thanks for the cam specs PB..... hopefully, I'll get one soon.
well, here's what Mr Tate has to say on leaning forward. Wish I could join a hardcore PL gym ....hopefully in a few months !
Falling forward coming out of the hole: This is the king of missed squats. I see this one more than any other sticking point. This can happen for several reasons, many physical and many technical.
One technical reason is not rising with your chest first out of the bottom. You're rising with your hips first. When your hips flex first your chest will always go forward. You have to think of rising with your chest first and squatting the bar back, not up. If you have the bar driving back it'll travel in a straight line instead of going forward. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line and this is how the bar must travel.
You may also have allowed your head to drop down. Your body will always follow your head so you must keep your head back. Notice I didn't say up, but back. Watch the eyes of any great squatter as he rises out of the bottom. Through the blood clots you'll see his eyes are focused up and he's driving his neck back into the bar. Even the guys you think are looking down are still driving their head into their traps.
Now, why are these technical problems happening in the first place and how do you fix them? All technical problems should be corrected by learning what you're supposed to do and then perfecting it with the lighter weights. You should also use verbal queues. The best queues I've used for this one are "Head up!" or "Chest up!"
Falling forward may also be caused by weak abs and lower back. If your core isn't strong enough to transfer the flex from the lower body to the bar, then the body will have no choice but to collapse. The best movements for this are exercises that work both the abs and hip flexors (pulldown abs, leg raises, spread eagle sit-ups etc.) For the lower back, reverse hypers, back raises, and good mornings are ideal.
One last thing that can really help with this is to use a cambered squat bar for low box squats. The reason? If you don't rise with your chest first you'll have some very serious instability issues. This will only happen once and then you'll automatically figure out what to do.
The bottom line here is, no matter what weakness you have, act on them and fix them! This will take commitment and discipline. Basically, do what you gotta do because no one will do it for you!
