Whats considered a decent overhead squat weight?
I’ve only recently started doing them and I completly suck at them. I’m doing only 66lbs for 8 reps.
I’m like 6’ at around 180.
[quote]Andrew Dixon wrote:
Whats considered a decent overhead squat weight?
I’ve only recently started doing them and I completly suck at them. I’m doing only 66lbs for 8 reps.
I’m like 6’ at around 180.
[/quote]
Depends on if you’re an Olympic lifter or not.
I’d say bodyweight+ for reps would be a good start.
I did them as part of a routine once for like 8 weeks, and quickly got up to 125 for 3. But it was one of those routines I designed myself, and as usual, the routine sucked. So I haven’t done them regularly in a while. But I think the hard part is mostly balance and technique, as opposed to strength.
Bodyweight+ a good start? It’ll take me a while to get there…
I think with overhead squats it really depends on the person… I’m very inflexible and don’t have full mobility in my left shoulder so it took me six weeks just to OHS a 10 kg bar and keep it behind my head in the bottom position. I’m now up to 30 kilos for reps, any more than that and form or depth have to suffer.
Good question.
I recently started also, I love them. Before doing them I always thought my body just wasn’t the type to be able to squat without putting my knees past my toes, but overheads completely revamped my technique.
Personally I think a good place to start is with an average size cheerleader weight which is probably around 115-135. Be able to do that you should be atleast as strong as a male cheerleader, and long as you have a light girlfriend you can always lift her up.
I’ve done them for awhile, probably a year and a half, and am up to 185 for 10. I would agree that bodyweight for reps would be considered pretty damn good. I remember on one of Dan John’s article’s he mentioned a coach requiring bodyweight for a bunch of reps, can’t remember the number.
Coincidentally, I did these for the first time Wed. and was able to hit 135 for five reps. It was tough and it felt like I was going to drop the load behind me and I really had to concentrate on balancing the load. It really did hit the “core” as I really felt it there.
I also did two sets of front squats for the first time and hit 275 for five which was very tough in it’s own right. For comparison I usually back squat between 315 to 405 for reps.
D
[quote]Andrew Dixon wrote:
Whats considered a decent overhead squat weight?
I’ve only recently started doing them and I completly suck at them. I’m doing only 66lbs for 8 reps.
I’m like 6’ at around 180.
[/quote]
Tough exercise. When I started doing it it was very different from anything I had done before. Overhead presses and squats replicate part of the movement but do not translate to any significant degree.
I found that getting used to the mechanics of the movement took longer than for other exercises but once I had learned that the weight started to increase quite quickly.
From a biomechanical point of view there is a lot going on in this exercise which is what makes it so effective. Perservere with it.
[quote]jit07 wrote:
I’ve done them for awhile, probably a year and a half, and am up to 185 for 10. I would agree that bodyweight for reps would be considered pretty damn good. I remember on one of Dan John’s article’s he mentioned a coach requiring bodyweight for a bunch of reps, can’t remember the number. [/quote]
?I would only do one exercise, if I could do it all over again,? Chris told me. ?Really? Which one?? ?Overhead Squats.? I thought he was joking. Sure, I had done a few and I thought they never really amounted to anything. ?This coach in California won?t let his guys throw until they can do fifteen reps with bodyweight.? What? Fifteen? ?It makes you one piece, an animal.?
if you’re doing 66 it sounds like flexibility rather than strength is your issue. keep adding more weight. put your heels on plates if you have to and do singles or even eccentrics and dump it. make sure you have total lockout at the top/ an extra 1/2 inch can make all the difference. stick with it for a few weeks; you’ll loosen up and double that weight easy. then you’re on your way.
[quote]Backlash79 wrote:
jit07 wrote:
I’ve done them for awhile, probably a year and a half, and am up to 185 for 10. I would agree that bodyweight for reps would be considered pretty damn good. I remember on one of Dan John’s article’s he mentioned a coach requiring bodyweight for a bunch of reps, can’t remember the number.
