[Lard-ass]

Well I reckon I need advice concerning knees drifting forward.

I know knees are supposed to drift past ones toes in highbar style squats with shoulderwidth stance - atleast if you wanna keep your back straight and not loosing the form in the bottom position. As you can see below, Im slightly past my toes in the regular backsquat, but way past my toes in the frontsquat.

But how far past toes is too much? In regular backsquat? In frontsquat?

From the squat-guides I´ve read, the general advice of fixing the problem is sitting back instead of down and not relaxing your hamstrings in the bottom.

The problem is, when pulling the knees in (getting the shins more upright) you must compensate with leaning over more (to keep center of gravity over your feet). When doing this I round my lower back and back constantly cramping up. So Im thinking maybe it´s something of an inflexibility problem. And if so, is stretching the hamstrings an answer?

And also, could someone provide a link to Rippetoes squat-guide videos? Of course I´ve read starting strength, but about a month ago I remember someone posting a link to an videoarchive of different squatanalysis by Rippetoe. I´ve tried google and searching but couldn´t find it.


Attaching my squatform for you to see (or mock)

Any help is appreciated.

[hunto]

[ciscokid1024]

Here is a link to the squat form videos:

Squat Form Check Compilation - Strength Mill Forums

For what it's worth I think your knees look fine and your form looks great.

Here is a video of Rippetoe squatting:

[takeahnase]

The back versus down statements are a constant source of confusion. In an olympic squat you do sit down, NOT back. However, you still need to initiate the movement at the hips, not the knees, i.e. do not sit down by letting the knees drift forward.

I jsut watched the first two vids and think your form looks great. In the first vid, you have a very slight forward lean at the later reps. I would also suggest racking the weight forward not backward, but maybe you did it in order to film the reps.

Your form in the second vid is also very good, although there is a little bit of lower back rounding. To adress this, stretch your hips, hamstrings and ankles. Usually it's an interplay of several variables that causes the lower back to round. I think stronglifts.com has an article on lower back rounding that has a couple of good stretches.

[takeahnase]

I watched the FS vids: Your toes are fine .

[Brad Morris]

Mate it looks fine to me, both the front squat and back squat. Looking at your form in both I noticed that your weight distribution in your foot looked fine. Providing the weight is carried (or felt) in your hips and heels at the bottom of the movement rather than your knees and toes you should be OK.

The knees over the toes issue was sometning I asked on the Supertraining forum a few years ago. The general consensus was that it wasn't really that important an issue and it was natural that the knees travelled over the toes to some degree.

For example try placing your toes up against a bench or solid object that is no higher than your mid-thigh. Now keeping your toes against the object perform a squat and see if you can hold your balance?

The point of the drill is to show that some level of forward travel over the knees is normal in the squat, the degree of forward travel will depend on the individual.

I think too much emphasis is placed on worrying about the dangers of the squat when something like the leg press is so much more dangerous when you look at pressure on the lower back and loading on the knees.

[Lard-ass]

Thanks for the input guys, I´ll head over to strength mills forum and stronglifts to read up.

I´ve done the drill Morris suggested. Before I got myself a camera, its was a good way to be aware of my knee travel.

[Donut62]

Your squat form looks fine, other than the bit of tail tucking. I do it too sometimes, it has gotten better with lots and lots of stretching.

[MeatPlow]

Lardass,

personally, I think you should be teaching rip boy how to squat. Your form looks much better than his.

[ronin0352]

Squat Form Check Compilation - Strength Mill Forums

Don't know if this is the link you were referring to, but it sounds like it. Someone posted it on my squat form check thread, lol.