Ok, I've seen a lot of talk lately about front squats and I've had some questions about them so I thought I'd make a thread to explain what I call Oly Front Squats.
Most perform the front squat with their arms crossed. Now, you can perform front squats this way but it's not a mechanically sound way to do it. Truthfully, I believe your doomed to fail from the outset if you perform front squats this way. Let's see why..... What happens when the weight gets heavy? Your elbows begin to drop, which pulls you forward, lower back loses it's arch, chest drops, upper back rounds, and all this causes you to dump the bar out in front of you.
I'm sure you're asking yourself now, well how the hell should I perform a front squat if not with crossed arms? Easily.... you'll use what I call the Oly style (clean grip). The Olympic style is where you grip the bar with both hands (but not crossed). You'll keep your elbows high, chest up, arch in your lower back, and keep your feet shoulder width or closer. You'll rack the bar on your clavicles. There is a fine line with the rack position. Rack to far back and you literally choke yourself (I've seen people pass out because the bar actually caused a blunt choke) and possibly pass out with the weight on you. Rack it to far out in front and it will begin to pull your elbows down possibly causing you to dump the weight.
Now, I know you have another question for me... You're thinking, my wrists aren't that flexible. That's ok b/c I have a variation that I was also shown back in my Olympic weightlifting days. With this variation you'll use wrist straps. You'll wrap the straps to the bar and take hold of the straps. This allows you to keep the bar on your clavicles while having non flexible wrists. You'll still keep your chest high, back arched, and elbows up. Here's a vid of the variation.
Hopefully, this sheds some light on how to perform front squats.
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Originally Posted by kazman68
