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EricT · 01-09-2008, 01:11 PM

First off, on the plate squats the biggest place you will feel them is in the abs. You hold the plate straight out in front of you so you can see why that would be. It's a an intense isometric ab contraction...and that's a good thing. The best way in your circumstance to use them is as part of ab strength/stabibility training. So treat them like an ab thing. Do higher reps. That way you use them as a accessory and activation thing and not as something that will be of detriment to squatting. But yeah, they help you with "uprightness" and the only other thing I can say is to really pay attention to you glutes. Actually tighten them up a bit while descending. Forget the "quad dominant" and "ham dominant" stuff...think ass dominant. That will make all the difference when it comes to squatting.

Front squats and goblet squats are obviously a similar thing but this puts the weight much further out so you don't have the need of a heavy weight to get the effect you want plus at the same time there is no appreciable leg fatigue in it.

Unless you actually feel that your glutes are tight I doubt you will need to stretch them. Just the opposite, actually. Looking at you, although I can't tell for sure, it looks like you need the common combination of hams, lower back and hip flexor stretching. I would also highly recommend some hip adductor (inner thigh/groin) and some piriformis and ITB band stretching.

Yes I look at the floor six to ten feet ahead. Try not to lead with your head. Instead think in terms of the shoulders. I don't know who coined this, I'm pretty sure it was Rippetoe: Relate to the bar, not to the floor. You are not trying to push the floor down, after all, but the bar up. It's seems like a weird distinction because instinct makes you wants to just drive down with your legs. And of course there is going to be tons of leg drive involved.

But one of the biggest revelations you will make is that squats are about the hips not the quads or hams or any one leg muscle. Try to push the shoulders into the bar to initiate the lift. This is something that box squatting really allows good practice of.

If you begin box squatting you should definitely post a vid because there are some common errors that most people make on that.

I take breaths at the top when needed and I take may big breath at the top before descending, control the exhalation until past the 'sticking point' and then let the rest go quickly.

You can do lots of different things for dynamic stretching but I find the best thing is to do something that is actually hip dominant and multi-joint. If you are careful you can use that excercise I gave in the link to Hop's journal but you do it in a dynamic fashion where you drop down into a squat position in a controlled but dynamic way while increasing the depth each time you go down a little bit at a time.

Another good thing is to do bodyweight dynamic lunges (regular lunges) or reverse lunges where you concentrate on the stretch in the hams and the increasing range of motion. This gives more stretch than a squatting technigue would so in cases where you need to work on loosening up it's good. I wouldn't recommend any dynamic stretching of the lower back muscles.

Now you will probably get to a point where you don't need to do anything but drop into some dynamic squats to loosen up if anything. The dynamic stretching, however, helps as a warmup so it's not any skin off your nose to do a little here and there.

And yes goblet squats with the same type of deal.