Squat advice, please

[Stretch]

I realize it may be hard to help me out over the internet, but maybe some of you can provide some tips. (on the Smith machine)

Last week on leg day, I noticed some soreness in my lower back shortly after doing squats. Today was leg day again, and I'm doing something wrong with my form because I'm sore again. I tried to pay better attention to my form to prevent it, but did no good. I always start out with a warmup set with 10-12 reps, and then 3 lifting sets with 8 reps each. On the last set, I try to choose a weight that will allow me to just BARELY complete the last rep.

As for my stance, I keep my feet wider than shoulder width and in the same plane as the path of the bar. IIRC, your knees are supposed to stay over your toes, right?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Stretch]

Hey, while you're at it, wouldja tell me what you think about my leg routine? I'll stretch first, and do a warmup set of squats, and then stretch some more. Then:

Smith machine squats
Leg sled (not sure if that's the proper name)
Hack squats
Leg extensions
Seated hamstring curls

This is all my upper-leg exercises, I do calves on a different day.

 

[Arnold]

First of all drop the Smith machine squats, unless you're very experienced in squatting you should not be doing them. Why? Because you can easily hurt your self. The Smith takes away the natural arc of the squat, switch to a free weight squat. Your stance should be shoulder width, not wider, and toes pointed slightly outward.

Second, why in the world do you do so many different exercises for legs in a single work-out? Not necessary, in fact if you do serious squatting it would be difficult to even do any other leg pressing movement. Either way, pick a few exercises for each leg work-out and try switching them up each week.

Lastly, never stretch before you train, do that after when you're muscles are warmed-up.

 

[CowPimp]

I know it's better to stretch warm muscles, but I like to stretch before I lift. I just make sure I do some jumping jacks, pushups, jogging, etc. depending on what parts of the body I'm doing that day; I stretch in between the warmup and lifting. Do you think this is a bad idea?

 

[cmf85ro]

Stretch, if I'm getting you right the leg sled is a horizontal leg press right? Something with a translation movement, keeping your feet paralel to the ground... Right? If that's the case, from my knowledge, that exercise does just about the same thing as the squat, the advantage being that it protects your lower back.
Also, I'd like to add that I agree with Prince when he says you're doing too many exercises. Some of them just ovrlap so you just might be overtraining. I saw this show on tv today and it was about the leg workout... thay were advising for the use of about 4 exercises, each of them working a different group (calves, gluteus,hams)

 

[Stretch]

Thanks for the replies.

Maybe it's called the leg press. It's the machine where you're seated in a chair and you push a platform up away from you at a 45 degree angle.

So for a leg workout, would it be sufficient enough to do; leg press, leg extensions and hamstring curls? That's only 3 exercises, what else should I do?

 

[P-funk]

I would throw in (not in the same workout but to alternate and mix things up):

squats
straght leg dead lifts
romanian deadlifts
lunges (I like walking lunges)
step ups

 

[cmf85ro]

Originally posted by P-funk
I would throw in (not in the same workout but to alternate and mix things up):

squats
straght leg dead lifts
romanian deadlifts
lunges (I like walking lunges)
step ups

I'm from Romania and I'd really like to know what a Romanian deadlift is???

The machine I was reffering to is horizontal (0 degrees). The one you are referring to works the upper thighs && a$$ (if I remember correctly... other opinions?).