I am doing front squats, but as I lower myself, I have to lean my torso forward to keep the weight over my center of gravity to avoid falling backwards. This takes alot of stress off of my quads and makes it pretty much a back squat with my barely hanging onto the bar in front of me. I use the olympic grip. I can back squat ass to grass so I don’t think it is hip or knee flexibility.
If I use a 2x4 under my heels I can keep my torso upright, but it destroys my knees. Is this an ankle flexibility problem? if so, will my ankles get more flexible if I keep front squatting or is it just like banging against a brick wall? i do ankle mobility movements but they dont seem to help much.
Get rid of the 2X4
Improve your hamstring Flexibility
Don’t worry about forward lean. Your forward lean is too much when you drop the bar.
Try just going to parallel with good form instead of ATG. If you’re not flexible enough, going ATG will cause your lower back to round.
Keep that back arched!
watch videos of good front squats, do you look like this? I would invest in weightlifting shoes, I love them I feel very safe squatting in them then in my basketball shoes. Also with them you should be able to very comfortably hit atg its also improved my flexibility squatting low with them.
You need to find a happy medium. As you said the board fixes the problem, but then your knees hurt. This means your calves are not flexibly enough, but at the same time, your putting your knees too far forward and aren’t pushing through your heels enough.
Theres nothing wrong with a forward lean, as long as its not excessive.
Im wondering how you ATG back squat, but have to lean forward with a front squat. The center of gravity is more forward on front squats, so shouldn’t you be leaning forward less?
That is a pretty decent front squat for your weight. There could be a few issues. As you go down your knees should come forward quite a bit but you should be able to maintain somewhat of an arch. This will allow you to use your glutes and hamstrings throughout the lift.
You mention you can do an ass to grass squat. Everyone on the planet can do an ass to grass squat, what matters is what your ass looks like when its approaching the grass. Do you tail tuck excessively very early in the movement?
The what is happening to you could be a combination of a flexibility issue as well as a few other problems. But mainly, what you are describing is what happens when the weight is getting too heavy, your quads cannot handle the load and tries to get more help from the posterior chain, as in a back squat.
Especially if you can stay nice and vertical with say 135 for sets of 10 I would definitely say it is a strength issue. The next step from what you are talking about is just dumping the bar.
However, when your form and flexibility is excellent, usually what will happen is you will get stuck at the bottom and have to try to dump the bar because you cant get up. If you do not have as good form or flexibility you will dump the bar or start leaning excessively without trying to.
thanks for the input everyone. I believe my form is the same on lighter weights so I will keep working on calve flexibility. I’ve watched alot of front squat videos and I notice their knees move out pretty far when they move down, I can’t do that, so I will keep working on calve / ankle flexibility and squatting.
will try some weight lifting shoes also
[quote]fatcat wrote:
thanks for the input everyone. I believe my form is the same on lighter weights so I will keep working on calve flexibility. I’ve watched alot of front squat videos and I notice their knees move out pretty far when they move down, I can’t do that, so I will keep working on calve / ankle flexibility and squatting.
will try some weight lifting shoes also
[/quote]
It sounds like the issue I’m having right now, I hate to steer you in another direction (like 12 other times in this thread) but I think it’s groinal/hamstring flexibility TOO. You say it’s to maintain your center of balance, but that’s more means you’re squatting behind your legs rather than between them.
