Front Squat. Image credit: Sportivny Press
The Front Squat is a variation of the Squat with the barbell resting on your front shoulders rather than on your back. Front Squats are the best replacement for Squats when you can’t do these for whatever reason.
Like every other strength training exercise, proper Front Squat technique will help you achieve bigger weights while minimizing risks of injuries. Here’s how to Front Squat with Proper technique.
What’s a Front Squat? The Front Squat is a Squat done with the barbell on your front shoulders instead of on your upper-back. Put the barbell on your front shoulders, bend through your knees & come back up.
Here’s a video of French weightlifter Venceslas Dabaya doing the Front Squat. Don’t worry about the weight & the bar falling on the ground at the end of the set. Dabaya is gold medalist & thus experienced. You’ll start light.
Front Squat Benefits. The Front Squat has a more upright position than the Back Squat because of the front bar placement. Implications:
- Lower Back Friendly. Less forward lean on the Front Squat. You can’t squeeze the bar or tighten your upper-back. Meaning less total weight & thus less spinal compression. Try Front Squats if you have lower back issues. Chances are you can do them without problems.
- Builds Muscle. The front bar loading will pull you forward. Abs will work hard to keep your torso upright. Front Squats will work your whole legs, but your quads more than your hips.
- More Strength. Clean grip Front Squats will help your Power Clean & Overhead Press which have similar racking/starting positions.
- Enforce Good Technique. Do Front Squats wrong & you’ll lose the bar. Try Front Squats for a while if your Squat technique is not the best.
Front Squat Clean Grip vs. Crossed Arm Grip. Image credit: Ironmind & d_vdm.
The Clean Grip. Front Squats using the Clean Grip will feel uncomfortable at first. Many switch to the Cross-armed Grip for that reason. Don’t be one of them. Front Squat with a Clean grip. Benefits:
- Safer. It’s easier to keep your elbows up so the bar doesn’t roll of your shoulders using the Clean Grip.
- Carry-over. Power Cleans & Overhead Presses become easier because you’re using bigger weights in a similar position on the Front Squat.
If the Clean Grip hurts your wrists, you have tight wrists and/or triceps. Stretch your wrists & triceps 3-4x/week, flexibility will improve.
Front Squat Setup: big chest, elbows up & hands relaxed. Image credit: Dehwang.
Front Squat Setup. Your shoulders support the weight, not your hands. Always keep your chest big & elbows up. Else the weight will get on your hands and stretch your wrists & elbows which will hurt. Big chest, elbows up.
- Foot Stance. Slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. You can go deep without your arms touching your legs & use your hip muscles better.
- Toes Out. Your toes must always follow your knees. Point your toes out at about 30 degrees.
- Chest Up. Put your chest forward & lift it up. This gives the bar a solid base to sit on & makes it impossible to round your upper-back.
- Tighten Lats. You can’t tighten your upper-back on Front Squats like on Squats. However you can tighten your lats: spread them.
- Look Forward. Up is bad for your neck, down will make your lower back round. Look forward, fix a point in front of you.
- Grip Width. A narrow grip pushes the bar against your throat, making breathing difficult. Wide grip is harder to keep your elbows up. Use a grip width of about 55cm/21″.
- Bar Position. Put the bar on top of your front shoulders. Behind your clavicles & close to your throat. Coughing is possible, clavicles might hurt. Front Squat more, you’ll adapt.
- Hands Open. Your shoulders support the weight, not your hands. Open your hands, relax them. Three fingers under the bar is ok (pink up).
- Elbows Up. Put your elbows up – upper-arms almost parallel to the floor – so the weight doesn’t end on your hands.
- Elbow In. Push your elbows toward each other during the Front Squat. It’s easier on your wrists.
The Front Squat. Your hip muscles are stretched when you break parallel. Use that stretch to bounce from the bottom. DO NOT relax your hip muscles & DO NOT bounce off your knees. Keep your hip muscles tensed.
- Push From The Heels. Heels off the floor impairs stability & power and is bad for your knees. Push from the heels & curl your toes up.
- Sit Back. Squat between your legs while pushing your hips back. You’ll stretch your hip muscles when breaking parallel. Bounce from it.
