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I have a quick question that is VERY important for me to solve as of this moment: what is required in terms of flexibility for someone to be able to get in a low squat position without bending forward at the waist? As in to keep the torso erect and vertical, as much as perpendicular to the ground as possible?

Also, where do you need to be flexible to do a proper below parallel overhead squat?

As of this moment, whenever I jump off two feet I always (ALWAYS) bend a lot at the waist and jump forward or collapse into the jump (and no, I'm not overanalyzing, this is a serious issue). I look at a lot of people and they're always able to throw their legs forward and keep a vertical torso and jump, I can't do that. And my two footed jump suffers immensly because of that. It's also very frustrating.

So any ideas? What's the flexibility limitation that keeps on forcing me to bend forward at the waist (also happens in the deadlift, I can't keep a vertical torso to save my life or my spine - in a deadlift my torso is almost parallel instead of perpendicular to the ground).

  Great stretch for the squat, the first one in the video with the bar across the legs.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqyV9KIBuPw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqyV9KIBuPw</a>

  The thing I see with your svj is, youre bending at the BACK and extending it FIRST, then you start to extend the hips.  If anything thats causing you to lose some contribution from the tightness and reflexive action you would get out of the stretch reflex.  You can still have plenty of torso lean and jump well, but it should stay relatively stable and not extend at the low back before the hips and knees start extending.

  On your deadlift youre just not getting your back position "set" well enough before you begin pulling, it almost looks like your relaxed in the bottom.  Squeeze the chest up HARD, but you dont need to drop your hips too far down before you begin pulling, youll just end up with a higher hip position anyway once you put a heavyish weight on the bar.  If youre really certain you need a more upright position with your squats and deads, get you some weightlifting shoes.  They will change the mechanics by themselves without you having to do much.

  A good drill for the running jumps off two legs, and achieving what youre talking about with the plant leg is to start about 6-8 feet from the basket with both feet together.  Focus on taking a very big and powerful step into your plant leg, really emphasize that leg reaching out and loading it.  Dont worry about the jump height at first, just focus on reaching out with that plant leg as explosively as you can, then jump.  Once you get this down and can jump well with it, progress to a 2-3 step approach with the same mechanics.  After that, using a full run up will be much easier and form will be more stable at higher speeds.  When doing that drill one thing is to not think too much about it being a "two leg" jump, but really really focus on that plant leg, the swing leg will come through and do its thing pretty naturally most of the time if you get the plant leg working well.


try that squat stretch I linked, that will likely help you as it really hits the soleus well and not just the gastroc.  Once the knees are bent (like in a squat, dead, jump etc.) the soleus can really limit rom at the ankle and that stretch can make a big difference if you progress it and use it frequently enough.

Well I could probably lift as well as he does if you gave me his shoes... I have never seen such shoes around here.

Maybe, but my point of this thread is that I bend forward at the waist when I jump, not necessarily when I squat. It also happens in the deadlift. I just can't sink well at the hips - I've seen people that do that so well without getting out of position or balance, they just sink into their hips backward with almost no forward knee transition (for an extreme, think Steve Cotter).

If you put me to do that I'd definitely bend forward or I'd fall back. Cotter was talking about the lower abs not firing or something like that to prevent the falling back from happening. So the issue is with jumping... my natural tendency when jumping off two feet is not to throw my legs forward and jump (and involve the hips) but to plant my legs under me as in a standing VJ and jump like that, which automatically means bend at the knees a lot. If I want to jump with hip involvement I have to think about that before the jump (actually before the run-up itself) so it's not natural but voluntary.

  Depends, how is structure different?  Either way the depth is achievable, the bar position and torso angle is what I was getting at.