Detecting weakness in the front squat.

[Hawkpeter]

Charles,

what would be the key indicators of weakness/faults in the front squat? Weak quads and the lifter ending up hip driving the bar in front of the mid foot? Or weak upper back that loses shape leading to the bar getting in front of the mid foot? It seems to me that both can occur, and could simultaneously.


This gives the context of the question; right now I'm training a young lifter who took his back squat progression up to 3 by 5 @ 187.5kg. While this was happening his clean stalled at 135kg and we kept missing 140kg (nearly a month) switched out the back squat with front squatting and now trying to bring that up, went 3 by 5 @ 130, 135 and 140kg the last 3 weeks. We're considering a Oly Lifting comp later in the year and the training age is 20 months. The lifter is also 6'5" 1/2 which adds to my thinking that upper back strength is the issue with such a long torso. Catching the clean when it gets to 127.5kg+ causing him to lose his shape a little.

So on one hand I could have taken the lifter through to his linear progression exhaustion point on the back squat but I dont think that is going to pay dividends with the Oly lifting right now.

[Charles Staley]

generally the achilles heel of the front squat is upper back strength. But with that said,when you say your lifter is missing 140 cleans, how is the lift being missed? I.e., is he failing to rack the bar, or is he racking the bar and then getting pinned?


Charles,

what would be the key indicators of weakness/faults in the front squat? Weak quads and the lifter ending up hip driving the bar in front of the mid foot? Or weak upper back that loses shape leading to the bar getting in front of the mid foot? It seems to me that both can occur, and could simultaneously.


This gives the context of the question; right now I'm training a young lifter who took his back squat progression up to 3 by 5 @ 187.5kg. While this was happening his clean stalled at 135kg and we kept missing 140kg (nearly a month) switched out the back squat with front squatting and now trying to bring that up, went 3 by 5 @ 130, 135 and 140kg the last 3 weeks. We're considering a Oly Lifting comp later in the year and the training age is 20 months. The lifter is also 6'5" 1/2 which adds to my thinking that upper back strength is the issue with such a long torso. Catching the clean when it gets to 127.5kg+ causing him to lose his shape a little.

So on one hand I could have taken the lifter through to his linear progression exhaustion point on the back squat but I dont think that is going to pay dividends with the Oly lifting right now.

[Hawkpeter]

He doesn't get pinned with 140kg, he loses it out the front. He can get under it no problem but as he racks it and tries to ascend he loses shape, the bar comes forward and he dumps it.

Right now the plan is to take 150kg for triples next week and take that up as far as we can for as long as we can and see if it correlates to a better catch. Ever prescribed zercher holds or just unracking a very heavy front squat just to hold it in order to bring up the upper back strength?

[Charles Staley]

Ah, gotcha.

He needs both cleans and front squats. You can do them in combo-sets, for example, 1 clean followed by 2-3 front squats.


He doesn't get pinned with 140kg, he loses it out the front. He can get under it no problem but as he racks it and tries to ascend he loses shape, the bar comes forward and he dumps it.

Right now the plan is to take 150kg for triples next week and take that up as far as we can for as long as we can and see if it correlates to a better catch. Ever prescribed zercher holds or just unracking a very heavy front squat just to hold it in order to bring up the upper back strength?

[Hawkpeter]

Took combo sets yesterday of front squats @ 150kg for triples and cleans at 125kg. The front squats were taxing for him and he missed the second clean in the combo sets. First time we've tried that so I sense it was a bit disorientating with the significant change in programming.

We'll continue to pursue this experiment for a few weeks and see what comes of it.

[Charles Staley]

Forgive me for not noticing this post until now- please keep me informed!

For whatever it's worth, I have a client who tends to catch her cleans "in front" or "forward," as coaching will say, and I just determined that it's a bar path issue on the pull- she pulls the bar too far in front, and then she must lean forward in the catch to meet the bar, instead of pulling the bar to her shoulders. Important to look at everything!


Took combo sets yesterday of front squats @ 150kg for triples and cleans at 125kg. The front squats were taxing for him and he missed the second clean in the combo sets. First time we've tried that so I sense it was a bit disorientating with the significant change in programming.

We'll continue to pursue this experiment for a few weeks and see what comes of it.

[Hawkpeter]

No, this looks like classic upper back strength the more I think about it, racking it well from a good bar path is not the problem, the problem is losing shape with the catch. I think this strategy of getting the front squat up heavier with sets of 2-3 and combo-ing with cleans will work.

