Squats

[UFC22]

I hurt my back in wrestling a few years back. Ever since then I left the barbell squat and moved too smith machine barbell squats. My back felt much better and I could go ass to floor basically. My legs still grew but probably not as much as if I was doing free barbell squats. Is the controlled motion the smith puts you in very negative? I have been beginning to think about getting my body back into free squats again. Tried them the other day and I could barely get below paralell and couldnt not do them with out leaning foreward in a "good morning" fashion. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[H_T_]

you need to relearn the motion again. my guess is that you're trying to use weight and go low. take a few weeks and pratice squatting low at home with no weight. practice sitting back, keeping your abs tight on the descent, lowering yourself in a controlled manner, pausing at the bottom & and exploding upwards. 2 things to remember when you're squatting: keep your abs strong. and i don't mean a few sets of crunches. hit your abs like they're the most important muscle in your body. which they pretty much are. and second, take time to warm up properly. get to the gym a half hour early and do some ab work and cardio as a warm up. a few sets of extensions & leg curls, then go to your first warm up set. get to thinking about squatting as a power movement, and not strictly leg work. it should be the hardest thing you do in the gym all week.

 

[musketeer]

front sqats, v light weight, 5x5 or something similar 3x a week.

Weight should be secondary to actually just stretching the tight muscles into the full movements. It's more like pilates or something for a couple of weeks, and then all of a sudden you're in the groove and you can add weights quickly. Overhead sqauts (with just the bar) would also be great in this if you can do them.

 

[Powerbuilder333]

I think it sounds like your hips/hams are tight. 5 minutes of cardio before squats might help along with 2 sets of 5 reps of back extensions really trying to stretch the muscles.
I personally have knee problems so I always do 1 set of extenions 50x15 to warm them up before squating.

 

[deeder]

Your back is probably weak from doing smith squats for so long. You also lack the stability you would have otherwise developped. Consider yourself at square one. The leg strength is there, now you need to learn how to squat (for real).