When the fuck does squatting get easier? I'm two weeks into SS and my lifts are (in pounds): Press: 85 Bench: 145 Squat: 155 Deadlift: 235
First, I know my lifts are shit so let's not fixate on that. Pressing is a bitch, but it's at least in a good relation to my bench. Deadlift is fun and I'm still making 10 lbs jumps each workout. But squat makes me want to kill myself. It's by far the hardest grind, I nearly fail the end of the third set every time, and my hips are in constant pain on rest days. Like, I have difficulty putting on my jeans or sitting cross legged. I'm fastidious about foot width (just outside shoulder width), foot angle (30°), knee tracking (parallel with feet, I mentally remind myself to push my knees out throughout the lift), my back angle is good and my lumbar is nice and straight. But I have quite a bit of discomfort when approaching parallel and have tremendous difficulty achieving a "bounce" out of the hole.
So when does it get easier? There's no reason why I should feel this wrecked when squatting below lmao2pl8. I'm already thinking I need to move to 5 lbs jumps. End me.
I'm eating 4,000 calories a day, so that's not an issue either. 30 yo, 5'11, 180 lbs.
Squats are my least favorite exercise, so I said fuck them and leg press instead.
I can diddly lmao3pl but can't squat 2pl
Logan Ross
Leg press is way more comfortable for me, despite everybody saying it's harder on your body. Feels bad, because I could get behind a linear progression on legpress, but everybody says it's worthless and you have to squat, but squat makes me want to die.
Anthony Clark
>doing legs ever
nice meme
Julian Bailey
do it without the bounce and relax mentally. Don't bulk accept you are ausschwitz mode. Change the squat forms(front, bulgarian, high,low, goblet) that way you don't increase the weight and stress every workout, while gaining muscular legs. Do stretches or you will soon get abdominal pain+ low back pain. Rippletoe is a hack
Brayden Brown
leg press is fine for working legs dude, the only difference is that you won't get as strong a posterior chain which isnt a problem if you deadlift and train core anyways
Brandon Nguyen
Switch to lowbar, squat as low as you can without rounding your back. Experiment with stance width and toe angle to find what feels best for you. Highbar squats are just shit for some people, regardless of how good your mobility is.
Evan Davis
The bounce doesn't happen when you ease into it. Most likely your problem is that you're stiff and not warming up properly which is limiting your squatting ability. A natural squat while have you go to parallel or lower and immediately bounce out of the hole using your hips and hamstrings. If either of these aren't warmed up fully then your squat will pause at a point and you'll have to ease into which takes the tension out of your hips/hams. Do mobility work before and after your work out and take the time to warm up properly or you'll fuck your shit up eventually
Jordan Morgan
OP here. I said I'm doing SS. I am doing lowbar squat.
Michael Bennett
I stretch before working out, then warm up doing 2x5 with the bar, then 1x5 at 40% working weight, then 1x3 at 60%, then 1x2 at 80%, then 3x5 at working weight. How much more warming up does it take?
Julian Wood
>discomfort when approaching parallel and have tremendous difficulty achieving a "bounce" out of the hole
There is no bounce in low bar squat
Landon Cooper
>despite everybody saying it's harder on your body
Literally nobody says that
Jonathan Nelson
Do you have the third edition of Starting Strength? Rippetoe explains for a page or two how lowbar squat, properly executed, has a bounce out of the hole. I'd give you the page number, but I'm at the gym and my copy is at home.
You haven't browsed Veeky Forums for long.
Josiah Reyes
Anybody else get an aggravated IT band from squats?
Liam Russell
I always struggle on my final squat set (doing strong lifts), but Saturday was awful. I genuinely felt like just dropping the weight and pussying out after 3 reps. I didn't, of course, but my final reps barely went to parallel.
I do stretches for about a minute before warm up weights, my form on 80% workload is on point, but it starts to fail after the first set of my working weight.
I usually only wait 90 seconds on Early squat sets. Maybe I should wait 3 mins minimum on squats in the future.
Leo Morgan
Do lowbar, make sure the bar moves a straight path over the middle of the foot. Watch these youtu.be/yWRkBH_q_Ag
Jeremiah Brown
Don't stretch to much besides the essential (leg kicks side and front, wall stretch , cat camel, idk) don't do sl it's too much volume. just do ss or drop sl lifts to 3 sets. Plus any problems with sleep and diet will make you feel shit.
Christian Gray
I do. It does. SS teaches lowbar, so that's what I do. I've read the book and watched Rippetoe's tutorials at least three times through.
