I prefer the crossed arm I feel it helps me sit back more…
The clean grip really helped me take care of any excessive forward leaning, since if you don’t keep your torso vertical enough, the load shifts from your shoulders to your wrists, which is quite painful.
How heavy are you going when doing front squats? I find it a lot easier to use a clean-grip when going heavy, it feels like the weight is pressing my finger tips down and my elbows up. I don’t get this feeling when doing light warmups sets and I tend to lean forward.
Anytime I go heavy like 1-3 rep range its not easy to keep it up I have to really focus on it. If you find its easy on maximal effort you could probably do more weight. The weight always fall forward on a failed front squat attempts, so during heavy attempts its harder to keep it up.
on lighter weight around 8-12 rep though I really don’t even need my hands there I could stick them out in front of me and it could stay on my shoulders easy enough.
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
I have trouble front squatting, and was wondering if anyone else here had ever had trouble with them.
Here’s my problems with them:
- They hurt my knees.
- I end up with a bruise on my trachea from balancing the bar on my shoulders up against my throat.
- My shoulders end up feeling weird after doing them from having the bar balance on them
- They hurt my middle back.
anyone else have / get by these problems? It happens even with lighter weights. [/quote]
I would recommend switching to the clean grip. It is uncomfortable at first but you get used to it. That might help some things…and use lighter weights till your form is better.
[quote]Himora22 wrote:
This just doesnt fell as good, the bar is lower on the shoulders and to me less stable[/quote]
I think they’re on a smith machine. That position actually puts more emphasis on the quads when you do smith machine front squats.
I could be wrong, but it does look like a smith machine’s bar.
To keep your knees from caving inward try to pull them apart on your way up.
Tense up the muscles in your neck to keep the bar from choking you and push the bar back to stay upright.
I’d love to hear more on this. I just did them for the first time today and it hurt my arms, wrist, etc more than it worked my legs. Those were the limiting factors, and I didn’t even feel like I got a good leg work out. Do I just keep doing it until I “get used to it”? I watched so many form videos I feel like my form was decent. Thoughts? What am I missing in the grip? Thanks!
AQ and sjarvis,
MarauderMeat is Mr. King Front Squatter. If there’s anyone’s brain I would pick, it’s his.
His log in “O-35” where the cool guys hang out 
[quote]sjarvis00 wrote:
I’d love to hear more on this. I just did them for the first time today and it hurt my arms, wrist, etc more than it worked my legs. Those were the limiting factors, and I didn’t even feel like I got a good leg work out. Do I just keep doing it until I “get used to it”? I watched so many form videos I feel like my form was decent. Thoughts? What am I missing in the grip? Thanks![/quote]
yep, that is pretty much it. Just have to keep doing them. I do them arms crossed, i prefer that pain over the wrist pain. Then only time i feel pain in my shoulders now is when i up the weight. I am 3 months into doing front squats instead of back squats and i am enjoying them more than back squats.