wot.

I'd been working on keeping my feet forward so much because I thought you guys were saying it was better??

you dont need to fully lock out hips but you're nowhere near full extension. locking out implies slight hyperextension. you get "buttwink" because your pelvis runs into your femur, and your hips unimpinge themselves when your stance is wide in a "lowbar" style squat. you need to line your pelvis up properly before you even touch the bar with your shoulders, when you load with a pelvic hyperextension fault (anterior rotation of the pelvis, and excessive lumbar extension) you are locking your hip flexors into a shorter position, and making it nearly impossible to regain good lumbar posture. squeeze your glutes before you get under the bar to line up your L spine, then flex at the HIP (not low back) to get in position under the bar. your glutes should always be a little on in every single position of your squat, they set your hips into proper position

Ideally feet straight forward. Most people can't hack it though for mobility reasons and thus slightly turning their feet out compensates for this.

also really screw your feet into the ground by *trying* to externally rotate, which creates torque and will activate the glutes more (much easier to do this with feet pointed forwards, another reason it is better).

I still like my feet pointed out about 15-20 degrees. But I squat inside shoulder width so I'd have to have ridiculous ankle dorsiflexion to be able to swim feet forward.

Bad for your knees son, and no that's why your knees track outside of your feet in a proper squat.

How about ~8-10 degrees?

Probably ideal. Just enough to unimpinge the hip but not so much that your ankles will collapse easily

This post was edited by cloudkicker on Aug 18 2016 09:01am

I gained the mobility to squat atg feet straight forward at (probably even closer than) shoulder width after all your points. So 5 degrees feet out, feet wider than shoulder width? And figure out how to flexing the glutes throughout the movement?

This post was edited by tommyd323 on Aug 18 2016 09:13am

You need to contract glutes before you load the bar on your back because the glutes will set position of the pelvis and lumbar spine. Once you have that position set, brace with abs and load the bar. Break at the hips and squat to depth with knees out.

My knees stay outside my ankles, and my feet don't collapse anymore, even when I squatted 160. I don't think it's as important to keep feet forward the more narrow your stance is.