Out of curiosity, has anyone ever used OH Squats in the leg/core assistance?
Purpose would be to improve overall mobility, stability, reinforce the overhead position and eventually to start getting a grip on them if I wanted to do a few snatches in the future.
Weight would be very light, about half bodyweight or so to start.
yeah could give them a try, like you said keep light.
Dan John a big fan. Alpha/Brian Alsruhe used to combine them with 5/3/1 in his earlier logs II or III? and is prob pound for pound the strongest and most impressive guy on this site
1 Like
Overhead squats are used as a warm-up before our “real” warm-up. So the kids have specific barbell (empty) work that they do that includes overhead squats. They are NOT a strength exercise, especially for those that don’t possess average strength/speed (20 chins, 2x squat, 2x deadlift, can run (not jog) a mile, etc.).
I don’t really think they are magic but it gets the kids moving and mentally ready.
I do something similar during the warm up with empty barbell, and it includes overhead squats. In fact, I’ve mostly done them during the warmup and a couple times with very light weights as warm up sets for front squats, and a few times at the end of a workout when doing mobility work.
I realize it’s not a strength oriented exercise - I’m within that average strength range give or take but even if I were much stronger, the main issue is always to bring the bar overhead. My gym doesn’t have a rack or anything else that could hold a bar very high and I royally suck at snatching or push pressing behind the neck, so I’m automatically limited in the weight I can move.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I do ab work on the two lower body days, and was thinking about doing OH squats on upper body days, they don’t really do much for the legs at this kind of weights and I felt them much more in the upper back and obliques (current program I’m running, which is a BBB variation from Forever, suggests to avoid lower back and leg work, sticking to ab work for assistance)
If you want to work your upper back and obliques, are front squats the best exercise for improving them? Or would it be better to use rows and pallof presses or something similar.
I guess I don’t see the point in a squat that isn’t intended to work your legs.
Front squat is my main squat, with back squat (BBB@FSL) as supplemental. Rows (BB for lower reps superset with bench and DB for higher reps) are already in the program, while ab work is mostly hanging leg raises. Upper back is also worked with overhead shrugs, face pulls and band pull aparts.
I don’t think it’s really possible to overload the legs with overhead squat unless someone is really really strong and can manage to crank out high-ish reps sets with a decent weight, but the program suggests to avoid leg and lower back assistance work - I’d also rather not do abdominal work every single workout, leg raises are done on lower body days, for upper body days I’d like to focus on overhead stability with overhead shrugs and overhead squats.
While OH squats might not really overload the legs, the hope is to reinforce overhead position and also work on squatting technique since (even at light weights) they basically force you really pay attention on some squatting basics - proud chest, tight core, starting with the knees and so on.
Might be worth to mention that my main focus is pushing the press, deadlift and front/back squats
EDIT: might also add the program
DAY 1
Deadlift - 5’s Pro
Deadlift - 5x5FSL
50 Leg Raises (superset with deads)
50 Curls superset with 50 Pushdowns
DAY 2
Press - 5’s Pro
Press - BBB@FSL
50 Chins (superset with press)
50 DB Bench
50 Overhead Shrugs
DAY 3
Front Squat - 3’s Pro or work up to TMx1
Back Squat - BBB@FSL
50 Cable Laterals (superset with Front Squats)
50 Leg Raises (superset with Back Squats)
50 Curls
DAY 4
Bench - 5’s Pro
Press - BBB@50-60%
15 BB Row (superset with Bench)
30-40 DB Row
40-50 Dips
I’d either add OH Squats in DAY 4 at the end or in DAY 3 moving leg raises to DAY 4.
You can always do db or kb snatches or something like that. On my bench day I usually do DB clean and presses and count it for the push and single leg/core movements.