High Bar Wide Squats vs. Low Bar

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Hi guys,
I’ve been using a low bar wide stance squat exclusively for the past few months. I’ve noticed that, if it goes up, so do my oly squat and front squat, even if I don’t train them.

The problem is that the low bar placement feels really awkward to me, and it’s getting more and more uncomfortable, instead of getting better. It bothers my elbows and wrists, and it just doesn’t feel right on my upper back (I’ve always been a high bar squatter).

My question is, what if I switch to a high bar WIDE squat? Wouldn’t I receive the same or at least a similar training effect (more post chain recruitment and less quad emphasis)? Or is it really the bar placement that important?

Thank you for your comments!

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I squat fairly high bar and wide. It’s the wide stance that puts the emphasis on your posterior chain. I honestly can’t squat low bar. There’s no room for it to sit on my rear delts because my traps would push the bar off of them.

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[quote]Wild_Iron_Gym wrote:
I squat fairly high bar and wide. It’s the wide stance that puts the emphasis on your posterior chain. I honestly can’t squat low bar. There’s no room for it to sit on my rear delts because my traps would push the bar off of them.[/quote]

Thanks!!
I’ll try high bar wide stance squats then.

4

Yeah I squat higher bar too. Its easier to get depth.

5

When I first squatted low bar, I used a false grip and after a while my elbows stared to hurt. I wrapped my thumbs around the bar and that solved the elbow pain, but then my wrists would hurt. Wraps help until my wrists got used to it.

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Which type of squat is the best really depends on your body type. If you have a long back and short thigh bones(the best body type for squatting), most likely a high bar placement, weightlifting shoes and a more weightlifting type squat will be the best solution. If you have long thigh bones and a short back, it might be better to go for the lower bar placement and flat shoes, doing a more classical powerlifting type squat.

Regardless of what you are built best for however the lowbar style is more taxing on both elbows and wrists (use wristwraps!), so a good idea is to do a lot of the training, especially the lighter training with a high bar placement, and save the low bar for the heavier stuff if that is the style you can lift the most weight with.

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[quote]molnes wrote:
Which type of squat is the best really depends on your body type. If you have a long back and short thigh bones(the best body type for squatting), most likely a high bar placement, weightlifting shoes and a more weightlifting type squat will be the best solution. If you have long thigh bones and a short back, it might be better to go for the lower bar placement and flat shoes, doing a more classical powerlifting type squat.

Regardless of what you are built best for however the lowbar style is more taxing on both elbows and wrists (use wristwraps!), so a good idea is to do a lot of the training, especially the lighter training with a high bar placement, and save the low bar for the heavier stuff if that is the style you can lift the most weight with.[/quote]

The fact is that I can move the same weight or even more in a high bar olympic squat than in a low bar wide squat. I haven’t tested the high bar wide stance yet.

I guess that’s because I’m more used to the oly squat, because of my body type and that I’m quad dominant as well.

I’m already doing front and overhead squats along the week (not max weight or reps, easy ones as I’m using my power clean weights for the front squat and my power snatch ones for the oh squats) because of my olympic lifting “inspired” training, so i thought that, for me, using a wide stance squat would be more useful as it would tax the post chain more.

For now, the low bar squat has proven my thoughts, cause as I said before, my oly and front squats have improved without really training them, at least directly or with max weights.

But the low bar is really uncomfortable to me. Based on your comments, I’ll try a wide stance high bar squat, to see if I get the same results.

I expect so xD.

Thanks again for your comments guys!

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I was going to ask ‘what are your goals?’ because that would determine which style you should concentrate on, but then I realised this is the Powerlifting Forum… and at this point I ask you why you haven’t been doing low-bar since the start of your Powerlifting career?

For competition you should be concentrating and performing low-bar, and therefore shouldn’t be worrying about weather your low-bar practice transfers to your front squat or your high-bar squat - rather, you should be asking if the opposite transfer is true.

Hope this helps,

Nade

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I’m not planning to compete neither in powerlifting nor in weightlifting. Yet, I’m more inclined towards weightlifting. It fits more for my goals. Also I’m after a 140Kg power clean and a 110Kg power snatch. These two lifts are the ones I’m most obsessed with.

That said, I’m just after general strength, explosiveness etc… I’m more of an athlete than anything because of my background in track and field and muay thai.

I’m just looking for the basic exercises that give me the most bang my buck, as I train at home with limited equipment, and I like to train a la 5/3/1 (choose one squat, deadlift, press and bpress style and stick with it). Besides this, I train the power variations of the olympic lifts with some front and oh squats between them almost everyday I train, but with varying intensities.

I don’t do much assistance work, and that’s why I’m looking for the squat variation that gives me the most bang for my buck (I’ve already found that for now, the RDL, the close grip bpress and the behind neck push press are my money exercises). Let’s see if the high bar wide squat is the last one I’m looking for.

But if you have any different ideas about it, don’t doubt to post them. I’m here to learn! xD