Usefulness of Front Squats

[poser]

Male 43

6’0
210#

I rotate seasonally between serious snowboarding (Big Mountain Freeriding) Nov-May (later some years) and Mountain Biking June-September. Usually do a hunting trip or Two in October that requires some Conditioning and detraining as well. I’ve been staying on HLM or H/L for in-season training and I run short cycles of LP between seasons 2-3x a year which gets my strength levels back up after in-season loss.

Lifts seem to consistently float between these numbers for 1x5: post LP cycle numbers are the upper end between seasons while the lower end numbers are at the conclusion of each respective season:

Squat: 275-335
Bench: 185-235
Press: 145-165
Deadlift: 320-365

I’ve been hammering the mountains this winter on a snowboard. As of date of writing (late Feb), I have 38 days of riding since mid Nov. Squats have predictably declined from 330# to 305# and will likely loose another 20# as we will have an extended season this year. That’s not my concern, however.

The limiting factor of fatigue is always perceived in my quads. It’s just a heavily quad dominate sport. Even though my Backsquat strength has declined, it is visually apparent that my quad muscles have grown in size significantly, however, I still find that muscular fatigue in my quads to be the limiting factor in performance at the end of the day. When I say my legs are “smoked”, I mean my quads have nothing left and are typically sore. I get a some lower back fatigue as well, but quads are often absolutely exhausted.

Front squat: I have used the FS some in the past as light day squatting, but have settled into doing low bar Backsquats on all squat sessions (Volume, Intensity, light or deload) for the last 1.5 years+ because I’ve had some elbow and wrist issues and because I concluded that the LBBS at any intensity is generally more productive than doing a weaker variation. That being said, now that I have identified quad muscular endurance as a limiting factor in my sport, should I be rethinking the involvement of the front squat leading up to the winter season as a complimentary movement to the Backsquat? Would there be any benefit [in my case] of performing a quad dominant movement at a submaximal weight vs. heavier weight of the LBBS that relies more on the glutes and hamstrings?

One solution (and probably the stock SS response) would be the idea of entering the season with a 400# Backsquat, thus having stronger quads as a result. That being the case, I believe I would have to dedicate the entire off season to nothing but strength training with no Summer or fall activities and That’s not likely to happen because I like living life more than I resent insufficient quads, though, if that’s the way that it woks
out at some point, I’ll be happy to go for it and report back results, but let’s rule that out for now.

So, anything to be gained here by using a more quad dominant movement [again, in conjunction with the LLBS, not instead of]?

[Michael Wolf]

Good Q. The answer is I am not 100% sure. My experience has been that getting the LBBS up does in fact strength the quads significantly because even though they lift a smaller % of the load, the load is significantly larger than a front squat. But where exactly the line is is unclear: do the quads do more work in a 500 lb low bar squat or a 385 front squat? Probably the 500, though I am not 100% sure. While I lean towards the "stock SS response" as being more probable, at least if you train correctly, I can see a case for the other way as at least possible, and if you want to give it a try and report back, you certainly have my permission to do so. It would be an interesting data point, anyway.

[poser]

Still been thinking about this and if anyone has anything to add, I’d be interested in hearing it. I got home last night from a monster day in the mountains riding very steep, technical terrain in very deep powder. My quads were so fatigued and tight that I had trouble walking up the stairs. hips and hamstrings feel “tired” as the rest of my body does, but not directly “sore.” Maybe those muscles would otherwise be sore if they weren’t as strong as they are in which case it’s better to have sore quads than sore glutes and hamstrings?? IDK, but with 40 days of riding this season, it frustrating to have quads that fatigued in extremely high consequence terrain.

[Michael Wolf]

Yes, part of the reason quads get sore like that is because they extend the knee by themselves, whereas hams and glutes share the work in the posterior side (and adductors in the squat, though probably not much on the bike due to the narrow, toes forward pedal position).