Squats

I was just wondering if when doing squats if your heels should come off of the ground. I'm doing hack squats if it matters at all.


Edit: oh and alo I noticed..( I'm in the middle of sets now ) that I can feel a..well I wouldn't call it a pain.. But I can feel a pressure on my back when I'm doing them but if I go up off my heels I find the pain goes away. I think this might be because when I go off my heels I can have my back straighter..but I lose balance if I go on my heels on the way back up.

thanks

No. Get a spotter, believe me, it helps.

what would the spotter do? I can get my cousin or my dad but what would they do.. If you could explain it would be a big help

thanks.

spotter? what does a spotter do in any excercise that you should use one...a spotter should correct you when your doing wrong, make sure you dont get crushed by the weights and in squats if tehres no safety bars then they can help you up if you fail and your knees buckle..

Your calves are too tight. The soleus muscle is not allowing good range of motion 'flat footed', so to get fuller knee flexion, you are coming off your heels.
Keeping your feet flat is making you complete the movement by pure bending at the waist, hence the pressure in your lower back.
ideally, you need to work on stretching your calves extensively to increase your range of motion, allowing you to squat flat footed. Short term, place your heels on a 2inch high block of wood. By raising the heels in a stable manner from the beginning, you can keep your weight through the heels, but maintain better posture through the movement.

i remember when i first started doing squats i had the same problem but i found as i increased the weight in my squats it pushed my heels down (i squat pretty heavy now) my heels are kept pushed down by the weight (it doesn't hurt or anything like that), and as far as the pressure goes your back your shouldn't be feeling that at at, keep your back as straight as possible, oh and as far as a spotter goes i don't think you need 1 as long as you have a squat rack of some kind your fine

to stretch your calves you go on a step or evelvated thing and just put your toes on so you sink down right?

I just reckon that if you're asking about squat technique, it's probably best you do a training session with someone who has some experience with them - that way, they can make sure you're doing it right. If you aren't kept an eye on by someone who knows what they're doing, you may be doing stuff wrong which you just haven't noticed, so haven't asked about.

As for the calf stretches, yes that'll do fine, but also you might want to use the one where you stand with legs shoulder width apart, but one behind the other, with the feet facing forward. Then keep the back leg straight and lean back. I'm sure you've seen it done...

Also try to get some visual like a dvd or video to see the proper action. I use the hindu squats and the variations so I used originally the combat conditioning book then used the dvd, the physical body to correspond the action visually. Worked great. the dvd iused was http://www.thephysicalbody.com or the combat conditioning vid by gotch is good as well