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Front Squat to Press

Learn how to perform a full body strength workout in this tutorial video. Master the Front Squat to Press exercise and build strength, stability, and balance in your core and upper body.

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Transcript

00:00 - 00:04This is Brent coming at you with another integrated exercise, this is one of my
00:04 - 00:08personal favorites for jacking up that strength training. This is the front
00:08 - 00:14squat to press. Now, I should mention that I've already done a front squat video, so
00:14 - 00:17for those of you who are looking for more queue's, setting up a good
00:17 - 00:21foundation for your integrated exercise, I would go back and watch that video.
00:21 - 00:25Remember, before we do any integrated exercise, we should probably master the
00:25 - 00:29two exercises that we're combining. I'm going to have my friend Mike Tierney,
00:29 - 00:33from Metropolitan Fitness, come out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Just a
00:33 - 00:36couple form queues that you are already aware of, but we should probably
00:36 - 00:40review a little bit, we know our kinetic chain checkpoints in the anterior view,
00:40 - 00:46feet parallel, second toe pointing forward, as he drops down I'm going to be
00:46 - 00:49looking to see that his patella tracks over his second and third toe, and, of
00:49 - 00:53course, his hips knees and feet are in alignment. Usually people get this down
00:53 - 00:58pretty good. In a front squat to press variation, most of our discrepancies can
00:58 - 01:03actually be seen in a lateral view. So, I'm going to have you face me. A couple
01:03 - 01:06quick ones on the squat, go ahead and drop down into a squat and hold it for
01:06 - 01:11me, we want to make sure his tibia torso angle is parallel, and then you can
01:11 - 01:16already see how he has his head back. This is something that somehow got out
01:16 - 01:20there, this teaching queue of trying to keep people's chins up, it actually would be
01:20 - 01:25better for his spine for him to come down, and look about five feet out in
01:25 - 01:28front of his feet. This will keep his spine nice and stable, nice and straight,
01:28 - 01:35helping improve those scapula thoracic mechanics. As he comes back up, and presses,
01:35 - 01:39we want to make sure that, just like on any shoulder press, he doesn't go into an
01:39 - 01:44excessive lordosis, or an anterior pelvic tilt. Alright, so those are the queues we're
01:44 - 01:48looking out for. Tibia torso angle, keeping the head in a neutral position,
01:48 - 01:52and then that excessive lordosis. Alright, let's grab those dumbbells and kick this
01:52 - 01:59up a notch. So we've got to talk just a little bit about this
01:59 - 02:03cradling position, I see this messed up a lot in front squats, I want
02:03 - 02:08his forearms perpendicular, his wrists in a neutral position. I don't want to see
02:08 - 02:13that radial deviation, which I see often, or an ulnar deviation
02:13 - 02:17where it sags. This isn't a good position to have the wrist in. I want a
02:17 - 02:21nice neutral position, a nice strong position. I tell my clients, before
02:21 - 02:24we get the weights in, imagine somebody's going to come down, like you're going to
02:24 - 02:27hit somebody. Think of our field athletes, our football players, or
02:27 - 02:32basketball players who have to take hits. We want to teach them a nice, strong,
02:32 - 02:39cradled position. Best queue I've found for the squat portion, is I want him thinking
02:39 - 02:43elbows to knees. That doesn't mean he actually has to get down so far that his
02:43 - 02:47elbows touch his knees, I only want him to go down as far as he can keep optimal
02:47 - 02:51form, but he's going to be thinking elbows straight down to his knees, and
02:51 - 02:55then I want him to use the momentum from his legs to get those weights up over
02:55 - 02:59head. Hold for two, bring them down slow to your shoulder. Alright, you
02:59 - 03:09ready? -Yep. Let's hit it. Great. Let's see a couple more of those. Ready? Push, draw-in.
03:09 - 03:12That was a little too deep.
03:12 - 03:16He went a little too deep and his hips went into a posterior
03:16 - 03:20pelvic tilt, so I want you to stop about three inches before your knees. Ready?
03:20 - 03:26Glutes. Up. Draw-in. Back down. Good, let me go ahead and grab those from you.
03:26 - 03:31So, one thing I want to mention, while Mike takes a little
03:31 - 03:34breather here, we've actually done several takes, so Mike's getting a little
03:34 - 03:43tired. I don't personally enjoy the Olympic bar front squat to press. I'm not
03:43 - 03:46saying it's bad for my power lifters, I know you have to practice for your
03:46 - 03:51sport, you guys do you. But, if I'm just training somebody for fitness, or I'm
03:51 - 03:55training an athlete for sports performance, there is a problem with that
03:55 - 04:02bar, and the position you have to be in. This position here, forces hypermobility
04:02 - 04:08at the wrist. It also reinforces a common postural dysfunction that happens
04:08 - 04:14at the elbow that could set somebody up for carpal tunnel, for those
04:14 - 04:18epicondylitis we see like tennis elbow and golfers elbow. I would rather see
04:18 - 04:22somebody use a dumbbell, where they can keep a nice, neutral position.
