain doing some of those form tweaks?
How much do you have on the bar in the last vid? Since it might help to just squat with the bar to get the feel and your form more perfected.
Have you slowly tried widening your stance to get the feel of your torso dropping between the legs?
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My knees have been feeling great since the adjustments, so atleast that is a huge improvement. I do have my chest up, I would feel very uncomfortable otherwise. The stance I had feels comfortable, I tried slightly wider and it didn't feel as good and I tried narrower and I noticed the more narrow my stance, the harder it is to not squat using my knees and it's easier to get pain that way. Those videos were taken the day after doing squats with the same amount of weight, so my muscles were already fatigued. My feet position feels comfortable. I know I keep being told to angle my feet more forward, but that doesnt feel possible to do that and squat down. If you notice when I go up to the bar before I squat my feet are angled at the same angle they are when I start squatting.
 
Your stance looks too narrow dude

The reason a wider stance is hurting your knees is because you arnt controlling the pressure on your feet. You should keep the weight on the outside ridge and the heel of your feet. Youre gonna have to consciously emphasize this at first. That will ensure proper knee traction and relieve almost all the pain (unless you're leaning too far forward).

Nw you also should be widening your stance with your toes pointed slightly out. You want to imagine kind of bowing your knees outwards more than straight forward. This will open your hips up and allow you to kind of tuck your torso between them

Lastly, use your glutes and hams on the way up. If you don't you'll do this weird two-step squat where you stand up then goodmorning the weight with your lower back. It will hurt a lot. Activating your posterior chain at the bottom will keep you vertical. Ignoring posterior will also put an ass ton of pressure on your hip flexors. Those will really hurt

Sry if this has been posted already, I just skipped to the last page
 
DerickVonD said:
What about the depth?
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DerickVonD said:
Do I look at, or above parallel?
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You need to look at your videos. You're at least a foot above parallel. If it helps your thinking, aim to get an asscheeck below your kneecap.

As an exercise for you to find the bottom of your squat, I suggest pausing. Stick 135 on, drop down and hold it for 3-mississippi before you come out of the hole. If you can't comfortably take a weekend vacation down in the hole, your stance is wrong. Make adjustments until you can.That part is all you, no matter what we suggest - you need to experiment.

As an additional note, I am unsure if you are trying to squat high bar or low bar. From what I can see, you're kind of taking a middle road.
If it's high bar (I'd suggest leaning that first), a "trick" that helped me a lot was to get my hands as close together as possible to involuntarily flex he heck out of my traps for a better meat shelf to rest the bar on. Tightening up your top might help you.
 
DerickVonD said:
Do I look at, or above parallel?
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You got good depth on the video you made doing a goblet squat. That's the closest I've seen to you doing a good squat, except you dive bombed in and trampolined out. Are you scared to squat or something? Do a goblet squat, stop at the bottom and wait a second, then check out how much stress there is on your ankles. If your stance is wrong your ankles will feel weird. If it's right they'll be comfortable. Rinse and repeat until your foot placement becomes automatic.

Once you've got that mastered, try it with *light* weights on a front squat. Like I said before, brace your abs really hard before descending, and you should get the same depth as with your goblet squat, a bit deeper in fact, since your elbows won't be getting in the way. As above, rinse and repeat until you can front squat enough weight to make it a workout. Eventually you'll be able to back squat the same way.

Don't expect to be able to do this in an afternoon. It takes time. It took me a year between mastering goblet squats to being able to do full back squats (ass on the ground, knees out) with appreciable weight.
 
I'm willing to bet you're leaning forward on it. Squeezing the glutes and pressing out through the heels might make that feel better.
 
Close the window shades and shoot another one. We can't see your right knee at all, and most of your left leg is also glared out. It's like looking into an abyss lol

2nd rep looked decent. Can't really tell because of the light, but it might be a tad high. I'd still consider it legit on all occasions other than a meet though
 
OnionKnight said:
Close the window shades and shoot another one. We can't see your right knee at all, and most of your left leg is also glared out. It's like looking into an abyss lol

2nd rep looked decent. Can't really tell because of the light, but it might be a tad high. I'd still consider it legit on all occasions other than a meet though
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I can't control anything with this camera. I am close to breaking it. I will look into getting a new one. I need to rest my legs are sore.
 
Improvement is vast.
First Squat:
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New Squat:
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New Front:
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Thanks a lot for the help guys. I will be taking a break from squats until next week. I'll post more videos then.
 
