Everyone knows front squats are good, but few do them religiously. Maybe the technique is intimidating. Maybe they aren’t sure about how to program them in. Maybe they just don’t like pain. I mean, squats are hard enough when taken to the limit, but front squats feel like you’re doing a set of lunges with an anaconda around your neck. Most people don’t find that fun. But if you’re one of the weirdos that do… the reward is huge.

Position

Upright

• Assuming we aren’t doing some Zercher harness monstrosity, the beauty of a front squat is that the barbell position REQUIRES the correct, desired position of being upright. You can cheat a high bar squat, but if you cheat a front squat, you dump the bar, or end up in some kind of contorted hunchback position that makes you wonder how a squat can be a bicep exercise.

Forward knee

• Staying upright means the hips stay under you, which means the knee gets pushed forward more. Anything that moves the weight further horizontally from the joint (a moment for you physics nerds) will require that joint to work harder. It’s why hamstring curls and leg extensions are harder with the pad further down and why situps are harder with the weight behind your head rather than on your chest. Thus, front squats are a more ‘quadier’ version of a squat. It’s also why using a plate under your heels or oly shoes is probably a good idea, since a forward knee requires ankle flexibility you may not have.

Deeper position

• Where it’s intuitive for many to hit the breaks close to parallel on a back squat, you’ll probably find that rock bottom is a cozier position on a front squat than parallel. The weight in front makes it easier to balance with an upright torso and a full squat seems much more intuitive, which is one of the reasons goblet squats are a fantastic option for teaching squats to newbies. Not only does this get you to get some of those sweet, sweet ROM gains you’ve been missing out on with your giraffe pussy squats, but it fosters mobility through your ankles, knees and hips, which prepares you for more athletic positions. And regular squats feel like easy mode after.

Training Effect

Shoulder mobility

• If you have the ability to front rack, pat yourself on the back. This is a great tool in your box, as it means you can effectively set up for cleans, push presses, overhead presses…. and your shoulders aren’t as likely to be wads of knotted scar tissue that click and grind when you replace a lightbulb. Your wrists, lats, triceps all need to be loose to get in this position and you need good range on external rotation. So if you can’t do this… it means your shit is all fucked up.
• The good news is that even a crossover grip requires a bit of suppleness from your thoracic spine, so doing the cheater version of a front squat is still better than not doing it at all. Though apparently now I can’t do that either. hooo-boy

Upper back and midsection destruction

• The back can support just a shit ton of weight if you’re able to build tension through the muscles that support the torso…. take a deep breath and hold while you squeeze everything back, cram them down and you will hold 800lb yokes and 500lb benches like they were mere saplings. What happens if you do the opposite? Roll the shoulders forward, stretch the muscles instead of contract, lose any semblance of stability or tightness? Well, instead of supporting the weight with the iron pillar that is your rigid spine, you have know turned your back into a slinky. As if squats weren’t bad enough, with a front rack, every muscle between your tonsels and sphincter now have to work harder just to hold position. Yeah, sounds super fun. If you’re new to these or haven’t done them for a while, do a few workouts beltless and see how your abs feel.

Glutes, Quads, Hams

• It’s more quadier, like we said before, because the knee is going through more ROM AND it’s being pushed away from the center of mass more. There is still a lot of hip extension going on, so something must be happening in the glutes and hamstrings.
• For the hips, there is a shorter moment at the very bottom than with a back squat, but if you are getting lower than you are used to, your glutes might actually get lit up from the new stimulus. And don’t forget about the rest of the movement…. the glutes are what keep you upright, and weight being further away from them makes that harder…. so above parallel, half way up, and at lockout the glutes are going to be pretty stressed. Whether it’s ‘harder’ on the glutes depends on your build, how you typically squat, and what you are most acclimated to. Just know that no one has excelled at front squats with small cakes.
• People have put up monster front squats with small hams though. I spoke to a college strength and conditioning coach who ran a large Crossfit box and cited weak hams as a perpetual problem… there was just way more upright olympic style squatting than hinging. Rippetoe hates front squats for this reason, so much that he took them out of Practical Programming. But that assumes that every exercise is supposed to do everything, which is insane, so as long as you actually do a hinge or two, those sweet little back-leg muscles will be just fine.

Transfer

Staying upright with a barbell

• Situations that require staying upright with a barbell include:
  • Olympic lifters or any athlete who performs cleans, snatches, jerks or push presses
  • Bodybuilders or any lifter who uses quad focused work like sissy squats or high bar squats
  • Powerlifters or any lifter who uses upright squatting as a necessary supplement to their typical squat
• One of the most valuable contributions my front squat has made is in overhead pressing. When a loaded bar is in your hands and you are tasked with yeeting it overhead, it has to feel light, and nothing makes your arms, back, and legs prepared for jumping a barbell or log overhead than many reps of heavy-ass front squats.

