Need help Improving my Squat

[groovy]

Hello. I have been following this type leg session for few months now and it helped me get this far. I'm a newbie for starters, so go easy.

Usual Leg Day.

Squats (have only done ATG so far)

Reps x kg

8 x 60

8 x 80

6 x 85

3 x 90 (kneels wobble and starting to collapse inwards)

6 x 80

6 x 60

Incline Leg Press

3 sets x 200 (go upto 90deg angle)

Not sure if im supposed to go deep here, like knees touching chest sort of????

Leg extensions, lying hamstring curls and seated Calf Raises. 3 sets x 10reps or so till failure.

How i perform my squats. Bar below the neck but not too far down. (i think they may call it high bar squats, but dont quote me on that... :roll: :roll: )

Feet width: just little wider than shoulders and toes pointing little outwards.

As im a beginner, i tried to keep it simple and havent tried any variations so far.

I have asked a PT at the gym to look at my form and he said it looks ok. But on my max weight (90kgs) when my knees are wobbling or collapsing inwards , he said that it could be my GLUTES not firing very well.

So anyway, what can i do to improve my squats?

Stop being a girl and just keep squatting more? :pfft: :pfft:

Stop bitching and just keep squat more? :pfft: :pfft:

(no offence to any1 as i know..lots of women on this forum squat massive weights) :pfft: :pfft:

Welcome to any ideas

Thanks.

[nemesis]

Hi Groovy, tonight is my "offer advice based on f**k all" night. so here's another.

Based on other excersizes I started doing and from what you've said I reakon it's just a case of keep on squating bro. I don't think you can go wrong with ATG squats as long as you keep good form (straight back, slow and steady, ect).

if it's weak glutes they will deffo strengthen up soon if your doing proper ATG's.

But hey I aint no expert :naughty: I just know what I feel. I'd say just squat squat and squat some more. it will either get better or you'll break :shifty: hope this helps in some way :doh:

[boostinggtir]

eat more food. bulking = 5 180kg, dieting = few reps at 140kg. :doh:

[Gym rat]

Those are good weights what you are doing squats for newbie as you get stronger and use good form for squats when you start slowley increasing the weight.If you do start to walk funny after you have a hard leg train that is normal that you might some strange looks like people may be thinking are you ok just say to them you just have a hard leg train and it might be a good to hire a zimmer frame just be on the safe side of thinghs.

[groovy]

ok. Thanks guys. Thats what i thought, just suck it up and do lot more reps.

Also regarding the incline legpress, do you guys go down real deep like hams/kness touching ur chest?

[ThePman]

If you want to improve your squat, why are you only squatting once a week, and then doing other stuff that's not really going to help your squat?

[startinfromscratch]

^^ i think pman's point is valid, i myself am embarking on a strength program next year (ripps) to get my squat bench/dead up. hopefully.

[groovy]

Frankly.....i have no idea.

My split is 4 days.

Mon - legs, Tue - chest + Bi, Wed - Rest or cardio, Thurs - shoulder + Trap, Fri - Back + tri. weekend - rest or cardio.

Legs are pretty hammered throughout the week from cardio and all.

What do you suggest?

[ThePman]

Squat at least twice a week, with a heavy day and a light day, or even three times on a heavy/light/medium cycle, like Bill Starr/Mark Rippetoe 5x5 routines.

Once a week isn't really enough practice with the lift if you're a beginner, and doing a pyramid + pumping exercises is....not ideal. Big strong guys can get away with it, beginners aren't going to see the best results.

[rose]

A wise person once said to me, "Don't over complicate it you don't need to" 8)

Focus on driving the quads out while squatting (and related exercises).

You're only doing squats one day a week and your supp exes could be picked better. What about box squats, front squats, reverse hypers, stiff leg deadlifts, good mornings, glute ham raises, heavy kettle-bell swings, same exes done with bands? Shit even lunges are better than leg extensions and lying leg curls IMO.

Box squats are great for helping your squat get better and stronger. Here's a good WSB article explaining why: Box Squatting Benefits

If your glutes aren't firing, do more glute activation stuff. Unweighted reverse hypers are good, so are prone hip raises. Do some before you squat. Do some every day if your glutes are real lazy.