[LimieJosh]

I used to have problems racking the bar properly during front squats so that I was actively working to keep the bar from falling forward/down with my delts, and they would fail as I got anywhere near body weight. I had an epihany and figured out that I was trying to properly grip the bar, which pulled it forward off my shoulders. Now I use an open palm with it just resting across my fingers and the I'm finally able to feel it as a lower body exercise and have significantly closed the gap between with my back squat.

However, my new problem is that by my 3rd rep my hands become rotated such that only the first two fingers are in contact with the bar. It doesn't affect the squat per se, but it means that any combination movement including a front squat becomes very problematic; it's very difficult to go into a pressing position and putting it back down on the ground to perform another clean is a bit of a liability.

Is this common? I assume this is a simple flexability issue? Triceps? Wrists?

[spar]

Hawkpeter and Charles,

I'm a beginner at the O. lifts, so please feel free to smack me down for being presumptuous. I have no idea how long you've been teaching the O. lifts, Hawkpeter, so forgive me if the following is bleeding obvious.

But I wanted to just comment that I was having problems in this portion of the clean until my coach corrected my elbows. I was rotating them under and getting them high properly, so my catch was good, but I wasn't focusing on keeping them up as I was ascending. Keeping those elbows up does something to the structure of my upper back--it seems to send me the right signals to keep it sturdy and in the correct alignment to maximize strength when ascending out of the bottom position. It also helps me keep the alignment of the entire back and the hip angle in a good position that prevents me from having to dump the bar out front. I was having trouble with dumping the bar at weights < my front squat until I fixed the elbow issue, and then I was instantly able to clean my front squat weight no problem. Granted, my front squats and cleans are puny compared to your trainee.

Also, Charles, I guess an intro from me is probably good manners:

I'm 38, female, 5'3". I train the O. lifts out at Lost Battalion Hall in Queens with Joe Triolo. I started last September, technically, but I had to take several months off due to illness shortly after starting, so overall I've been at it less than 6 months.

I started because I was frustrated with the way my knee was (not) healing after a surgery a while back. A year after surgery, following all the PTs' advice, I was still having a lot of problems (although it was an entirely new pain in a completely different part of the knee--the original problem was resolved, at least).

I had a gut feeling that deep squatting (which I had been told over and over again by my PTs to avoid) would actually fix the problem, and I'd always wanted to learn the O. lifts, so, in a fit of pique, I just made the decision to start training out at LBH and see whether my knee would explode. After only 3 weeks, my knee saw drastic improvement.

Since then, I've been doing Rip's SS program, modified to 2x/week, and training out at LBH when I can, usually 1x per week but sometimes 2. I find it's been a great combination for both getting my knee back to 100% (it's not quite there yet, but it's close) and getting back some of my strength from years ago (before the years of knee pain and then the surgery and aftermath, I used to do a powerlifting-style program to supplement my martial arts training).

The LBH team drafted me (they're very welcoming and want all lifters to join them, regardless of experience or ability), and I managed to qualify for the Empire State Games next month, which will be my first competition. I don't expect to place or anything, since I barely made my qualifying minimums, but the team wants me to represent, and I think the experience will be good for me and fun.

As I mentioned above, I'm also a martial artist. I studied at a school teaching a blend of traditional northern and southern Shaolin styles for 10 years, studied Chen family taiji for almost 3 (my knee trouble made that really hard, so I stopped, but I plan to go back to it) and have been studying bagua (a blend of styles but mostly Gao Jiwu's lineage, yin style) for about as long as I've been O. lifting.

I actually was introduced to your work about maybe 7 or 8 years ago when I bought The Science of Martial Arts Training, which I enjoyed and found massively helpful. I was glad to see your guest forum here at SS. I'll probably be spending most of my time here lurking, since I'm still new at the O. lifts, but I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions here.

[Charles Staley]

Spar, good observation, and great to see your knee is responding well to squats. Squatting of course, is what the knee is designed to do- amazing that PTs often don't recognize this.

Joe is great - you're in good hands at LBH


Hawkpeter and Charles,

I'm a beginner at the O. lifts, so please feel free to smack me down for being presumptuous. I have no idea how long you've been teaching the O. lifts, Hawkpeter, so forgive me if the following is bleeding obvious.

But I wanted to just comment that I was having problems in this portion of the clean until my coach corrected my elbows. I was rotating them under and getting them high properly, so my catch was good, but I wasn't focusing on keeping them up as I was ascending. Keeping those elbows up does something to the structure of my upper back--it seems to send me the right signals to keep it sturdy and in the correct alignment to maximize strength when ascending out of the bottom position. It also helps me keep the alignment of the entire back and the hip angle in a good position that prevents me from having to dump the bar out front. I was having trouble with dumping the bar at weights < my front squat until I fixed the elbow issue, and then I was instantly able to clean my front squat weight no problem. Granted, my front squats and cleans are puny compared to your trainee.

