Carryover Switching from High to Low Bar Sqt?

About how much can you add to your squat just by switching from high bar to low bar technique?

[quote]rser wrote:
About how much can you add to your squat just by switching from high bar to low bar technique?[/quote]
Hey man, I noticed as soon as I switched over I went from 365 squat to about 455 squat both without knee wraps. I did a few other changes when I started on lowbar squats like widening my stance. But i definatly noticed the changes.

My Squat is 10% lower no matter what I do with the low bar " powerlifting style ".

Something inbetween a large positive effect and a large negative effect. Sure, give it a try, just make sure you keep you’re wrist, elbows, shoulders, and hips healthy because it is harder on those.

For me it is about a 10% difference with low bar being stronger

[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
For me it is about a 10% difference with low bar being stronger[/quote]

Do you feel that it’s mostly because you’ve trained for low bar more or did you pretty much get an immediate boost from low-bar squatting after you started it and got used the form.

I got about a 10% boost myself too from the switch. It was an immediate boost, first session in.

zero. It took time to get used to low bar. If anything I had to lower the weight. High barring was much more natural to me but low barring allowed me to add more weight onto my back without squishing my little traps.

Nowadays, I think I can do a 1RM highbar with 80-85% of my lowbar.

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
For me it is about a 10% difference with low bar being stronger[/quote]

Do you feel that it’s mostly because you’ve trained for low bar more or did you pretty much get an immediate boost from low-bar squatting after you started it and got used the form. [/quote]

It was almost immediate, for me it was a leverage thing. At a certain weight I would just fall forward and/or upper back would roll forward with high bar squat. With low bar squat that might still happen but it was with heavier weight. It should be an almost immediate improvement, provided you can comfortably hold the weight on your back.

In theory you are decreasing the moment arm of the resistance force by moving the weight closer to your fulcrum, thus decreasing the amount of force necessary to overcome the resistance.

I still like to teach beginners high bar squats however (especially if they have no PL aspirations) as that keeps them so much more upright when they squat, I think it has better carryover to other things at least in the short term.

[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
For me it is about a 10% difference with low bar being stronger[/quote]

Do you feel that it’s mostly because you’ve trained for low bar more or did you pretty much get an immediate boost from low-bar squatting after you started it and got used the form. [/quote]

It was almost immediate, for me it was a leverage thing. At a certain weight I would just fall forward and/or upper back would roll forward with high bar squat. With low bar squat that might still happen but it was with heavier weight. It should be an almost immediate improvement, provided you can comfortably hold the weight on your back.

In theory you are decreasing the moment arm of the resistance force by moving the weight closer to your fulcrum, thus decreasing the amount of force necessary to overcome the resistance.

I still like to teach beginners high bar squats however (especially if they have no PL aspirations) as that keeps them so much more upright when they squat, I think it has better carryover to other things at least in the short term.

[/quote]

For people that have had shoulder problems from low-bar have you had any success with them still low-bar squatting but without shoulder pain?

What happened with me is that low-bar squatting was screwing up my shoulder so bad that I couldn’t maintain good form for squatting and my bench started regressing too. This is from low bar squatting less than once a week.

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

For people that have had shoulder problems from low-bar have you had any success with them still low-bar squatting but without shoulder pain?

What happened with me is that low-bar squatting was screwing up my shoulder so bad that I couldn’t maintain good form for squatting and my bench started regressing too. This is from low bar squatting less than once a week.

[/quote]

First I would make sure the bar is not too low, it should never feel like it is going roll down your back to your butt. Secondly widen your hands and use an open grip. Third work on shoulder and thoracic mobility - shoulder dislocations are great for this. Fourth I would start with the widest comfortable hand position and then gradually bring in your grip, maybe a finger width every week or two. You don’t have to do squats to practice this, you can just do walkouts with a lighter weight.

Short answer is start in a pain free position and then work to get to where you are going slowly. If you can’t get pain free at all then work on flexibility/mobility - dislocations, wall/floor glides, general shoulder internal rotator stretches - mobilitywod would be a good resource. Wrist wraps can also help take care of the pressure when squatting.

Hope that is helpful,
Tim