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^Agreed too.

Also, this was just 1 month ago:

Good goal, also very doable IF you cut out that manic depressive phase you keep hitting right after you do something good in your training.   Increasing the frequency of front squat, which for you might simply mean replacing back squat with front squat.  Looks like most of your pains have come after back squats anyhow, so no need to keep messing with something less specific to your goals. 

 Getting to 2x bw front squat will do much more for your athleticism than anything youll gain from back squatting regardless.

Focus and keep it simple man , don't let overthinking/overanalyzing distract you.

Training
FS 3x120.5 (PR), 5Fx112.5
BS 2x6x116, 9x105 (PR)
BP 4x86 (PR), 8x75
Orange Band Glute Bridge 3x20
X-band walk 2x15m
1 leg ankle/calf drills (5 mins)

Salient workout changes -
wore 2 pairs of socks on the R foot, not using the top most lace holes in the shoes, tightened strap and laces, feet pointing straight forward not turned out, no initial knee break on fs, aiming to put knees over the foot as guide for fs, held hips stable on backsquat, on front squats, new power rack position, no wooden floor, carpet floor, benched in power rack, no spotter (self spotted with newspaper), 20mg synephrine and 3g creatine preworkout


FS notes:
Deliberated what weight to attempt, thought 120kg with the 2x10kg plates was a bad omen, went back to 10s + 10.5kg, which is 1kg over my previous PR. Got it. Made the right choice of PR attempt. Next time i'll just add another kg - keep it simple. Body didn't know wtf was going on with a 3 rep heavy attempt because it's been 9 days since the last time I made one. I expect next time the triple will be much smoother now that I succeeded tonight. Didn't know what to attempt for the 2nd set - 125kg double or 112.5kg fiver? I don't give a shit about either really, so went with the 5s just because it was lighter and i'm watching my hip health.

BS notes:
Much better sets today. No lightening bolts up the body, I made sure to keep my back and abs tight throughout. Happy enough with how the sets went during the lift. Video review shows there is room for form improvement. The last set, I probably would have got the 10th rep, but I thought to leave that PR for monday.

BP notes:
Self spotting now that the pin heights are more conformable on carpet. I dunno, i sucked though, couldn't get even 5 reps wanted 6. Probably got greedy and should have gone for 85.5kg but honestly i probably would have failed that too today, felt weak on bench. Took it as a sign to deload the next set.

Mobility notes:
LBSS i'm getting real good at these banded bridges! Have no problem holding the band stretched while my glutes do their work. Feels good man.
XBand walks - like before I'm finding my L leg struggling with these, R leg finding it trivial. Explanations??
The ankle calf work was awesome, really hit my calf. Dunno if it's doing anything for my ankle but we'll see over time.

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Mobility work and ankle/calf strengthening work for R leg to follow. I also think it's important to log that this workout was very friendly on my ankle, knees and tendon near my hamstring which always takes a huge beating when I use loose shoes which leads to external rotation of the foot. It seems i've solved that problem by taking the new starrett inspired foot position of pointing straight forward, as well as by tightening the shoes but leaving the top holes unlaced which gives tight support to the foot without restricting ankle mobility. Success!

Oh yes so I should say Starrett has got it right with the torque thing. I felt much better squatting today - stronger and stabler, it's remarkable. Best of all I have happy HIPS even though I got a bunch of squatting PRs and did a decent amount of volume as well. I now expect to push some decent PRs next week now that i've solved a huge problem with my foot position which led to a whole host of other problems upstream.

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Btw raptor, if you're reading this, maybe you should check out starrett if you still have an interest in high bar squatting. His way of pointing out the toes and maximising torque might help with your knee problems.

Well... once I get to around 110 kg I feel like I can't progress any further when doing high bar squats for... I don't know exactly, but I think for strength and structural reasons.

Would like to see video of those 110kg sets and ones before you run into a problem. But yeah check out Supple Leopard.

