Zercher Squat
Trains the Quads.
- Equipment
- A barbell and a rack
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Advanced
How to do it
- Set a barbell in a rack at about waist height.
- Hook both arms under the bar so it rests in the crooks of your elbows, hands clasped in front of your chest.
- Stand up and step back, feet about shoulder-width with the toes turned out.
- Brace your stomach hard — the bar in front pulls you forward constantly.
- Squat down keeping the torso as upright as you can, elbows travelling between the knees.
- Drive back up without letting the chest drop, then rack the bar rather than lowering it to the floor.
Common mistakes
- Resting the bar on the forearms rather than in the crook of the elbow. Further down the forearm it digs in and slides; in the crook it sits on tissue that can take it.
- Letting the chest drop. The load is in front, so a dropped chest rolls the bar forward and the lower back takes it — and there is no hand position to catch it with.
- Starting from the floor. Getting a loaded bar into the elbows from the ground is its own difficult movement; a rack at waist height removes it.
- Using a bare bar with no padding on a heavy set. The bar sits on a small area of the arm, and a towel or pad is the difference between a hard set and an unfinishable one.