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Tag: fitness technique

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Tips For Front Squats: Destroyer of Weakness

tips for front squats includes watch and sneakers and headphones and sports bra laid out on plain background

The front squat is one of the ultimate movements to expose an athletes weaknesses. It is also one of the best exercises to destroy those weaknesses and improve strength, balance, and mobility. You may find some tips for front squats useful as you continue to train.

If you know me, you know I am a fan of Zercher squats, which you can read about here. I also love front squats. Okay, I don’t really enjoy them that much but they are some of the best squats a person can do. Here are some reasons why, and some tips for front squats.

Why this movement is important

Weaknesses

A person’s back squat can be “cheated”. The weight being placed on the back of the shoulders helps balance a person. It also helps align the bar more directly over the mid-foot allowing the athlete to move more weight. 

There is less emphasis on core stability which means a beginner athlete should be able to load a back squat heavier. The front squat will illuminate weakness in the core, shoulders, back, and obviously the legs. It also will also paint a more detailed picture of an athlete’s mobility or lack thereof.

Safety

As the name implies, during the front squat the bar is in the front rack position and will fall to the ground. This means it will rest on the clavicle, the shoulders, and in the palms. 

If done correctly an excessive amount of forward lean and the bar will not be able to maintain its position. This acts the same way as a rev limiter on an engine. 

Someone who has incorrect front squat posture will be unable to squat heavy weight in the front squat. Therefore, the front squat is arguably safer than the back squat

Posture

While we are talking about posture, the front squat can help us desk-bound humans with our sloppy posture.

As an athlete becomes more advanced at the front squat their posture should improve more. Since the front squat requires more core strength, and a more upright torso, then these muscles are made stronger. This means your posture in daily life should improve as well.

Shoulder health

Nice smooth, supple shoulders will help you feel more confident in the front squat position. 

Mobility is a use it or lose it skill set. We are born with amazing mobility. Watch a small child move and you will see what I mean. Over our life most of us will lose mobility and range of motion. The good news is we are usually able to gain it back! 

One way to help that mobility is the front squat.  Ideally, we want the elbows to be pointed forward when we are in the front squat position, triceps should be parallel to the ground. 

If this isn’t the case for you, don’t be too down on yourself. Simply by attempting the front squat you are doing more mobility work than the large majority of people in the world. Here are some good ways to get started on mobility work, to kick you off in the right direction.

Simple tips for front squats:

  • Focus on range of motion instead of increasing weight quickly.
  • Make sure your heels stay on the ground.  The weight will try to pull you forward, by focusing on your heels you should be able to keep the chest more upright.
  • Find what width of grip feels comfortable on the bar.
  • Using pauses and tempos will help build a strong front squat without the need to increase weight.
  • If you have trouble getting the hips down and keeping the torso up, focus on ankle and hip mobility drills.
  • Balanced athletes should have a front squat that is roughly 85% of their back squat. If yours is less than that you should focus on increasing quad strength.
  • Use your elbows to lead you out of the bottom of the front squat.  Pushing your elbows up will help your torso open and your chest rise before the hips.

Want more tips for front squats? Set up your free No Sweat Intro with us today and start improving.

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How To Squat Deeper: The Quick Fix

man learning how to squat deeper doing a deep bodyweight squat in a gym wearing a grey shirt

We all want a deeper squat, right? I think having a great air squat position is one of the best things you can do to for your health and fitness. So, how to squat deeper – quickly and easily? We will get to that in one moment.

But first…

Please understand I am not saying you should forget about mobility. It’s important to keep trying to fix any actual issues in your squat.  This is just a quick way to give your squats some variety and help hit full depth if your mobility is not there yet.

With that out of the way, here’s how to squat deeper:

It’s all in the ankles

Did you ever notice how when you squat down and are on your tippy toes, like a catcher, that you can bring your heels to your butt? But when you try to keep your feet flat on the ground then your butt doesn’t even come close to your heels? What’s up with that? 

That’s called ankle mobility and is probably the number 1 reason you can’t squat deeper. You can do ankle mobility exercises to improve your squat. Or, there is a super simple fix.

So how to get a deeper squat? Simply elevate the heels.

The right way and the wrong way to squat deeper

Obviously, you shouldn’t be loading a heavy squat and then squatting down with all your weight on the balls of your feet. This would be the wrong way.

The correct way is by taking something thin, such as change plates or a small strip of rubber matting about ¾ of an inch or so, and placing it on the floor. Place your heels on whatever your item is and now squat. 

Your squat should instantly be deeper. It should also give your heels a solid platform to balance on and push against. This helps you to come out of the squat. Doing this is essentially the cheap version of lifters.

What are lifters?

Lifters are shoes designed specifically to give you a deeper squat position. 

They are used in the sport of Olympic lifting as well as CrossFit and general training. These shoes are designed to be very tight fitting and rigid. The sole is made of hard dense materials. This lets the athlete press out of the squat  without excessive foot movement.

Lifters can be beneficial to some athletes. But, in the words, of Louie Simmons, “Don’t have $100 shoes and a 10 cent squat”. What he means is that it’s best to focus on your form and mobility in your squat before going and spending money on high dollar lifters.

But remember, squat deeper with your ankles

For the longest lasting and healthiest fix, concentrate on your barefoot squat and increasing mobility and range of motion. 

Using lifters or poor-mans lifters can be very beneficial, and is just one more tool in our toolbox. Just don’t become reliant solely on that one tool.  

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The Fitness Benefits of Gymnastics

woman in gym doing benefits of gymnastics handstand

Do you struggle with gymnastic movements? Is spatial awareness a complicated concept for you? Do you want to improve your lifts? Have you ever hit your head on the door frame, as you’re getting in the car?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, then effort training fundamental gymnastics, is your answer. You’ll be amazed at the benefits of gymnastics to your general fitness.

