THUR: Finding the Sweet Spot on Front Squats

Front squats are an excellent movement for building total body strength with a target on the anterior half of the body (front). The demand that the barbell in front rack places on our core and quads is much more pronounced than a back loaded squat, which is why we perform both the front and back squat regularly.

However, as beneficial as the front squat may be, there is one way that we can screw it up and that’s by going too heavy.

The one critical piece of mechanical awareness that we want to have is to always keep the elbows up and the chest from collapsing downward like an accordion. When we do that, we send the upper part of or back into pronounced flexion, and while we still get a ton of demand and positive stress on the core, it becomes much more of a total body fight or flight to complete the rep and that’s not what we want.

Building strength under dysfunctional mechanics is not what we’re after.

Go heavy, challenge the weight, but always be in charge of your positioning. In this case, proud chest, high elbows.

-Dave

Thursday, 3.14.19

First. For Strength.
4 Front Squats @ 60-80%
8 Chest Fly (with 1” pause)
Complete 1 set every 5′ for 20′
—
Then. For Conditioning.
In Teams of 3
A: 100m Farmer Carry
B: 3 Heavy Hell Trots
C: Rest
(x15’)

PHASE 1: Squat Test (Everyone) + Row Test (Optional)