Thanks everyone for the feedback and taking the time to help.

With my warm up I'll do the set of 135bls. and wait about one minute, then 185lbs. and wait about one minute, then 225bls. and wait three minutes before doing my first real set.

Is that all just warmup? I lift after I get home from work and have a hard time with my energy level. I'm eating more oatmal between meals and Dr. Praeger veggie burgers with meals for energy but still relly lacking in the energy department. That might be too much warm up for me but I see I'm doing way too little and need to increase what I do to warmup.

I see by your explanation that I misunderstood what 'parallel to the floor' meant. I think I need to lower the weight and squat a little deeper. Using a box sounds like a good idea since it's hard to tell how deep I actually squat. I'm looking into buying a power rack and if the bars can be set at the right height I could also try using them to know if I've squatted deep enough.

With my tempo I'm not forcefully going slow. I'm squatting down at a comfortable pace and comming back up at a comfortable pace as well. It's just slow. The weight is heavy for me so I really can't come up any faster. I've read and heard some people 'explode' up from their squat and try to come up fast but I would have to lower the weight even more in order to do that. Do most people train going up and down slow or is it better to go lighter and try to squat back up fast?

Thanks for the links to the videos, I'll add those to my stretching routine. I stretch after I lift instead of before. I stopped stretching before my workout because I read in an exercising article on MSN that said stretching before a workout could limit your strength and actually make you more prone to injury. Do you agree with this or do you feel stretching should be done just prior to lifting?

I was resting two minutes inbetween sets but just recently started to rest for three minutes to try and keep the reps consistant.