?I would only do one exercise, if I could do it all over again,? Chris told me. ?Really? Which one?? ?Overhead Squats.? I thought he was joking. Sure, I had done a few and I thought they never really amounted to anything. ?This coach in California won?t let his guys throw until they can do fifteen reps with bodyweight.? What? Fifteen? ?It makes you one piece, an animal.?
That seems highly unlikely for a 250 lb man. Note, I said unlikely, not impossible. I looked on the “Olympic Lift Numbers/Log” thread and only found 1 person who could snatch more than 300 lbs and they are listed as an olympic weightlifting coach.
If you can do your bodyweight 15 times in the OHS, that is VERY impressive.
[quote]Backlash79 wrote:
?I would only do one exercise, if I could do it all over again,? Chris told me. ?Really? Which one?? ?Overhead Squats.? I thought he was joking. Sure, I had done a few and I thought they never really amounted to anything. ?This coach in California won?t let his guys throw until they can do fifteen reps with bodyweight.? What? Fifteen? ?It makes you one piece, an animal.?
Thanks!
been doing them off and on for about a year now, and i’m still rubbish
2x45lbs & bar
definitely improving
[quote]Chewie wrote:
That seems highly unlikely for a 250 lb man. Note, I said unlikely, not impossible. I looked on the “Olympic Lift Numbers/Log” thread and only found 1 person who could snatch more than 300 lbs and they are listed as an olympic weightlifting coach.
If you can do your bodyweight 15 times in the OHS, that is VERY impressive. [/quote]
I agree. Maybe bigger guys don’t fit into that rule. The fifteen reps would be easier to obtain for a lighter individual. I weigh about 280 and am no where near doing 280 for 15 reps. Hopefully down the road I can accomplish this, but not anytime soon.
I met a guy named Matt Bruce (?) who works with Coach Gayle Hatch and he could overhead squat over 400 pounds. obviously most people can’t do this but its pretty damn amazing
[quote]Andrew Dixon wrote:
Whats considered a decent overhead squat weight?
I’ve only recently started doing them and I completly suck at them. I’m doing only 66lbs for 8 reps.
I’m like 6’ at around 180.
[/quote]
All I can say is that when I tried these for the first time, I fell over backwards and had the most humiliating experience of my gym career. Luckily, the bar just rubbed some skin off my leg- I could’ve caught it in the jaw and really been hurting.
For me, the limiting factor was how much weight I could hold over my head–not how much I could stand up with (oh, and my balance).
When I first started doing these, when I finally hit 135 lbs. I literally said to myself, “I have never felt so good about lifting so little weight.”
They are hard. I no longer do them because idiots kept walking too closely to me as I did them. They would literally walk so closely so as to brush up against me. I kept thinking, “I’m going to drop this weight and get sued.”
WTF is up with people entrusting their lives to me? If I saw someone standing with weight over his head, the last thing I’d do would be to walk closely enough to him to brush up to him. I’d be afraid he’d drop the weight.
[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
When I first started doing these, when I finally hit 135 lbs. I literally said to myself, “I have never felt so good about lifting so little weight.”
They are hard. I no longer do them because idiots kept walking too closely to me as I did them. They would literally walk so closely so as to brush up against me. I kept thinking, “I’m going to drop this weight and get sued.”
WTF is up with people entrusting their lives to me? If I saw someone standing with weight over his head, the last thing I’d do would be to walk closely enough to him to brush up to him. I’d be afraid he’d drop the weight.[/quote]
It’s worse when you are doing snatches.
The best two pieces of advice I got for overheads squats was from a post I made here a year or so ago asking about them.
Number one was as simple as it gets- Keep doing them.
Number two is what really changed the OH squat for me and allowed me to improve. Forcefully tear the bar apart with my hands. I really concentrate on pulling the bar apart, it forces your shoulders to roll back, the scapula to retract and drop down and just gets you in the right position. Every time I almost drop the weight or otherwise feel my form breaking, it is because I have gotten lax on pulling the bar apart.
Hope it helps.
[quote]Chewie wrote:
It’s worse when you are doing snatches. [/quote]
For the same reason I don’t do OHS, I also don’t do snatches.