Barbell Front Squat

How to do it

1. Set the bar in a rack at roughly collarbone height and set the safety pins just below your intended squat depth.
2. Step under the bar and rest it across the front of your shoulders, against the throat, not on the collarbones alone.
3. Take a front rack grip: hands just outside the shoulders with the fingertips under the bar and the elbows driven high, or arms crossed with the hands on top of the bar.
4. Whichever grip you use, the elbows must stay high — the shelf holding the bar is your shoulders, and the elbows are what keeps it there.
5. Stand up to unrack, step back, and set your feet about shoulder-width with the toes turned out slightly.
6. Take a breath, brace, and squat straight down, keeping your torso as upright as possible.
7. Descend until the hip crease drops below the knee, then drive up while keeping the elbows high.

Common mistakes

• Letting the elbows drop. As soon as the elbows fall, the bar rolls forward off the shoulders and the torso follows it. Elbows high is not a style point; it is what holds the bar on.
• Gripping the bar in the hands and trying to hold it. The bar rests on the shoulders — the fingers only stop it rolling. A loose fingertip grip with high elbows works; a white-knuckle grip does not.
• Squatting it like a back squat. The front rack demands a much more upright torso, which is why the front squat loads the quadriceps more and the hips less.
• Loading it like a back squat. Most people front squat considerably less, and that is the position rather than a weakness.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Quads

Secondary

• Calves
• Glutes
• Hamstrings