- Break Parallel. Should be easy because of the upright position. Squat down until your hip joint is at least lower than your knee joint.
- Knees Out. Never let your knees go in during the Front Squat. You risk knee injuries & won’t train your groin. Push your knees out.
in the image with the guy doing the cross grip, i noticed he is standing with his heels on a piece of wood, does that help if you find it harder to go low on the squat?
Weight lifters wear shoes with heel to allow more depth more easily. I’d go for shoes with a heel rather than a piece of wood.
i tryed squating with a piece of wood, because i don’t have any heels, i wasnt using weight i was just seeing the difference in body position, i noticed that my torso felt more upright, and that doing full squats to the grown was easyier. if i was to squat this way for a while and build some strenght on full range squats, would it have any carry over benifits to squatting without a heel.
@Bob
I squat & front squat with chuck taylor’s (flat sole). I’d work on flexibility rather than putting a piece of wood. Piece of wood is not safe.
Just started doing regular squats after a year of deleting them. I have since found out my knee problems were due to leg extensions, not the squats. Have done 5×5 rear squats and feel better than I have in months. Used to do front squats as an alternative to regular and after reading this article, will again add them in. Cannot say enough about friends who have developed knee problems to the point of needing surgery from the leg extension. They substituted regular squats and dumbell squats and knee problems have gotten better if not gone away. Just my opinion. Be interested to hear what others say.
I did the front squat for a while and really like it as I’m quite tall with long legs and found it easy to keep my back upright. I used a quite wide stance with feet pointing out and went below parallel. But after one session where I went to a new personal best (we’re only talking 50kg as I’m still a beginner!) I would get a sharp pain in my right knee when bending at an angle. The physiotherapist said it was due to compression - the deeper you go the more compression on your knee or kneecap. Anyway they said I should use a hip-width stance and limit my depth for a while. But a hip width stance causes a lanky dude like me to have to bend forward heaps and it just feels like a lower back workout. Any thoughts? is wider than shoulder width the best for long limbed individuals? and is it ok to go to exactly parallel or is it safer to stop just short?
I was trying to front squat today for the first time and ran into a little snag.It seems that I don’t have enough flexibility in my shoulders to get my upper arms parallel.To tell you the truth they are pretty much pointing straight down.I notice that Dehwang isn’t actually gripping the bar so maybe this will help.What stretches can I do for my shoulders?
Hi, as far as i am concerned I never had to stretch my wrists/elbows to rack perfectly the barbell when you front squat. You don’t need to hold the barbell with your hands, you just need two fingertips. Yes, just hold it with two fingertips for balance, the real job is done by the shoulders/back muscles. Another important detail: be sure that you unrack the bar from the squat stands with your arms ALREADY higher than parallel (better) or, at least, parallel. You hold the barbell with an isometric contraction, you won’t be able to lift it up during the lift. You start unracking it wrong, you will do a bad front squat.
For Mat: find a stance that you like, flare your toes as much as you like (but do it!) and when you go down force your knees to go “out” on the sides, it will make you go deeper (rock bottom = stress on the hips, not knees), your knees will follow your toes, and keep the knees out during all the lift. Same thing when you go up, push out your knees first, THEN up with your heels. This will also give you better glute activation
Everyone watch this
Hope I helped.
Lorenzo thank you that video cleared many things in my mind about squats. And some good exercises that you can do to improve the technique.
Recommend to watch it for everyone.
got to love http://stronglifts.com!
I’ve been using front squats for the past few weeks and now on the beginner 5×5 II workout have incorporated back squats. It seems that nobody uses proper technique at my Unversity gym; I’m now known as that ‘guy who does ridiculously low front squats’. They make back squats feel comparatively easy and I’ve had no pain whatsoever from either.
Great work Mehdi!
@Mat
I’m interested in trying a wider stance like you suggest as I’m quite tall too, that said I’m not interested in the knee pain! Have you made any progress?
Another vote for the clean grip. I tried it this morning with 189lbs x 5…another PR.
My balanced has SIGNIFICANTLY improved. This feels like the anatomically correct way to do this excercise. Prior to reading this article I was chicken and kept using the cross grip.
I am a big fan of what you are doing here Mehdi. Keep it going.