How to Avoid Leaning Forward on Squats
Oct 17th, 2007 by Mehdi Tags: Exercise, Squat, Weight Lifting
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A common error on the Squat is to lean forward. Check the picture above for an example of a Squat turning into a Goodmorning. Leaning forward is bad. This article will teach you how to avoid leaning forward on the Squat & why.
Why is Leaning Forward Bad? You should avoid leaning forward on the Squat for the following three reasons:
- More stress on your lower back.
- Less efficient use of your hip muscles.
- Increased risk of bending your lower back.
Leaning forward isolates your lower back: the Squat becomes a Goodmorning. This puts more stress on your lower back. The good way is to use your hip muscles, including the glutes, which are your strongest muscles.
Why You Lean Forward On Squats. Beginners lean forward for different reasons than intermediates & advanced athletes.
- Beginners: your hips raise faster than your shoulders.
- Intermediate/Advanced: you’re not using your glutes.
If you don’t use your glutes correctly, you’ll try to get the weight up using your lower back by leaning forward. This increases the stress on your lower back which gets all the load. Meaning increased risk of lower back injury.
How to Fix It? Several ways you can avoid leaning forward on the Squat:
- Push From the Heels. This shifts the center of gravity to the back. Curl your toes up if needed & push upwards, not to the front.
- Look Forward. Your body follows your head. Never look down. You risk pushing to the front rather than pushing upwards.
- Squat Wider. Opening your stance allows your hips to go deeper more easily than when using a narrow stance.
- Stretch Hips Muscles. Stretch all muscles of the hip: Hip Flexors, Piriformis, Psoas, Adductors, Glutes, Hamstrings, etc.
- Chest Up. Make a big chest & lift it up. Tighten your upper-back, try to touch your shoulder-blades. Your chest must stay up at all times.
- Bring Your Hips Up. Lockout the weight by bringing your hips up. Squeeze your glutes hard. Do glute activation work if needed.
- Lower the Weight. Often the weight will be too heavy. So you’ll lower your hips less & your torso more to try to break parallel. Watch your ego. Weight increases must be the result of strength increases, not of more advantageous technique.
- Front Squats. If you can’t stop leaning forward, try Front Squats for a while. You can lean forward on Front Squats, but less than with Back Squats: the bar will fall out of your hands.
- Practice. Good technique comes with practice. Squat a lot, especially if you’ve been leaning forward for a long time. Get some weight off the bar, relearn to Squat from scratch, you’ll reap the benefits afterwards.
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Are you saying this is wrong (bottom position)? Or do you mean leaning forward as in the top picture?
If the former, I’d like to disagree for once. Leaning forward ain’t bad, as long as you go deep enough, and get up in a good fashion.
Try this:
Sit in your chair. Feet firmly planted on the ground in front of you. Now try to get up without leaning forward or moving your feet. Let me know how it goes.
It’s simple physics. Don’t defy it. Use it.
If you mean the latter, yeah I agree
There’s always a leaning forward on Squats. In the picture you posted the leaning forward is ok. Turning a Squat in a goodmorning, by raising the hips faster than the rest, is nok. But you see it happen a lot. Frequently asked questions on forums.
http://www.wannabebig.com/images/sgm1.jpg
In comparison, the squat should look like this picture? This looks pretty good.. I mean I could nitpick on his feet being close together and his knees beyond his toes, but it’s a good comparison shot..
I was squatting similar to the picture at the start of the article, so yeah I was leaning forward way too much.. coupled with going below parallel in this awkward position, I think this lead to my upper left leg/quad injury..
One other way to think about the “chest up” recommendation is to make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together. This will result in the chest up, but will also make sure that you are loading the shoulders properly for the bar and will help make sure that the squat doesn’t turn into a good morning. I would do the chest up, but then someone got me to concentrate on squeezing the shoulder blades and sticking their fingers into my thoracic spine to cue me, and it made a bigger difference in my shoulders as a base for the bar and my upper body posture. I still have to remind myself as I step under the bar and get set to squeeze the shoulder blades, can I wiggle my toes (as a prompt to be properly back on my heels), and keep my eyes straight ahead or my form slips.
I forgot to say that since Mehdi mentions the shoulder blades, that my point was not a fault in his advice, but rather was more how I found it useful to focus on the problem by coming at it from the shoulders as a prompt rather than the chest. The person I mentioned above also told me to think that someone just stuck a $100 (substitute comparable currency for you situation) between my shoulders and told me that if I could keep it from falling through the set I could keep it. I responded “let’s try it for real and see what happens” (he didn’t ; ( btw) but the image has stuck with me and been helpful.
Dude, this is a great stuff…I use to do that…and I have YEARS training…
Why?
I think its cause I’m not using enough my glutes and some weeks ago I’m trying to get focus on pushing from the heels, and focusing on bringing my hip forward and not to get “my back up”.
Once again, nice stuff!
@DaveM
2 exercises for those who struggle to squeeze their shoulderblades:
* Shoulder Dislocations
* Overhead Squats
These will increase the flexibility/mobility in shoulders/upperback.
@Femtoman
Picture you show is more a close stance high bar squat. But the leaning forward is ok. Check your technique: letting your hips raise faster then the rest puts stress on your lower back.
Nice timing (again !)
For a person who’s never quite gotten the squat technique right, how can I stop my hips from raising faster than the rest?
Keeping your chest up & looking forward is the best tip for that noobieJR.
From my experience, I’m convinced that sticking your behind out too much will also lead to leaning forward.
Hey Mehdi, great tips again! I still feel that i have a problem with my upper body leaning forward. For some reason i’m just naturally doing this to stop myself falling over backwards. I have a quick video if u wouldn’t mind looking at it and just tell me whats wrong with my form? Thanks again, greatly appreciated!
Link to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAL3YqJBHFU
@Tj
Video is fine. Can’t see anything without a barbell on your back. Get an account on the forum & post videos/questions there in the future please.
Hey sorry Mehdi, yeah just posted new vid in the forums, if you one check it. My problem seems to be that my lower back is rounding, so ill check your article on that.