Improve Squat Form/Weight

by k1ng

Exercise & Fitness In Progress

Exercise & Fitness Journey Overview

Follow this step-by-step exercise & fitness journey to see real progress updates, challenges overcome, and practical experience.

Progress Updates (4 total)

Update #1: Improve Squat Form/Weight

Squatting is an important exercise to build overall muscle mass, as well as driving home lower body strength and mobility which are important as my ass gets older and more rickety. I’ve always had very bad lower body mobility so I’ll be consistently stretching and performing low weight squats and increasing the weight slowly over time. I’ll be watching for cues such as my depth, keeping my back straight, and keeping my heels planted.

Update #2: Form/Safety

I’ve placed more emphasis on keeping my back straight and hinging at the hips. In the previous goal, i could hit adequate depth, but there was a good amount of lower back flexion playing in with “winking” at the bottom. This would leave me with a lot of discomfort in my lower back. Working on hip mobility and focusing on only hinging at the hips made squatting 135 much more comfortable at the expense of hitting depth (its still closer than its ever been with this form), which hopefully will pave the way for safe increases in weight going forward. Other things to keep note of: Focusing on keeping the weight over my heels will probably pass good results. Ex: Right now my bar path sucks and moves forward as i drop down, im leaning forward at the top like im Donald Trump, and sometimes my heels become unplanted.

Update #3: I’m just grinding

Got a couple sets of 155. Put 2.5lb shims under my heels to try to help with form. Still barely hitting depth if at all. My femurs might just be long asf maybe I’ll never be able to squat maybe I’m a failure but the one thing that keeps me going is opus. I will continue work on my lower body mobility

Update #4: Adding some weight

I’m keeping the shims for now. My hips feel a bit more limber and i focus on going to the limit of my hip hinge and not leaning forward and stressing my lower back. There has been nearly no discomfort with these squats so I’m looking to keep it rolling. 185 i think 3x10, minimal butt wink from what i can tell. Still need to work on getting deeper. Ya boys got long femurs or sumn 💀