 Hi, I'm Lance Goyki and today we're gonna talk about the front squats one of my favorite squatting variations Okay, why is it my favorite? It's because it's got this really good blend of Helping you achieve good positions, but also Allowing you to load your lower body and you're you know your body in general to teach you how to you know I what does Pat Davidson say teach you how to mash, right? I just want you to go sometimes Okay, it's not all about is this the perfect movement sometimes. It's about let's train Let's go Right, so what is a front squat front squat is when I hold the bar on the front of my shoulders? Oftentimes with Olympic weight lifters, you'll see them hold it like this where their fingertips are on the bar out here Just outside their shoulders the bar actually sits on the shoulders not in the hands The hands are just guiding it right another way to do it So this is more of a bodybuilder way But you can put the bar like you if you walked in like Frankenstein to the rack and you put the bar right up here Right up here against your throat and you lifted your arms up like this You could theoretically bring the bar out like this and bodybuilders will often cross their arms to give themselves some sort of sensation of where the bar is at with their fingers Okay, so what does this do so the forward weight that you're holding there shifts your body backward If you've watched any of my other videos on squatting You know that we often fall forward and you need to then shift backward instead, so If you don't have the upper body mobility to do this I like I you know I like this variation because I have a lot of mobility and I feel pretty Stable when I do it this way, but if I don't have the mobility or if my wrists are bothering me I can either turn my thumbs in like this I can hold little lifting straps like right here. I'll tie them to the bar You know the ones that but they like yank you to the bar to help your grip when your grip is failing on your deadlift If you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry about it Just try this variation where you put the bar on your shoulder right up against your neck and you cross your arms in front of you Okay, this is a challenging video to make because I don't have a barbell, but hopefully you can picture this So front squat really good for teaching you to sit back at the bottom instead of falling forward at the bottom It allows a more upright position It allows you to achieve more mobility when the bar is on your back It pitches you over and it steals your hip flexion mobility So as you squat down you need more hip flexion And if you've already used some of it you run out sooner so you can't squat as low with the front squat That's not really the case. You get to balance yourself. You get to open up your your pelvis a little bit more It's a little easier to maintain a position to where your hips have more mobility And you can squat deeper and a little bit more effortlessly as long as there's not too much weight on the bar Things to look out for with the the front squat as you get tired The bar is gonna want to roll forward off your shoulder and into the crux of your elbow here Do not allow that to happen make sure you're driving your elbows upward and Especially as you come down you're gonna need to drive your elbows even more upward You have to think the bar wants to roll off because of gravity gravity is respective to the earth Not respective to you so much So this might be an appropriate position when you're standing, but it is no longer appropriate if you have to bend over a little bit Okay, so instead as you come down you're gonna drive your elbows up a little bit more and Keep that weight back into your throat It can be really uncomfortable these little sternoclavicular joints of mine like to get really inflamed and Extra bony when I'm front squatting so you might want to think about pushing your shoulders Forward and up a little bit to give yourself a little shelf But big deals here are make sure your feet stay flat make sure you're driving through your legs You should feel your leg muscles working very hard and then You can progress Okay after you try the front squat, maybe you go to a safety squat bar squat if you have one of those laying around Maybe you go to a back squat to find something a little bit more challenging Maybe a little bit heavier or maybe you just stay at the front squat because there's no reason that you need to back squat Mull that over if you disagree feel free to leave a comment below. I'd love to discuss