04:22 - 04:26Unless somebody's doing powerlifting, why would we even need to worry about the
04:26 - 04:31bar. So think toward your goals, as far as where you're headed, and
04:31 - 04:34what apparatus you're going to use. Now, one thing we will show you, that works
04:34 - 04:38out really well, is kettlebells. Actually, they have a very nice feel to them. So Mike's
04:38 - 04:44going to grab those kettlebells and show you what that looks like. It
04:44 - 04:49makes it a little easier if you grab the inner part, like you're not
04:49 - 04:53balanced. You want to kind of grab up, in that inner corner of the kettlebell, and
04:53 - 04:56then it tends to cradle really nicely. Mike can actually bring his hands in a little
04:56 - 05:01bit, there you go. So his hands are going to be just inside his elbows. Alright,
05:01 - 05:04how does that feel? -Very comfortable. Kettlebells make this exercise very
05:04 - 05:09comfortable. So now let's go ahead and show them this. Front squat, and boom!
05:09 - 05:13Press. You can see Mike has really nice form, we've been working on those queues. So go
05:13 - 05:19down, elbows to knees, right before, glutes, draw-in, back down nice and slow. Alright.
05:19 - 05:22There're some of the teaching queues we can use. You can put that
05:22 - 05:27down for a second. Let's talk about some progressions. I can go in a couple of
05:27 - 05:31different directions. Obviously if I want to just increase Mike's strength, I can do
05:31 - 05:34that. I can just keep increasing weight. We can even move this from a
05:34 - 05:38hypertrophy general strength phase, where we're doing six to twelve reps, and get
05:38 - 05:42into those max strength weights once he's really got the form down, and do one
05:42 - 05:46to six reps, this could be our full body exercise. We can also go in a different
05:46 - 05:53direction. I like this exercise for some stability reasons. I can go unilateral. So
05:53 - 05:56if you guys think about our field athletes who take hits, basketball
05:56 - 06:02players, or football players, it's very rare that they get to hit straight on with
06:02 - 06:07even force on both arms. Let's get their core working towards a unilateral force.
06:07 - 06:12You are going to find that this is extremely challenging to get down, and
06:12 - 06:15keep that midline. So, I'm going to have you turn and face the camera, grab one
06:15 - 06:20kettlebell or dumbbell, whatever you're most comfortable with, and the
06:20 - 06:24whole time I'm going to be watching to make sure that he doesn't lean towards
06:24 - 06:29me, or lean away from me and kind of cradle the weight, I
06:29 - 06:34don't want any compensation. Can he keep this midline against an unbalanced force?
06:34 - 06:39Then the form stays the same, so let's see that.
06:40 - 06:43I know some of you are noticing that that right foot turns out.
06:43 - 06:47We've been working on that, but we didn't want to keep from making this video. Keep
06:47 - 06:54going, Mike. Great. You can see, in his core, Mike is keeping a wonderful
06:54 - 06:58centerline. This is a great progression for him. This is something great for him
06:58 - 07:04to work at. We could take this up another notch, I find that Airex pads make this
07:04 - 07:08particularly challenging. You could do, if we're in a stability
07:08 - 07:12progression, 12 reps on each side. I'd love to see a video of somebody trying to do
07:12 - 07:18kettlebell, front squat to press, 12 on each side, on Airex pads. That would be a
07:18 - 07:24wonderful goal to set your athletes up for some very big progressions later on.
07:24 - 07:30Of course, if we were going power, this exercise sets up wonderfully for
07:30 - 07:35some videos that you are going to see in the future, for our power press, or
07:35 - 07:39our power squat to press. If you're thinking about doing that in the future
07:39 - 07:43in your programs, this would be a wonderful way to set that up, a
07:43 - 07:47prerequisite exercise. The last thing I want to show you guys before we end this
07:47 - 07:52video is a regression for those working on their compensation patterns. The front
07:52 - 07:57squat to press is a wonderful exercise, because we can still do a ball wall
07:57 - 08:02squat, which allows us to reduce the need for dorsiflexion. So why don't you grab
08:02 - 08:07the kettlebells, those seem to be more comfortable for you. We could even do
08:07 - 08:13this unilateral, but I'm gonna have him do it bilaterally.
08:13 - 08:18He's going to lean back against the ball as much as he needs to reduce
08:18 - 08:22dorsiflexion, and then he's going to basically pretend like the balls not
08:22 - 08:27there. So he's going to try to get his butt back, and then push up and you
08:27 - 08:30can see, we could actually have him step out a little further,
08:30 - 08:36I can still see a little
08:36 - 08:38turn out, so I'll have him step out a little further, pretend the balls not
08:38 - 08:44there, and up and push. Good. Relax, Mike. So there you go, we've got progressions
08:44 - 08:47for stability with the unilateral and the Airex's pad, you can keep
08:47 - 08:51increasing the weight for strength, or if somebody's still compensating, you've got
08:51 - 08:54the ball to regress. I hope you guys enjoy this integrated strength exercise,
08:54 - 08:58it's a fun one! Keep it up!

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