[groovy]

Cool. Thanks. I was thinking about 5x5 program. Its seems to be very good for beginners like me. I will give it a start from next year.

Will start my bulking then too. Cant wait to stuff myself with food. :pfft: :pfft: :pfft:

[steak]

bulking and squats are close friends

[mr natural]

don't squat to much for to long, its a taxing exercise and if you do it to often and for to long its easy to over training with it.I find i get worse at squats if I over do them .Keep your works to 1 hour-ish of intense training.

if you want to get stronger on your sqauts i would recommend you drop your sets and reps.

for squats try 5 weeks at 5sets for 5 reps, 3 weeks at 3 sets and 3 reps then 2 weeks for 2 sets at 2 reps. obviously do a couple of light warm up sets but don't fatuge your self with higher rep working sets, just crack into it.

go back to rep training after this 10 week cycle (8-12 reps)

Worked for me anyway.

good luck.

[severe]

How about you take a week off, relax, then hit the 5x5. You an get heaps of good info from http://www.stronglifts.com, this is by no means the only source of information, but it may be the direction you need to focus on for the next few months.

I include 5x5 once a year, for a few months at a time.

[nate225]

don't squat to much for to long, its a taxing exercise and if you do it to often and for to long its easy to over training with it.I find i get worse at squats if I over do them .Keep your works to 1 hour-ish of intense training.

Agree with don't squat for long sessions, but too often is questionable advice unless you are referring to squatting daily Mr N?

Sheiko programming has squats 3 times a week, and I haven't seen too many overtraining with this as long as they're on the appropriate level Sheiko cycle.

if you want to get stronger on your sqauts i would recommend you drop your sets and reps.

Good generic advice from the personal trainers handbook! Seriously though pretty hard to disagree with this statement, although the question was more around flawed technique. Dropping the volume & increasing the weights won't solve this issue.

for squats try 5 weeks at 5sets for 5 reps, 3 weeks at 3 sets and 3 reps then 2 weeks for 2 sets at 2 reps. obviously do a couple of light warm up sets but don't fatuge your self with higher rep working sets, just crack into it.

go back to rep training after this 10 week cycle (8-12 reps)

Worked for me anyway.

good luck.

Sounds way too much like linear periodisation for my liking, but that said it's probably better than what you're currently doing Groovy.

That said I'd listen to PMan & Rose's advice. Many people, (myself included), have had to work through issues with the knees creeping inwards as the weight nears the maximal level. Good squat technique is just another habit to learn, but as you have to 'unlearn' a bad habit first you're going to need lots of repetition (No I'm not saying do high reps!).

One other thing I'll throw out there is just a philosophy really & worth considering (and may have been where Mr N was coming from?):

"To train the squat or to train for the squat".

Initially you will need to do plain squats to develop the technique (Bar position, set up, depth, motor patterns etc), but there will come a time that just squatting alone will give diminishing returns on increasing your strength in the squat. Then you will need to analyse your weaknesses and train them (common examples touched on by Rose around box squatting etc, also things like Dynamic Effort work for explosiveness, Glute / ham work etc). Anyway, thats for the future Groovy - get Squatting! :grin:

[mr natural]

hahaha,looking for some pay back nate?

all I can offer is what worked for me, i wouldn't say i'm in the relms of setting any nz records but I have built a heathly squat from what used to be a pretty crap squat.

Personally I found hard out squating every week not productive at all after a short time. My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out.

as far as the leg caving in goes, i did have that issue myself at one point. was finding it due to fatigue durning higher rep sets towards the end of the session, thats why i suggested less reps by building strength rather than endurance as thats what he's been basicly doing util now. time for a change i think.also try playing around with your stance to see what works best for you. again i can only suggest what worked for me.

[nate225]

hahaha,looking for some pay back nate?

Pay back? For? Have you done something I don't know about? :shifty:

all I can offer is what worked for me, i wouldn't say i'm in the relms of setting any nz records but I have built a heathly squat from what used to be a pretty crap squat.

