Leaning forward on squats

[thedreamthief]

As the title reads, I tend to lean forward on my ascent during squats. Consequently, I am starting to have some pain in my knees.

I've watched a lot of videos and read a lot on squat form, but I haven't found a good answer to why I am leaning forward.

What could be causing me to lean to forward? Weak hips? Poor balance? Too much weight? and how do I correct that?

I've heard that curling your toes upward and concentrating on pushing through your heels will help. Does that sound like good advice (specifically the curling toes part)?

Would putting a 5LB plate under my toes / ball of my feet, to help shift the weight to my heels and help with form, sound like a good idea?

BTW, I do have Starting Strength ordered .. but it's going to be a little while before it's here.

 

[Kabeetz]

I am not a form expert but I have had squat form issues myself.

I think a great example of squat form would be at http://www.aceathlete.com/hatch
takes notes of the breathing, etc.

Relatively narrow stance, relatively narrow grip. You want to use a very flat soled shoe like lifting sneakers or chucks or similar, not running sneakers or shocks.

You want to lean back on your heels not forward on the balls of your foot.. on the ascent it can often help to stabilize you by pulling the bar down as you explode up.

And above all, if you can maintain perfect form with just the bar, but are leaning forward when adding weight... it's because you are going too heavy too soon. Roll back the weight and simultaneously work on strengthening your abs, lower back and general core area.

You will see improvement relatively quickly if you make form a priority over weight.

Again do not take this advice as gospel, I'm not in the position to preach about lifting technique, but these were tips that happened to work for me.

 

[Cynical Simian]

Try lowering the weight and seeing if the issue persists. If it doesn't you've found the main source of your problem, and the solution will just be to decrease the weight and work up from there.

Hip flexor stretches can make a huge difference, too. If you find that even with the lower weight you're getting "pulled forward" off your heels, tight hip flexors (and possibly hamstrings) are the likely culprit.

 

[H_T_]

having the bar set low and elbows wide can do this.

 

[coolcolj]

good mornings - do them!

 

[Sigbjørn]

Yeah, Good mornings may help alot if you don't already do them. Also, you might wanna try to strenghten your abs.

 

[lesarin]

I totally fucked my lower back. It's a long story but i have always had problems with leaning forward on the way down with medium weight. Sometimes i actually begin decenting by leaning forward before i even lower down my legs. I was all better, and on tuesday on an easy warmup set of 225 i felt this horrible pull. Its mainly due to my weak abs and huge gut.

Heavy weight i lean slightly forward on the way up, but that has never been a problem.

 

[stevius]

I have something for you to consider:

Lay flat on your back and bring your knees to your chest; notice where your hips happen to rotate. Now bring your knees to your shoulders. You may find that your hips don't move as much or later. Now bring your knees up then look at them toes and knees forward then legs and feet at almost right angles. You may find that your heels are further back with your legs at almost a right angle- this means your center of gravity is further back reducing forward leaning. Also, when your hips rotate the bar comes forward. It seems when I lose my back arch I'm less stable. The back should form a sort of J shape facing right >>> to keep the torso upright and the center of gravity forward. A back thats too straight or curved means an inverted J with the upper back coming forward to keep a center of gravity over the heels. Under a heavy load the forward tipping is accelerated so the toes and knees seem to compensate, which roughly translates to poor form.

If you've ever seen a baby squat to pick something up you'll notice they naturally adopt a very wide stance with the feet pointing outwards. They do ass to grass and their bodies are very upright.

I twigged on some time ago examining overhead lifts from strong olympic atheletes. Their upper bodies are totally upright and they sit between their legs. The heels seem to be poised right under the torso so that the bar travels more or less up and down in a straight line.

 

[wpolo05]

I dealt with the same issue one time. Try dynamic stretching for your hips/glutes/hams: kick backs, over/unders, leg wheel with light weight. Then lower the weight a bit and build back up to where you are now. Try a wider stance and focus on starting the descent by pushing your ass back. Also, "spread the floor" with your feet, ie push out with them.

You are probably leaning forward because your posterior chain is weak - leaning forward avoids making the posterior chain do work and transfers it to the quads and therefor the knee pain. So try to feel the weight get loaded onto your hips/glutes/hams when you drop into the hole - they should be doing most of the work down there. Try light weight 3x a week until you get it down.

The article below might give you some ideas.

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=body_149squat

 

[thedreamthief]

Thanks for all of the advice. It's amazing how much technique is required for squatting. I will definitely try all of the advice listed here .. it seems that there are a lot of little things that I am doing wrong (possible too much weight, elbows wide, bar possibly too low, not stretching properly, wrong type of shoes). Also, it seems like I might need to work on hips, hams and abs a little more by incorporating some Good Mornings.

I haven't done squats since I posted ...but that's only been a couple of days. I will definitely keep you updated on how it is going.

Keep the advice coming!