Front Squat Form Check

Like the title says, I would appreciate it if you could give me some pointers on my form. After more than a one year lay off from squatting, due to knee injury, my knee has finally allowed me to start again. Needless to say, the weight is light but my knee and lumbar spine seems to be thriving with front squats (Previously I always did low bar back squats, which didn’t always agree with my structure).

I am new to front squatting and would hate to develop bad habits. What do you think?

Everything for most part seems fine but until you put some weight on the bar enough for you to actually have some fatique set there is not much we could really tell you.

Sure Reed, that’s true! Like I mentioned I’m still “rehab’ing” my bad knee, so I plan on increasing the load SLOW and steady while closely paying attention to how my body feels. I’ll also be filming each session to see when/if my form starts breaking down.

If my form is good in this video I’ll use it as a benchmark and compare with later, heavier loads.

Makes sense? Any details about my technique I should work on?

Cheers

Ooops… still new to this forum’s way of posting.

Looking forward to some constructive criticism guys

Ok well as a reference it doesn’t look to bad you get some crazy depth and need focus on pushing your knees out so they don’t start caving inward. But looked pretty satisfactory repost with when you can and can give a honest assessment.

If there were a couple plates on the bar, OP would do a faceplant into the ground. You can clearly see this.

@Reed: Thanks, I’ll check back in when I get some weight on the bar.

@Field: So what should I do to off-set this? Change back angle/ "center of gravity?

Also, do you guys have experience with rehab/building up slowly and what kind of rep tempo is beneficial in such a situation? (eg. 21X1 - a la Poliqiun)

I’ve been doing both my eccentric and concentric phases in an easy and controlled manner to avoid too much tearing on the knee (bouncing etc.)
I also hold a 1-2 sec. pause at the bottom while forcing the knees out. (my squat tempo is approx. 2112)

Any remarks?

-Cheers

Put weight on the bar… I think then you’ll understand…

Front squats are kind of a weird animal. I’ve found that without enough weight its hard/impossible to have good form. In your video you just drop down into the squat like a typical high bar Olympic style back squat. With heavier weights on a front squat, that bar is going to pull you down and forward, and to counterbalance that you have to sit back more.

Basically for anyone to be able to critique your form, you’re gonna have to add a little weight to that ba.

I see what you mean, the bar is definitely in front of my center of gravity since there’s not enough weight to counter balance a more erect posture.

I’ll report back when I get some weight on the bar. Thanks for the feedback guys!