Personally I found hard out squating every week not productive at all after a short time. My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out.

as far as the leg caving in goes, i did have that issue myself at one point. was finding it due to fatigue durning higher rep sets towards the end of the session, thats why i suggested less reps by building strength rather than endurance as thats what he's been basicly doing util now. time for a change i think.also try playing around with your stance to see what works best for you. again i can only suggest what worked for me.

Squatting once a week can become unproductive as can squatting three time a week. It is a matter of what is being done in that time. Your comment "My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out" comes as no surprise, and reflects my thoughts on "To train the squat or to train for the squat".

As an aside what was your best deep squat?

Nate

[rose]

Squatting once a week can become unproductive as can squatting three time a week. It is a matter of what is being done in that time. Your comment "My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out" comes as no surprise, and reflects my thoughts on "To train the squat or to train for the squat".

In response to that, I agree.

This guy reckons that you cannot train with weights above 90 percent of a 1RM for much longer than three weeks before the nervous system begins to weaken. When this happens strength will begin to diminish.

"Linear periodisation is also criticised for being ineffective in the development and maintenance of hypertrophy. It has limitations in regards to increasing lean body mass, the principle mechanism by which strength is enhanced. It is thought that long periods of low volume, high intensity training characterised by linear periodisation models resulted in less favourable hypertrophic adaptations and may induce neural fatigue."

[nate225]

Squatting once a week can become unproductive as can squatting three time a week. It is a matter of what is being done in that time. Your comment "My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out" comes as no surprise, and reflects my thoughts on "To train the squat or to train for the squat".

In response to that, I agree.

This guy reckons that you cannot train with weights above 90 percent of a 1RM for much longer than three weeks before the nervous system begins to weaken. When this happens strength will begin to diminish.

"Linear periodisation is also criticised for being ineffective in the development and maintenance of hypertrophy. It has limitations in regards to increasing lean body mass, the principle mechanism by which strength is enhanced. It is thought that long periods of low volume, high intensity training characterised by linear periodisation models resulted in less favourable hypertrophic adaptations and may induce neural fatigue."

Vladimir Zatsiorsky reference - if anyone has any of his texts (particularly Science and Practice of Strength Training) I'd be keen to loan or temporarily swap for other texts / dvds etc

Agree with you Rose - strikes me as odd why anyone would want to subscribe to LP, particularly pre-comp given you basically go from BBing training to low rep / low volume work over a few month period and then expect to explosively squat/BP/DL maximal weights. Sure it's worked for some (to some extent) but imagine the results they'd get if they had trained maximal strength, explosiveness and hypertrophy (reps) throughout. Why sacrifice one or two aspects of strength to focus soley on the other. (HIJACK OVER - back to the Squat Rack:grin: )

[ThePman]

Linear periodization really requires some kind of context to talk about effectiveness.

I mean, Ed Coan used linear and I don't think anybody's gonna tell him it doesn't work. Same goes for a lot of the old PLers in the 80s and 90s, before Westside really took off.

The big criticisms from linear stem from the original year-long model, and to an extent the kind of models Bompa talks about. These big year-long blocks of training, where you spend however many months focusing on one thing, yeah that's gonna be pretty crappy.

Most of that also deals with athletes that are only using strength training as an accessory to their actual sport. In that case, you're juggling strength training with all kinds of other stuff, and it becomes an issue of management.

If you're just talking about "getting stronger", and using something like basic 8-12 week cycles moving from 8-10 reps on up to a peak a la Coan's old training, then I don't think there's any real problem. Throw in heavier and lighter days across the week so you're not constantly butting heads with fatigue, and I don't see how it's going to not work.

But really this is getting into that hair-splitting labcoating that doesn't make a whole lot of practical difference.

[mr natural]

hahaha,looking for some pay back nate?

Pay back? For? Have you done something I don't know about? :shifty:

all I can offer is what worked for me, i wouldn't say i'm in the relms of setting any nz records but I have built a heathly squat from what used to be a pretty crap squat.

Personally I found hard out squating every week not productive at all after a short time. My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out.

as far as the leg caving in goes, i did have that issue myself at one point. was finding it due to fatigue durning higher rep sets towards the end of the session, thats why i suggested less reps by building strength rather than endurance as thats what he's been basicly doing util now. time for a change i think.also try playing around with your stance to see what works best for you. again i can only suggest what worked for me.