In “How to Build World Class Fitness in 100 Words” by Greg Glassman, 50% of the movements listed are gymnastics movements. On the CrossFit theoretical hierarchy of development, training gymnastics comes before weightlifting. Suffice it to say, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced athlete, there are many benefits of gymnastics.

Most people’s first thought when struggling with gymnastics movements is that they need to work their technique and mobility. Though those things are important, strength is usually something they need to build first. That can be accomplished in part by weightlifting, but weightlifters can also become stronger by improving their gymnastics skills. 

Benefits of gymnastics in CrossFit

The combination of functional movements is one of the beauties of doing CrossFit. Shoulder strength for handstand push ups can be improved by doing presses, but it can also be improved by doing handstand work.

If you want to improve your Olympic lifts, you might need to improve your core strength. Some great movements to increase core strength and stability include L-sits, planks and V-ups. 

Some other benefits of gymnastics are control, coordination, spatial awareness, movement quality and mobility.

But gymnastics isn’t fun!

Gymnastic movements aren’t always fun. Usually people want to spend time practicing their Olympic lifts or doing more “fun” skills. It’s not often that one wants to practice their kip swing, strict pull ups. How often do you hear people mention wanting to work on their air squat or push up form? 

A lot of times, we figure we have it down, but there is really a lot of room for improvement. CrossFit isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. The grace and skill it takes between points A and B of a rep will ultimately improve the proficiency of the movement.  

It takes time and dedication to fundamentals to really improve on some of the more “fun” movements and hit those PRs you’ve been chasing. 

If you’re struggling with a particular movement, or have a movement or PR goal that you’re chasing, get with a coach and schedule a personal training session. A knowledgeable and experienced coach will be able to provide not only a set of eyes to watch your reps, but also pointers and cues to correct mistakes.   

The coaches at Buffalo Nickel CrossFit can identify flaws in your movements and give feedback to address key fundamentals that might be lacking in your current training.  This way you are ready to crush those goals!

By Kari Reed

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How To Do Burpees: The Buffalo Nickel Guide

guy wearing cleveland singlet knowing how to do burpees on an athletic track

Raise your hand if you love burpees! What? Nobody?! I agree. Even though I don’t love burpees, I also can’t say that I hate them. I actually don’t mind them at all. They’re not too bad, if you know how to do burpees.

I used to hate burpees. Yes, hate is a very strong word. In this case, it’s completely accurate. I considered burpees to be equal to the devil. They are one of the most challenging CrossFit core exercises.

If I’m being honest, I hated them because I wasn’t good at them and I just couldn’t ever get comfortable with the suck. If you know me, you know I don’t like it when things are hard for me. So, I set out to embrace them.

I embraced them by doing them. More specifically, I did a 100 burpee challenge. 

The challenge was set up to do one burpee on day one, two burpees on day two, etc.

If you miss a day or days, you have to make up ALL of the missed burpees plus the current day’s burpees to continue. For example, if you miss days 10, 11 and 12, then on day 13 you have to do 46 burpees. 

One day, I did over 300. One day I did over 400. One day I did over 600.

I completed the challenge, though, and today I don’t hate burpees. How could I possibly hate them when I’ve never again had to do 600+ burpees in a single day?!  

Here are a few things I learned about how to do burpees

1. They really aren’t that hard

Let’s be honest, they are nothing more than getting on the ground and then getting back up. When you’re up, get down. When you’re down, get up.

That day I had to do over 600, really made me see them differently. As soon as I stood up, all I had to do was get down. Once I was down, I just had to get up. 

Of course there is always technique, which I’ll address shortly, but the basics of a burpee aren’t hard. Get down and get back up.

2. You have to pace yourself 

That pace is going to be different for everyone. Things like fitness level, volume of burpees, whether you are combining them with other movements, etc, will determine your pace from workout to workout. 

Your pace should be the rate at which you can move as quickly as possible, without stopping. Burpees will get your heart rate up and your lungs burning so you have to find that point that you can continue to manage both without stopping.

Sprinting and stopping and sprinting and stopping is going to take you much longer to accomplish the same amount of work. Find that breaking point of moving as fast as you can, but not so fast that you have to stop…and then stay there.  

3. Technique is a key part of how to do burpees

There are many tips out there for how to do burpees. Here are some of my favorites.

When you get down, don’t stop in the middle, at the top of the plank, and then lower yourself. Rather, try to kick your feet back as you’re coming down and “catch” yourself in the bottom of the push up position. This is because it takes longer when you stop, it takes more effort to stop there, and you then have to do the decline of your push up, which is harder than just falling. 

When you get up, jump your feet wider than your hands and throw your hips up as you bring those feet up. When you go to stand up, go straight into your jump. Don’t stop at the stand, and then jump. Let your stand and jump be one fluid movement. 

Move as little as possible. I am all about efficiency and accomplishing a task with as little effort as possible. Flow as many movements together as possible. Step up and step down if you have to. 

4. Burpees are mentally taxing

It can be a real mental game for a lot of people.  There were far more people who started the 100 day challenge than people who completed it.

The burpee is very repetitive and it takes a lot of effort to complete just one, and they never go as fast as you want them to go so it can be frustrating. When you accept them for the challenge that they are, you can just get after it. 

Final thoughts

If you think burpees suck, embrace them. 

Embrace that you’re burning calories and getting a full body workout every time you do them. 

Embrace them because you’ll never need the Life Alert, if you’ll just do them. You’ll be able to get on the floor and play with your kids, your grandkids, your dogs, or whatever, and not have to worry about not being able to get up. 

So, the next time you see burpees programmed, embrace them. After all, you’re just getting down and then getting back up. 

By Kari Reed

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