Front squats are an awesome lift, and they’ve been my staple leg exercise while my lower back recovers from a strain that I got while back squatting. Here are 10 of the BEST reasons to do front squats…
Reasons To Do Front Squats #1
Front squats are the best exercise out there for your quads.
Back squats are a hip-dominant exercise that place more emphasis on your lower back and your butt.
But because front squats have you frontloading the weight, they are a quadriceps-dominant exercises, and all that emphasis goes onto the front of your legs instead. Which is the most visible part of your leg, and the part that most guys would prefer to get bigger and stronger.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #2
Front squats are a fantastic core exercise.
When you’re doing front squats, you have to really fight to keep your body upright. There’s a lot of isometric pressure. If you’ve never done front squats, you’ll be surprised at just how much you feel it all the way around your abdominal wall.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #3
Front squats are easier on your lower back.
There’s a lot less compression on your spine and your lower back with front squats. If you have back issues, or a back injury, or if you’re just worried about keeping your back supple and healthy, front squats are a great option for you.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #4
Front squats help improve your posture.
Because front squats force you into thoracic extension, pulling your shoulders back and opening them, they help counteract the slouching posture that most of us fall into while sitting at a desk or in a car.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #5
Front squats improve your flexibility.
To properly do a front squat with full range of motion requires good flexibility all the way from your ankles to your wrists.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #6
Front squats are a great measure of strength and they translate very well to Olympic lifting.
In fact, in speed skating you can combine your front squat with your incline press to estimate your 500-meter skating time with surprising accuracy. And because the front squat mimics the beginning of many Olympic lifts, it can help improve your performance on exercises like cleans.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #7
Front squats put less stress on your knees.
Because you’re more upright in a front squat than you are in a back squat, there’s a reduced shearing force on your knees. Overall, it’s just a much safer exercise than back squat.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #8
Front squats improve your back squats.
If you’ve been back squatting without making much progress, try going on a front squat cycle. When you return to back squats, you’ll find that you’re able to lift more weight, with better form, than you were before. A lot of lifters agree that front squats help improve your back squats…but the inverse is not necessarily true.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #9
You can’t cheat during front squats.
When you’re doing back squats, it’s pretty easy to cheat by leaning too far forward and turning part of the exercise into a good morning. (Which, by the way, is a recipe for a back injury.)
But with front squats, you can’t lean too far forward—if you did, the bar would fall off your shoulders! That’s a big part of the reason why it forces you to use such good form.
Reasons To Do Front Squats #10
Front squats have less overlap with deadlift.
Back squats put more emphasis on your posterior chain, including your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. That’s not necessarily a bad thing…unless you’re also working those same muscles with a lot of deadlifting. In that case, you might putting too much stress on that part of your body.
Switch to front squats instead, and you’ll be able to squat and deadlift in the same workout without overtraining your posterior chain.
So there you have it, 10 reasons to include front squats on your next leg day.