Squatting once a week can become unproductive as can squatting three time a week. It is a matter of what is being done in that time. Your comment "My weights acutually went down if i tried smashing them week in and week out" comes as no surprise, and reflects my thoughts on "To train the squat or to train for the squat".

As an aside what was your best deep squat?

Nate

haha nah, just about giving you guys grief about all being chubbie

:grin:

well was abit of a piker for years when it came to squats, was always leg pressing when it came to legs, In the last 4 or so years have made squats a main stay of my leg workouts, At one point I was benching as much as i was squating :oops: more of a bencher.

deep squats , no wraps just a belt,managing around 215 for 3 reps at the end of my last heavy training cycle.Haven't gone up heavier for a single yet, want to work on reps now, will try some singles in next heavy trianing cycle.

working on a bit more reps now, 180 for 4 sets of 8 at the moment, not quite there yet reps dropping by 3-4th set, i recon another mth or 2 i should be handling it alot better. Nothing next to you guys i know but heavy singles are not really my goal, body buildings more show and less go :pfft:

[steak]

Without jumping into the "science" of squatting I will share with you what I did to improve my squat.

I will also mention that I have Rose and a few others to thank for a few of these tips so her/their advice should not be ignored....honest :grin:

I stretched. Used the "squat stretch" daily, at home, at the gym, even if I wasnt squatting and slowly my long muscles, hip and ankle mobility came to the party. I also added more core work into my training along with SLDL and back extensions.

I used front squats to get into the ATG groove and found this helped with my flexibility, form and strength not forgetting some memorable quad pumps and doms :twisted:

I opened my stance, pointed the toes out further and forgot everything I had read in the muscle mags about toes in and close stance working the outer this and the inner that

I have put size on my quads by doing this, increased my depth to ATG, have gotten a lot stronger... and cured my cancer and the best thing is it only took a few months of concentrated effort squatting once every 5 - 6 days using various rep ranges.

Hope it helps 8)

[rose]

Linear periodization really requires some kind of context to talk about effectiveness.

I mean, Ed Coan used linear and I don't think anybody's gonna tell him it doesn't work. Same goes for a lot of the old PLers in the 80s and 90s, before Westside really took off.

The big criticisms from linear stem from the original year-long model, and to an extent the kind of models Bompa talks about. These big year-long blocks of training, where you spend however many months focusing on one thing, yeah that's gonna be pretty crappy.

Most of that also deals with athletes that are only using strength training as an accessory to their actual sport. In that case, you're juggling strength training with all kinds of other stuff, and it becomes an issue of management.

If you're just talking about "getting stronger", and using something like basic 8-12 week cycles moving from 8-10 reps on up to a peak a la Coan's old training, then I don't think there's any real problem. Throw in heavier and lighter days across the week so you're not constantly butting heads with fatigue, and I don't see how it's going to not work.

But really this is getting into that hair-splitting labcoating that doesn't make a whole lot of practical difference.

Agreed.

Not all of it. And while I agree simplicity reigns supreme, how many times do you see exactly that (i.e. people training linear styles year round, wondering why they can't progress etc)...

Which brings me to the third bold bit, often the one that's missed.

Re thread hijack, threads evolve :grin:

[rose]

I will also mention that I have TEAM RESET to thank for a few of these tips so their advice should not be ignored....honest :grin:

[ThePman]

And while I agree simplicity reigns supreme, how many times do you see exactly that (i.e. people training linear styles year round, wondering why they can't progress etc)...

As far as that, I have to wonder how many are actually following a linearly periodized program vs. using linear progress - i.e., just trying to add weight to the bar every time they go to the gym a la HIT workouts.

A linearly-periodized program would have you varying things over the cycle, while HIT tends to stress "progress" over anything else, even if that means cutting back volume to a single set and not working out more than once every 10 days.

Some guys I know over in Australia use linear periodization to good effect, by using 12-week cycles to peak into meets. They never go above sets of 5-6 reps, though.