This is my squat. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

[LudwigVan]

Hi coach. I'd appreciate it if you could give me your opinion on this squat. This was my second set at 285#. I only completed one rep on the third set, but I think I'll get all of them on Friday. Sorry about the poor angle/quality.

7rdwdycqI2k

Today I did 2x5 at 225#, and one of the globo-gym trainers pulled me aside and gave me a lecture about my form being bad/dangerous. I tried to engage him about it and he seemed annoyed and smugly told me that I don't have to listen to him but I'm going to hurt myself. He told me that I'm rounding my back and doing a good morning. He said a lot of stupid shit. I'm 95% sure that he has no clue what he's talking about. Please confirm. I might bring SS with me to the gym and point a few things out to him -- he was not familiar with the book. It was pretty annoying.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The trainer doesn't know rounding the back from whacking the pud. This is a decent squat with a fairly good lumbar position, nothing wrong at all. You guys have got to learn to be less concerned with other people's opinions who are not in a position of authority over you. Sometimes the problem is ascertaining the level of that authority.

[Gary Gibson]

Hey Ludvig, I too had a trainer comment on my squat form today. It bothered me a bit. I usually strike awe and fear into my fellow gym-goers with my squat depth and with the weights I use.

The trainer is actually a helluva nice guy and he wasn't just being a dick. He seemed genuinely concerned that I had already hurt myself when he saw me lie on a bench after a set of squats. I've spoken to him many times over the past few months and he always has a kind word for me. It wasn't his authority, but his honest worry that bothered me. I kept thinking, "Jeez, does my squat look THAT bad?!"

We got to talking and I used Rip-speak on him and he was open to learning. Turns out that he really didn't know that not staying as vertical as possible was legitimate. I tried to keep in mind that he was a PT so I couldn't expect him to know much about training, powerlifting or athletics.

[lukeBW]

I might bring SS with me to the gym and point a few things out to him

Don't bother arguing .. he probably has one of those mail order PT certificates ...it's a license to "stupid"

[Steve in ATL]

The trainer doesn't know rounding the back from whacking the pud. This is a decent squat with a fairly good lumbar position, nothing wrong at all. You guys have got to learn to be less concerned with other people's opinions who are not in a position of authority over you. Sometimes the problem is ascertaining the level of that authority.

Sometimes people feel the need to give a bullshit opinion because they have to be perceived (by themselves and by others) as being the expert. Some probably do it genuinely out of the spirit of help, but for the most part, this holds true in my experience.

[Antigen]

... It was pretty annoying.
I've been having an even better experience this summer, our high school gym kicked out all alumni because they're dicks so I've been lifting in a guy's garage. He was an olympic lifting coach at the school a couple years back and generally a nice guy.

He was convinced my squats were going to cause a back injury. Saying the excess lean of my torso made it "all back, no legs". We discussed things but he still said I had to change since he didn't want me getting hurt at his place. So I've 50:50 front and low bar using as artificially upright form as you can with heavy weights and not allowing my chest to drop even a millimeter coming up.

He's been generally satisfied and I've survived.

[Mucius]

When I saw this video, I initially believed that this was a weird squat because of the immediate forward travel of the knees at descend. But besides those knees, this looks like a good squat indeed.

I suppose LudwigVan's knees don't do anything wrong (as you said this was a good squat). Then, can these knees' unexpected behavior be explained by LudwigVan's relatively long femurs? (Because they seem pretty long to me.)

[Mark Rippetoe]

Immediate forward travel of the knees is necessary. Read the book.

[cmdrfunk]

The coach of the top team in my softball league was talking to me the other day after our game. He was telling me if i want to be a better hitter that I shouldn't care about legs at all and should do lots of the pec deck and other upper body work only. I have no idea where that comes from considering that the hips are the primary mover of a batting swing. He's like 75 and was a navy seal.

It's hard to blow him off when i'm on the worst team in the league, but it must be done :)

[Mark Rippetoe]

You shall lead the revolt. We're with you 100% -- YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

[roman209]

I think the PT thinks a squat should have the same back position as a front squat...

[Steve in ATL]

The coach of the top team in my softball league was talking to me the other day after our game. He was telling me if i want to be a better hitter that I shouldn't care about legs at all and should do lots of the pec deck and other upper body work only. I have no idea where that comes from considering that the hips are the primary mover of a batting swing. He's like 75 and was a navy seal.

It's hard to blow him off when i'm on the worst team in the league, but it must be done :)

I'd like to see him prove his theory out. Have him hit while sitting on a bar stool.

Please tape it - I'm up for a good laugh.

[LudwigVan]

Update: I printed out Rip's Crossfit Journal article on high-bar vs. low-bar squatting and brought it to the gym today. On my way out I gave it to the trainer who had given me grief before, saying that I'd found an article that explains what I was trying to tell him during our previous conversation. He said, "Yeah, I did look into low-bar squats," and for a second I thought he was going to be conciliatory. Then he claimed to have already read the article I was giving him (I guess he's a CFJ subscriber...) and said the only difference between the two positions was where you put the bar, and everything else was the same, and that I had been doing a "squat/good morning." I told him that wasn't true and it was all explained in the article. He was very dismissive and didn't seem like he had any intention of reading the article, which is a shame because I think it would have set him straight quite nicely. As I left he told me to be careful about my back.

Tomorrow I'm going to call and speak to the gym manager about this guy. Of course I'll continue squatting with no regard for him in any case, but it pisses me off that my membership fees are being used to pay this trainer to interrupt my exercise with his ignorance, and that he can't even be gracious when I politely try to clear up his misconceptions.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I appreciate what you're trying to do, Lud, but if you manage to actually make the trainer smarter, the gym owner won't be able to afford to keep him there at $8/hour. You might actually cost him his job in an awful, unintended-consequences way. Consider this carefully.