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I've figured out why I stalled on my front squats. It's quite simple really. To go from 119.5kg to 121kg I took off 20kg worth of small plates. And put on 2x10kg plates. This changes the exercise considerably cause it's harder to balance the bar or whatever. Think of an acrobat on a tightrope with a long bar across his body - same principle. So the solution is quite simple and it came to me last night, instead of transitioning from 119.5kg to 120+ with 2x10kg plates - just use 4x5kg plates instead. This means adding 2x5kg plates to the existing 2x5kg ones and removing 9.5kg of smaller plates. Now teh balance change isn't as drastic - 10kg is fine I think. So on monday i'll do that and get my FS moving along. When I get to 130kg i'll then change to 2x10kg plates and use 2x5kgs to make up 130kg and so on. Always using big plates that are 10kg lighter than necessary. This shold take me up smoothly to FS 3x140kg and BS 6x140kg which is my goal. Solved!

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Philosophifical muisigs
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1DJ8odNf-M" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1DJ8odNf-M</a>

To me the most impressive squat i've seen is and I didn't even know it until I saw it again recently after working hard to fix my own technique. What we see is a very heavy highbar backsquat done to full ATG depth with perfect control on eccentric and concentric. No PL style equipment and spottery and half assed depth - just masterful squatting. Beautiful. But when you look deeper there is even more to be impressed by. Check out his knee position how stable it thru the whole lift, his huge calves and hamstrings do a wonderful job keeping him upright and his quads and glutes explode him out of the hole at a flash but yet to finish the lift he had to grind it out without dropping his chest. I think pat might weigh around 120-130kg here, maybe slightly less dunno. But he's such a wonder of nature. I learn so much just watching that lift over and over. I find myself thinking if I had bigger calves and hamstrings myself, I'd have a better time squatting. I can't remember the last good squatter I saw who didn't have big calves.

Another squatter i've been studying is a strongeman dude - brutally strong in the upper body, hips, back, buttocks and legs. He is listed as 6'7" and he weighs 260-270lb. Very strong. This motherfucker picks up a 505lb stone lol and puts it on the table. He deadlifts 525 like it's 135. And yet watch him front squat and it's a horror show. It's very light for him being a 500+ squatter but his form is terrible. Even his backsquats exhibit form probs but then again you have to remember you're watching a guy do 10 reps with 380. He looks lean as fuck in that last video as well.

But anyway would you guys tell him to reset to 90kg until his knees stay out? I mean the guy is a strongman in every sense of the word - it's not clear to me what specific strength he's missing which prevents him from having good form or if its just an anthropometry thing. If anything the guy IS STRONG because he toys with these weights. But his form is bad because he lacks leg mass which would improve his form.  My theory is he has stick legs for his squat weights, if he had bigger calves and maybe bigger hams he'd be stabler under tension. The hams and calves maintain stability and the quads act as absorbers, they slow you down, powerfully dampening and sucking you into a stable bottom position. So big thick legs = good squatting ability and not just for the obvious reason that bigger legs are stronger, but in the way they help you squat better by facilitating sound technique.

I need to grow my calves and thighs. lol. I'm a lot stronger than my stick legs. I can move a lot more weight but my form wont get better until I actually add mass to my legs. Taking weight off to 'fix technique' will just make me weaker and waste time and solve nothing because until I grow mass it won't be solved and lighter weights wont do that. Just clarifying my thoughts in my diary no offense intended. I'm better served by continuing to progress and keep working on fixing weaknesses AND adding leg mass.

Btw the above is why Mutombo call pull 220kg like its nothing having the leg and back strength to lift it and yet he struggles to squat more modest weights. The reason is not his lack of strength, it's a lack of mass in the legs. He has thin legs which prevent him from being a good squatter - they are plenty strong though as shown by his pulls. Squat proficiency is determined by leg mass and vice versa.

He's deep down into OCD mode...

I think you can have a strong squat (like Craig) but have bad form (because of lack of leg mass). I think leg mass determines SQUAT form nicess. You need enough leg mass to have good form (provided mobility and what not are in order of course). I think Pat has amazing form in that video because he has plenty of leg mass. I was comparing pat to craig to show two strong guys who have form disparity and explaining the disparity by pinpointing leg mass as the causative. Incidentally after Pat's surgery and subsequent comeback if you look at his form now that he weighs around 105kg or so, he's not as strong of course, still strong though but his form is not as good as it once was because he's lost leg mass. I didn't say I was strong in a relative or absolute sense but that my legs are skinny for my squats or compare myself to those guys in any way except to say my lack of leg mass is the reason for my bad form, just as it applies to them and everyone else for that matter.  This will no doubt be misinterpreted again so i'll just leave it for now. I've come out of this overthinking phase with clarity and I don't think i'll be doing any more thinking for the next 4-6 weeks lol.

