This is my heavy triple backsquat at the end of a week filled with snatch and clean & jerk maxes.

Where are your elbows on the backsquat? Are they pointing down to the ground? If so, you have a wonderful technical deficiency to correct. In order for you to be able to carry the weight optimally during the backsquat, you must have you elbows pointed backwards (although not parallel to the ground).

Why? In order to fully support the bar, your elbows must be angled backwards to that they create a shelf for the bar to sit in. When your elbows drop, it allows the bar to roll down your back. A higher elbow position will feel much more stable and will make it easier to feel balanced under the weight.

If you have trouble getting your elbows into the right position then mobility work is a must. I know that I have to do shoulder flexibility work so that I can move weight overhead and lift more in both the front and backsquat. A temporary fix while you are waiting for your hard mobility work to pay off is to widen your grip on the bar. This lets you point your elbows back further, although it may make it harder to keep your back tight. I find it much easier to squat with a wider grip on the bar, and with a little focus the loss of back tightness won’t effect your lifts.

A common squatting fault, both in the front and back squats, is not finding the correct balance and weight distribution on your feet. In order to teach the proper technique, coaches will often use the cue “heels” to remind you that you should distribute your weight evenly across your feet. The ideal balance in a squat is to have the center of mass of you and the barbell over the middle of your foot. Why is the cue not “middle” or “balance”? There are several reasons, the first of which is that both of those are incredibly lame.

They also don’t help to correct the main problem, which is that you are attempting to balance yourself and added weight over the ball of your foot. In order to correct this, the best cue encourages you to over-correct and shift the weight to your heels. Hopefully you will try, and more importantly succeed in making a change that places the weight over the middle of your foot.

It may be hard for beginners to squat to full depth due to flexibility or strength imbalance. If flexibility is an issue, cueing may not improve squat technique. Instead it is more important to get into a good stretching routine that will loosen up hips/quads/hamstrings so that you will be able to reach the bottom of a squat easily.

If strength imbalance is the limiting factor, cueing may be a good way to solve the problem. usually people who squat on their toes are attempting to use their stronger quadriceps (the front part of the leg) to move the weight instead of engaging the hamstrings. Over time, and with constant reminders, cueing to place weight on the heels will strengthen the back of the leg enough so that the balance comes naturally. Other assistance exercises can be used to achieve this balance; however the squat, when properly executed, will usually the be most effective training tool for a begginer.