Front squats and my hands

[sbhikes]

I'm trying to figure out what's the deal with my hands and front squats. I've seen pictures of people doing front squats and the bar is resting barely on the ends of their fingers. If I put my arms in the same position, the bar ends up in the palm of my hands. I can't reach my shoulders with my fingers. My palms are at my shoulders. The higher I raise my elbows the closer my wrists are to my shoulders.

I'm finding front squats a little difficult because of this. My thumbs get in the way. If I don't have to clean the bar first I can just do a thumbless position to start with, but the bar still ends up on my palm.

Does this mean that my arms are really long or am I doing something totally wrong?

[Nick Klemetson]

Picture?

[ColoWayno]

Genie style might be an option, though it's frowned upon in these parts.



http://images6.fanpop.com/image/phot...63-772-990.jpg

[perman]

I thought I couldn't do a proper clean grip either. Stretching and moving the hands out has made me able to do a somewhat working clean grip. Practice and time spent will solve this for the vast majority of people I believe

[osv2]

I'm trying to figure out what's the deal with my hands and front squats. I've seen pictures of people doing front squats and the bar is resting barely on the ends of their fingers.

The bar should rest on delts. Fingers should rather rest on (under) the bar.

If I put my arms in the same position, the bar ends up in the palm of my hands. I can't reach my shoulders with my fingers. My palms are at my shoulders. The higher I raise my elbows the closer my wrists are to my shoulders.

Approach the bar, put 3 of your fingers on the bar (except pinky and thumb) at slightly-wider-than-shoulders width and grip the bar with the 3 fingers. Pinky will prevent the bar from sliding into palm. Move your shoulders forward, or, rather, move your chest as far from the bar as possible, keeping shoulders down (don't shrug). Now, keeping shoulders forward, make proud chest (chest up), and step under the bar, rotating your elbows below and around the bar so that they point forward, and use the bar to bend your fingers and wrists back (extend them) until the bar rests on your delts. Keep elbows as close together as possible (don't let them spread).

HTH

[BigA]

Keeping the elbows closer definitely helped me a lot. Also, the flexibility of your wrists affect the rack position a lot. I have pretty long arms and I thought that I wasn't able to do a proper front squat until I trained the lift on a more regular basis and eventually, the rack position felt quite comfortable (although keeping my chest up became much harder at heavy weights). Hope this helps!

[old guy]

I use genie style due to flexibility issues- did not know it was frowned upon ( not that I care that much)

[Adam Skillin]

I use genie style due to flexibility issues- did not know it was frowned upon ( not that I care that much)

Straps are an option as well. Just saying. Still waiting for diane's photo...

[old guy]

Straps are an option as well. Just saying. Still waiting for diane's photo...

you are right - have used straps as well - work pretty well for the flexibly challenged.

[melody]

I would start with youtubing a "front rack position" and trying to see if you can learn to do it. Otherwise use straps around the bar (you can youtube that too).