Head position on the Back Squat?

Turbo_diesel

So Rippatoe teaches people to look slightly down to enable more hip drive while most others will say to drive your head back into the bar? Just wondering what people's opinions are on both methods & what way would you coach it? Below is Rippatoes explanation for looking down which was over on his forum.
We teach the value of looking down with a very simple demonstration that we always include at our seminars in the very first phase of learning the movement. After placing the trainee in the bottom of the squat and getting the feet, knees, and back angle correct, I block the hips by placing my hand on the sacrum and telling the athlete to "drive up against my hand." This demonstrates the power of the posterior chain when it engages to drive hips up. I then tell the athlete to do the same thing again looking down at a point three feet away on the platform, and then to do the same thing while looking up, blocking the hips with my hand in both cases. Without exception, I am always told that the preference is for looking down. This is because looking down better facilitates the use of the hips than looking up, and the difference in power production is immediately evident to anybody that has done my little demonstration.
When you look up, the action of assuming the looking-up position pulls the knees forward a little, closing up the knee angle and therefore slacking the hamstrings from the distal end. If the hamstrings shorten distally, they are less able to extend the hips proximally because the tension developed against their proximal attachments on the pelvis is diminished. You can demonstrate this to yourself by standing normally, looking straight forward, and then looking up at the ceiling, paying attention to what naturally happens to your knees when you do this. So, in addition to providing a useful position reference against the floor, looking down makes hip drive dramatically more effective when you squat. I am much less concerned with "butt wink" than some people, having realized long ago that some small amount of lumbar movement is inevitable, and not a concern unless it is quite egregious. And that, my now surprised-that-I-haven't-been-a-smartass friend, is the deal.

Edwardius

I'm still **** at squatting but I've found that keeping the head up and back on ascent allows me to get the hips forward sooner, make better use of the hip extensors and kill any potential good-morning. Head down = chest caving + badness. Suppose it depends on where your weak point is though.

I'd hurt my back every few months when I was trying to use Rip's method

Hanley

Rip's head and elbow position is ****ing stupid. If you want to GM your squats and put loads of pressure on your lower back it's great tho.

Look straight ahead, drive your head back into your traps/look up at the bottom while driving your elbows forward and say hello to thoracic extensions, a protected lower back and big squats.

kevpants

Hanley wrote: »

Rip's head and elbow position is ****ing stupid. If you want to GM your squats and put loads of pressure on your lower back it's great tho.

Look straight ahead, drive your head back into your traps/look up at the bottom while driving your elbows forward and say hello to thoracic extensions, a protected lower back and big squats.

This. Of course looking down is the preference if his hand is pushing down on your lower back. Unfortunately a bar sits on your shoulders. Stupidest demonstration ever

Hip drive my bollox

Molly

The driving of the elbows forward; is that for high bar as well?

GASMANN

pick a spot on the wall in front of you and dont take your eyes off it, works for me...

Hanley

Molly wrote: »

The driving of the elbows forward; is that for high bar as well?

Not as important tbh.

dartstothesea

Yeah I feel like keeping the head up has helped me anyway, only actually copped onto doing it a while ago. Now I think lower back fatigue gets ridiculously limiting for me if I don't keep upright as I can.

So do people generally disagree with Rip's thing about shooting the hips up first? It sounds like a recipe for a good morning, not that I wouldn't have probably been doing it that way myself for ages.