A front squat is a great squat to work on maintaining proper back arch and not having too much forward trunk flexion. The bar is placed on your anterior deltoids, or right on your collarbone. When you do the squat with the bar there, if you bend forward too much, the bar will literally roll of your arms and onto the floor. So, you are forced to maintain good body position. Because the bar is supported by your shoulders, you are not able to do as much weight as a traditional back squat. So, the front squat is great for building leg strength, especially in the quads, but it also a great exercise for learning the proper squatting motion, assuring that the first motion is your hips back, not bending your knees.
There are two different types of grips for the front squat:
The clean grip:
The cross grip:
Whether you choose the clean grip or the cross grip, it doesn't matter. As far as my preference, I use the cross grip. With the gross grip the weight of the bar rests on your anterior deltoids, and you just have to assure your elbows stay at the same level of your shoulders.
The clean grip is also good, but tends to cause a lot of stress on the wrists. If you look at the picture, you can see how extended his wrists are. You have to have great wrist flexibility in order to do that.
So, remember this is a humbling exercise. You will not be able to toss around the same weight with this exercise as a traditional back exercise. But, this is a lot more challenging, requiring a lot of core strength and good body position.
Look forward to part 3, the final part of the art of the squat later this week when I talk about single leg variations.
Any questions, shoot me an e-mail.
All the best,
Doug Spurling, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Spurling Strength & Speed
dspurling@une.edu
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