I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The front squat is hands-down my favorite exercise. Whenever I say this, it tends to start a front squat versus back squat debate. Which is crazy, as it’s not an either-or situation.
But I will say that for an athlete who wants to get all-around strong, steer clear of injury, and maximize carry over into strength sports, the front squat offers a number of advantages.
RELATED: Save Your Back by Switching to Front Squats
Why Do Front Squats
In my article When in Doubt, Do Front Squats: 25 Tips for Better Front Squats, I explain:
- From a coaching perspective - Front squats are easier to teach, more self-correcting, and promote better depth.
- From an injury prevention perspective - Front squats are kinder on the shoulders, and incur less shear forces and compressive forces.
- From an athletic perspective - Front squats facilitate awesome core strength and have incredible carry over into other strength movements. This is not just strength-wise, but in terms of position and mechanics, too.
For Olympic weightlifters, the front squat is the best movement for learning the squat clean bottom position. Weightlifting coach Bob Takano explains why in his article Hitting Bottom: 3 Tools to Perfect Your Olympic Lifts:
The best movement for learning the squat clean bottom position is the traditional front squat. This movement performed with an optimal amount of weight will force the body into the bottom position, while simultaneously stretching the tendons and ligaments involved in achieving the position. At this point the front squat is not a strengthening exercise, but a positioning and stretching exercise.
For powerlifters, the front squat can be valuable as an assistance exercise to the back squat. For strongmen, the front squat ties in very well to positions within the sport, such as sitting with a Atlas stone on your lap, ready to drive the stone up and onto the platform (pictured below). For CrossFitters, it also has carryover to other movements within the sport, such as thrusters and wall balls.
So let’s take a deeper look at the movement itself, why you might want to perform it, and variations on the standard barbell front squat.