Staying upright with any weight

• But beyond barbell specific stuff, if you ever, for any reason, need to be effective in an upright position, with any weight… front squats will help with that.
• In strongman, this is most events. Car deadlifts and trap bar deadlifts are best done with a vicious leg drive at the start and hips that scoop forward violently. Proficient front squatters get this intuitively. You will often see monster stones, kegs, and sandbags picked, shouldered and loaded, and the thin-man build deadlift specialists often use hip swing pull this off. But a big front squat makes it easy to sit down, set your grip, and put the weight where it needs to be like a trusty forklift. And that shitty “spread out, loosey goosey” posture we talked about? Turns out that’s exactly how you are when you grab a bag or keg or when you carry a husafell stone. Back squats are fantastic for building the generalized power of a hydraulic scissor jack. But front squats allow you to use that in the real world.

Training

Almost all of my programs center around basic barbell lifts, S/B/D/O/R, and some rotation of variations. The basic lifts are great by themselves, but any program worth it’s salt should be able to have a minimum amount of variation to prevent weak points from popping up, keep you from getting stagnant, and to not be so effing boring. In my programs in Base Strength AI, including Block, Bullmastiff, and 70s Powerlifter, front squats are ALWAYS a default variation and the results haven’t let us down. Speaking of front squats and Base Strength AI, 70s Powerlifter is becoming one of the most popular programs on that app; you can find it there, in my book Base Strength… or probably in an excel sheet on LIft Vault or something. I’m doing a video soon on Discord member Lars and his monster 82.5kg improvement on his total running 70s PL, while cutting 6kg!

These are the principles I use when incorporating front squats.

ALWAYS start with ample flexibility work

• If you’re going with a front rack, do a few 30 second holds with the bar on your fingertips across your collarbone, pushing the elbows up. Run through a few lat, tricep and rotator cuff stretchs and it will suck 10x less. And if you are trying to be a show off ‘front-racker’, wrist wraps can also make the position less painful.
• Getting the glutes and quads loosened up can make the bottom position feel less trashy… some of you might be able to just do some 20 second holds in the bottom with an empty bar… some of you might need to actually need some more aggressive work. But do something.
• and don’t neglect the ankles. The success of this lift depends ENTIRELY on your ankles ability to push the shin forward because that’s the only way your hips can stay under you which is definitionally part of an upright position. You don’t kneed to get creative, just squat down, put your elbows on one knee and sink your weight into that leg. Hold for 30 seconds and switch. And for gods sake elevate your heel; oly shoes, 2.5lb plates, or whatever debris you find in the gym

Shouldn’t replace regular squats

• Back squats are too good at building general strength, and (while not likely for most) it’s entirely possible to see your front squat climb while your back squat drops. If you replace movements, they have to be very similar, but the beauty of the front squat is it’s different enough to patch big holes in your game. Use them as the second exercise after squats or as the main movement on another lower body day, and the synergy will be nuts.

Will make you sore, but generally more recoverable

• If the positioning is new, you are going to be wrecked from these. Upper back, mid back, abs, quads…. even your glutes might have a rough week. But remember that is local muscular fatigue and it will get better. It’s systemic fatigue you need to worry about and front squats tend to be very low on this scale. This means you don’t have to be as careful about programming as with more stressful movements like deadlifts. That’s not a green light to go do Bulgarian front squat edition, but know that you can practice position multiple times per week if you are tight without burning out. Many of you might walk around feeling like you got donkey kicked in back, so let soreness be your guide

Reps suck. Do them.

• You will adapt to these much faster if you prioritize higher reps over multiple sets than if you start chasing heavy weight. Hard sets with low reps leads to form breakdown quicker and that will always be in the back. But if you set the work somewhere below RPE “turtle taking a shit”, and do enough total reps to get some practice, your back will strengthen on par with everything else and more importantly you will be clocking skill work with good habits. Now front squat rep sets aren’t quite like back squats…. I’ve talked before about high rep squat protocols, like Smolov or Super Squats, and often get questions like “can i do this with front squats?”. I LOVE your moxie, young dreamer. Don’t ever lose that. But no, you can’t. Pushing the ever loving shit out of something like 20 rep breathing squats only works because the back can last longer than the legs. Front squats rob you of this.

Look for ‘positioning’ PRs before weight PRs

• Because position will always be the limiting factor, and because you will be fatigued from the other squatting and deadlifting throughout the week, you shouldn’t plan to just throw more pig weight on the bar to progress forward. I recommend repeating the same weight from the prior workout and only greenlighting a weight jump if it feels better and more stable. It’s completely ok to repeat the exact same set and reps with the same weight; every workout won’t be a banger. And if you don’t take your time here, you will get frustrated and hate front squats.