Also, Charles, I guess an intro from me is probably good manners:

I'm 38, female, 5'3". I train the O. lifts out at Lost Battalion Hall in Queens with Joe Triolo. I started last September, technically, but I had to take several months off due to illness shortly after starting, so overall I've been at it less than 6 months.

I started because I was frustrated with the way my knee was (not) healing after a surgery a while back. A year after surgery, following all the PTs' advice, I was still having a lot of problems (although it was an entirely new pain in a completely different part of the knee--the original problem was resolved, at least).

I had a gut feeling that deep squatting (which I had been told over and over again by my PTs to avoid) would actually fix the problem, and I'd always wanted to learn the O. lifts, so, in a fit of pique, I just made the decision to start training out at LBH and see whether my knee would explode. After only 3 weeks, my knee saw drastic improvement.

Since then, I've been doing Rip's SS program, modified to 2x/week, and training out at LBH when I can, usually 1x per week but sometimes 2. I find it's been a great combination for both getting my knee back to 100% (it's not quite there yet, but it's close) and getting back some of my strength from years ago (before the years of knee pain and then the surgery and aftermath, I used to do a powerlifting-style program to supplement my martial arts training).

The LBH team drafted me (they're very welcoming and want all lifters to join them, regardless of experience or ability), and I managed to qualify for the Empire State Games next month, which will be my first competition. I don't expect to place or anything, since I barely made my qualifying minimums, but the team wants me to represent, and I think the experience will be good for me and fun.

As I mentioned above, I'm also a martial artist. I studied at a school teaching a blend of traditional northern and southern Shaolin styles for 10 years, studied Chen family taiji for almost 3 (my knee trouble made that really hard, so I stopped, but I plan to go back to it) and have been studying bagua (a blend of styles but mostly Gao Jiwu's lineage, yin style) for about as long as I've been O. lifting.

I actually was introduced to your work about maybe 7 or 8 years ago when I bought The Science of Martial Arts Training, which I enjoyed and found massively helpful. I was glad to see your guest forum here at SS. I'll probably be spending most of my time here lurking, since I'm still new at the O. lifts, but I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions here.

[Hawkpeter]

The plan seems to be working well.

Yesterday took 160kg front squat for doubles and mixed in cleans at 135kg for 4 cycles. We're going up 2.5kg on both next week.

Regarding LimieJosh's question about opening the hands up for front squatting and Spar's observation about elbow height for the catch, this particular lifter has about as good wrist flexibility and strength as someone could ask for so that is not the problem in this case although several other lifters in my gym do have that problem and it does lead to the bar being racked in-front and being lost for them. This lifter just has a very long torso at 6'5" 1/2 and it makes me think that the taller you get the bigger the difference may need to be between your max front squat and your clean.

[Hawkpeter]

Further to my point in my previous post; Charles, what is your experience with regards to the difference between, and transfer of, a very good progression on the front and back squat and the ability to ascend from a clean? I reference this article which commentates on this aspect of training...

http://www.dynamic-eleiko.com/sportivny/library/farticles004.html

What has your observation been like with lifters who have a big differential between their clean and squat numbers and those with a small differential? any thoughts on why? any consistencies? something testable and predictable?

[Charles Staley]

I have seen this article before. My first thought is that, unless you are getting pinned by your cleans, the topic is irrelevant. So- are you getting pinned by your cleans?


Further to my point in my previous post; Charles, what is your experience with regards to the difference between, and transfer of, a very good progression on the front and back squat and the ability to ascend from a clean? I reference this article which commentates on this aspect of training...

http://www.dynamic-eleiko.com/sportivny/library/farticles004.html

What has your observation been like with lifters who have a big differential between their clean and squat numbers and those with a small differential? any thoughts on why? any consistencies? something testable and predictable?

[Hawkpeter]

Not particularly, but I'll probably go through some training log books today and tomorrow and calculate some %ages between the best cleans and snatches and compare them to the lifters' best back and front squats.

When I can add a quantified piece of data to the argument of why someone has to work harder on their technique because they fall way outside of a more general standard deviation for an experienced lifter then the argument is made for me.

It wont change that they all need to get stronger and more efficient, its always nice to have people problem solving with more data at hand i feel.