I had a similar experience with a trainer. Did squats, said my form was mostly good but wanted to test some things out. Did a quick ankle mobility check, saw that it was a problem. Slipped some 5lb weights under my heels, told me to squat again and it was an incredible difference. The balancing was so much easier and it felt much better when going lower. Really showed the value a trainer could bring. That was day 1.

How did you find a good trainer? Any certs/qualifications you should look for?

I got lucky. I did no research before hand. There was a gym near me offering a deal for personal training and I signed up with an instructor who had a similar body style to what I wanted to achieve tbh.

The Starting Strength Coach certification is a good one to look for.

Shoes, wraps, belts, heel chicks etc are not a short cut. They are a training aid.

Without them your mobility may be bad. You may not have the right tension in places. These tools help get the right feel and you can train under load. Increasing your max load which translates to an increase in your unaided load.

Wraps absolutely are a short cut in that every lifter can instantly lift more wearing them due to the elastic tension they're able to provide.

I don't think there is much evidence suggesting training squats wrapped would then result in the unwrapped squat being stronger for an elite lifter. I'd actually be concerned that the technical changes and also the different strength curve for a wrapped squat might throw off someone's regular squat.

A wrapped squat is still a squat. Do heavy knee wraps allow you to squat more? Absolutely. But other than the weight being higher, you squat basically the same with or without wraps. So training in wraps will absolutely help your raw squat -- it isn't like the wraps take away all muscle stimulus from the squat.

That being said, I think most lifters hold off on doing wraps until close to a competition or when hitting near max. Wraps are painful and take a lot of work to put on if doing them tight, so it isn't something you do on every squat. Also, I think people over-estimate how much extra weight one can lift with wraps versus without. It varies from one lifter to the next, but I think the average might be around 10%.

Source -- powerlifter of 10+ years who trains both regular and wrapped squats all the time.

All else being equal it's still potentially meaningful stimulus. There's no way it doesn't translate if you're training wrapped in a way that would stimulates hypertrophy or strength increase - it's an offset upwards, sure, but the muscles will still respond to the work.

I think it's more that you now rely on a piece of equipment to do your workout. Say you're on holiday, you can't just hop into a random gym and get your leg workout done. You'd have to bring your squat shoes with you.

No, I'll just do the workout without those shoes. Which will be less effective because less stimulus is being presented, but still worth doing.

I'll just be on holiday.

Or that! TBH that's what I usually do

These tools are training aids and you can still squat without them. If you don't have them you just don't use them. You don't have to squat large percentages every session.

I'm having trouble googling for heel chick, could you share a link to what it is?

Sorry. Auto correct: heel chocks. Exactly what it sounds like. If you don’t have lifting shoes, and don’t like using coin plates, you can stand on other things that raise your heel.

Edit: Internet tells me they might be called squat wedges.

Blocks maybe

I’ve been on a reboot too. I squatted through bad mobility for years and got quite strong, but reinforced all of the bad movement patterns. It’s been hard to unlearn that muscle memory.

Opening up and releasing my chest, t-spine and pelvic floor has been a long and slow process (8 months so far) but I’m finally relearning proper movement.

What sort of programming did you use to work ok your mobility? I’ve been looking to do the same.

I highly recommend Dr. Kelly Starrett for all things mobility. Thereadystate.com (his website) is my daily source of mobility instruction, both for daily mobility work, and for getting me through many an injury. Reading the Supple Leopard (his book) is useful, but it’s hard to beat the follow-along videos for usefulness.

Plus, he’s a huge Dune nerd, which comes through in occasionally hilarious ways.

It's really important to get good advice too, sometimes your gym-buds can see you're not doing it right, but they don't know it's because of mobility issues so they just think you're not listening.

I was lucky to keep my mobility from rollerblading and riding as a kid, so when I moved into powerlifting after 5 years of mostly sedentary computer work, I was still pretty loose.

I am horribly inflexible _except_ for this one thing. As a kid we used to always play and rest in a deep squat position, and it just stayed that way growing up. It's still my default resting position on hikes or at the gym. As a result I can squat really deep, but ask me to touch my toes and I'll get shin-depth at best.

Sometimes I have wondered if having no resistance at the bottom when I squat is actually hindering me. I've seen people kind of "bounce" out of their squat, as if the resistance they hit at the bottom acts like a sort of spring past their tension point. Whereas in my case, there is no "bounce" and no resistance. If I kept going as low as I can, I'd just end up with my butt on the floor in the squat with nothing springing me back. In the end, I don't go too far below parallel with a loaded barbell because I feel the rest of my squat technique and power output gets compromised at that depth.

The longer your femur (taller body) the harder to deep squat since you need more forward flexion on the ankles. Lifting shoes are not a shortcut but a solution.

How to improve ankle mobility?

Check out the Squat University youtube channel for instructional videos on "Banded Ankle Mobilizations".

Completely changed the game for my squats, with instant results. I incorporate them (along with a similar hip mobilization drill) before all of my squat workouts. Highly recommended.

You can find lots of good exercises and drills on YouTube, but are you sure you are asking the right question? Are you 100% sure that ankle mobility is your problem?

In my case, I thought that ankle mobility is my problem but after working on my ankles for several months I didn't see the huge improvement I expected, and only then I realized that I have other mobility deficiencies such as hip flexion and rotation and my spine.

If you are not sure what your problem is, you should hire and expert for an assessment. A lot of the stuff you find online is great, but only if you exactly know what you're looking for.

Check out ATG split squats