Yeah, thats the problem.   You have come to a conclusion by looking at a few youtube videos which agree with your confirmation bias.   Your body proportions have much more to do with how "nice" your form looks.   Your confirmation bias is so strong it's actually as if you are trying to make a point.  Mendez comes back after a long layoff where we all know that what one leases LEAST of is leg mass and what one loses MOST is neuromuscular movement efficiency.....   And your conclusion is that his form looks worse because of a lack of mass.....   

 I'm just trying to save you some trouble.   You will always be a tall lanky dude; you can add some mass but you will still not have the body proportions you are looking for.   However, you don't even have that bad form!  Your form breaks when you use what 90% of your max?  Pretty common.  A real form problem would be one which manifests itself when you are using a MUCH smaller proportion of your max.  When you have a form issue that ONLY shows up when the weights get big.... That's just a weakness.  Really, Raptor has given you the most salient advice.  Lift with a weight that you can use good form and bump it up while keeping form.   That will work.  Or you could get fancy and do what Raptor advised while also doing some direct work for your weak hips. (it's your hips not your ankle that causes the knee to cave in!).     Either would serve you well.   Deciding that you need a lot more mass to squat well is going to ruin your dunking and stall your progress.  But I guess in the end we need to learn for ourselves.

If you have naturally strong legs and naturally weak back then the difference between your squat and your deadlift isn't going to be big. Obviously structural factors come into play as well.

I stopped thinking about this stuff a while ago but I thought having long limbs just sucked for squats and lifting in general?

Entropy has body structure more like mine.. not meant for squatting well. Now almost everyone would say I have impeccable form but I feel like if my body structure was more designed for squatting I'd be lifting that shit as easily as deadlifts.

Why do some people have such small differences between deadlift and squat? I felt like it was because their deadlifts looked more push dominant because their hips were lower. My hips are naturally very high in the deadlift beacuse of my long limbs, but it makes the exercise a lot easier than squatting does.

If you have naturally strong legs and naturally weak back then the difference between your squat and your deadlift isn't going to be big. Obviously structural factors come into play as well.

Obviously leverage is huge in explaining the differences between the lifts.  Long legs make it harder to squat for sure. Also, without grip strength one can't deadlift.   But ignoring grip (say allowing straps), a big difference between the explanation of the squat/deadlift ratio can be explained by the someone's athletic background.   If someone has never taken weights seriously but has played a lot of sports which involve running then 9 times out of 10 when the get into the gym and take the two lifts seriously their deadlift will quickly dwarf their squat.   In the case of Avishek it's not simply his limbs that help his deadlift but his athletic background.   Sprinting (be it in Rugby, Soccer, whatever) will train your back to be isometrically strong; and provide you with a lot of strength for that hip extension.  It will also help you in the 1/4 squat. 

On the contrary, someone who doesn't have a background involving athletics of running/jumping will have much more even ratios (some variation for body structure of course) and even more telling will be the difference in squat depths.   The first time I learned to squat I could pile on the weight and go a couple inches above parallel.... but when I was told to go full depth I had to drop the weight to slightly more than a plate.   An athletic background doesn't help much for the bottom portion of the squat.   When someone doesn't have an athletic background but learns how to squat you will notice that their full squat and their 1/2 squat and 1/4 squat are all pretty similar.   This is one reason it takes a long time for some athletes to see dividends from squatting.  They are bumping up their full squat from 250 to 350 lbs while their 1/2 squat started at 400 lbs.  In this case they still have surplus strength at joint angles used by most for jumping/sprinting.  But get a less athletic guy whose full squat and half squat are both in the ballpark 250 to bump his full squat to 350 lbs and you will see all kinds of new-found athleticism.