I’ve done these a couple of times now and they are a real killer. Anyone else ever tried these? If so, how do you feel about them as opposed to front squats or thrusters?
I feel like I’d break my head open when I dropped the bar on it.
Also, one of the benefits of front squat tabatas is that you can pretty much just collapse forward to rack the bar after each 20 second work period. I would think the time it takes to drop the bar to your chest, rack it, unrack it, and push press it up overhead would take up most of the ten seconds rest.
I agree, I just don’t see Tabata OH Squats working. Too technical, and too unforgiving to small lapses in form or concentration. And the point about the set up time is very valid also.
hmm, I got to thinking about this and realized the setup issue might not be a problem for shorter people. If the rack’s tall enough that you can rack the bar up where you’d hold it for OH squats it might be doable. I’m 6’2" so I’d have to rack it chest high and push press it up each time, thus creating the problem I mentioned before.
I’d still be rather concerned about losing control of the bar or losing balance though. Hell, I’ve almost fallen over with like 65 lbs doing front squat tabatas, if that was overhead , I’d have lost it for sure.
I think the real issue with this (besides the minor issue of racking, one could just take 5sek of the break to set up) is the slow tempo necessary because of the technical aspect. Only someone with excellent technique could pull this off and even then technical breakdown will kill you anyway with fatigue.