Ur coming along (as the compu says) it takes some practice. It does not happen overnight, otherwise there would not be so many vids and articles on how to improve them. We all have had issues with them I'd bet.
 
While you recover, here's a good read:
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depth looks much better. leg movement looks much better. bug improvement there.

still need to point kick your heels out more and point your feet more forward though.
 
Look up the technique by Dave Tate on youtube. You are suppose to go in and out with your knees, rather than up and down.

Next thing is to get knee sleeves. They are the greatest things ever. I use TK and they are WONDERFUL and very reasonable price; plus amazon has it on prime for the best price.

They don't add weights to your lift and they WILL help out your knees A LOT! I love them and I am disappointed in myself for not getting them years ago.
 
Colbert said:
Look up the technique by Dave Tate on youtube. You are suppose to go in and out with your knees, rather than up and down.

Next thing is to get knee sleeves. They are the greatest things ever. I use TK and they are WONDERFUL and very reasonable price; plus amazon has it on prime for the best price.

They don't add weights to your lift and they WILL help out your knees A LOT! I love them and I am disappointed in myself for not getting them years ago.
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I have knee sleeves.
 
Latest updates
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Could have gone slightly lower. I had a hard time finishing the sets since I was starting to get hungry.
 
Well you sure fixed one thing, your knees now point correctly. Nice and out. Good job.

Now, those feet, point them more forward. And go deeper. At warm up you should be able to bottom out the squat. Try warming up with goblet squats. That way you can force your knees out while at the bottom.
 
asooneyeonig said:
Well you sure fixed one thing, your knees now point correctly. Nice and out. Good job.

Now, those feet, point them more forward. And go deeper. At warm up you should be able to bottom out the squat. Try warming up with goblet squats. That way you can force your knees out while at the bottom.
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I noticed with the bar I can get lower, but once I had weight I only go parallel or slightly below. No knee pain anymore at all though.
 
you must have some seriously messed up hips. either super tight or weak on certain areas. even when you were racking the weight your feet were pointed out like 45 degrees. that is a problem you need to address. go over to mobilitywod.com and look up hip mobility videos.

try this, place something inside the cage, like a few 2x4s. push you feet next to them so it forces your feet forward. warm up that way even. warm up with goblet squats so when you are at the bottom you can use your arms to force your knees apart and even hang out at the bottom pushing them out. it will take weeks to months to fix the issue. but it can be done.
 
asooneyeonig said:
you must have some seriously messed up hips. either super tight or weak on certain areas. even when you were racking the weight your feet were pointed out like 45 degrees. that is a problem you need to address. go over to mobilitywod.com and look up hip mobility videos. try this, place something inside the cage, like a few 2x4s. push you feet next to them so it forces your feet forward. warm up that way even. warm up with goblet squats so when you are at the bottom you can use your arms to force your knees apart and even hang out at the bottom pushing them out. it will take weeks to months to fix the issue. but it can be done.
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My feet point that way when I walk as well. I do notice I have sore medius glutes a lot, even when I don't lift.
 
Go to athletes training athletes (google the website) They have pictures of all the trigger points you can mash out. You need to point your toes more forward, like we've said all along.
 
Sean1332 said:
Go to athletes training athletes (google the website) They have pictures of all the trigger points you can mash out. You need to point your toes more forward, like we've said all along.
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When I do that, it feels like my knees are going to buckle in. It feels unnatural. That is why I am unable to even try that at this point, atleast until these stretches work.
 
Your knees are more likely to buckle with your toes pointed way outwards. That's why you drive your knees out and keeping your femur externally rotated. You've had all this advice for good reason, bud. They don't have to be directly forwards, just not flared out
 
Hey man, here's another thread that popped up recently, chock full of advice for the dude. Sometimes it helps to see how other people are doing things.

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Sean1332 said:
Your knees are more likely to buckle with your toes pointed way outwards. That's why you drive your knees out and keeping your femur externally rotated. You've had all this advice for good reason, bud. They don't have to be directly forwards, just not flared out
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I never said it was bad advice, the advice here has helped a lot, I was just stating that having my feet forward feels unnatural, I assume because I have an imbalance.
 
DerickVonD said:
I never said it was bad advice, the advice here has helped a lot, I was just stating that having my feet forward feels unnatural, I assume because I have an imbalance.
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I didn't mean it to come across as if you didn't appreciate the advice. Sorry if it did.
 
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