My wrists suck ! (during front squats)

[TheTonyT]

The heavyier I go, the more often Im beggining to dump the weight usually right out of the "hole". It feels like for some reason I cant find a proper grip. At times it feels like my fingers are going to snapp off. Im not activly carrying the weight in my hand, but for some reason it feels like my fingers are bearing the load. If this keeps up it going to severly limit my ability to wrestle, box, and play video games, so any help is greatly appriciated thanks !

[MikeC1]

How much are you front squatting? How many reps do you do?

[Carnivroar]

Do you really have to do front squats?

[tertius]

The heavyier I go, the more often Im beggining to dump the weight usually right out of the "hole". It feels like for some reason I cant find a proper grip. At times it feels like my fingers are going to snapp off. Im not activly carrying the weight in my hand, but for some reason it feels like my fingers are bearing the load. If this keeps up it going to severly limit my ability to wrestle, box, and play video games, so any help is greatly appriciated thanks !

I don't know if this will be useful (as usual, I'm just some moran on the internet), but...

you should be able to balance the bar on your delts with your arms straight out in front of you, both at the top of the lift, and at the bottom.
Try squatting with your arms straight out, and just the bar balanced on your delts without your hands (call it a Zombie Front Squat). I bet you are tipping too far forward at the bottom, and now you're working heavy enough that you can't compensate for the tip anymore. Without your hands on the bar, you can see where it wants to go when you hit the bottom of the movement.

[Kincain]

I bet you are tipping too far forward at the bottom, and now you're working heavy enough that you can't compensate for the tip anymore. Without your hands on the bar, you can see where it wants to go when you hit the bottom of the movement.

I also think this is going on, you are perhaps leaning too far forward (inclined torso). Keep your torso as up right as possible and get your hips between you ankles. The front squat is completely different than the back squat, do as tertius says and see if that's the problem.

Other wise you might not not enough flexibility in your wrists. My only advice would be, warm them up and stretch them. The flexibility comes with time.

[zzt]

9 times out of 10 this is due to inadequate thoracic spine strength and mobility (i cracked a rib earlier in the year because of this). Once you improve the stregth and mobility of your T-Spine, you will have no problem keeping your chest high (T-Spine locked in extension), and the bar racked on your delts. This will consequently greatly reduce the stess on your fingers and wrists.

Front squats themselves do a lot for T-Spine strength (which is why I think they are great for deadlifts), however if you are weak there to start, you will just keep caving in at the bottom.

I found that getting the hang of t-spine extension is difficult, but if you drill it and go through some quite uncomfortable mobility work for a month or so, you will finally find your groove and be able to actively angage it. It has made a massive difference to ALL my exercises(presses, Dlift, squats and even chins), and fixed up a persistent AC joint problem in my shoulder

Do lots of this (key... dont extend the lower back to compensate for poor T-Spine mobility):
http://ericcressey.com/exercise-of-t...on-foam-roller

and lots of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj6Yz...eature=related

[Greg C]

I think we can skip the medicine ball extensions for now...

dumping forward in FS and your wrists indicate a few things:

1. your elbows are dropping for some reason (I can't see it from here, so a vid would help) - could be your stability through the middle sucks, could be form, could be something else (too heavy, hey, it happens). Try this: Concentrate on driving your elbows up through the entire squat, especially out of the hole. After warm-up sets, use a loaded bar in the rack to stretch your rack position (approaching the bar like you are going to un-rack in FS, but don't, and push one elbow up as high as you can at a time - a partner can help with this if available).

2. Your wrist and finger comments is flexibility. Mine sucks too. work daily after workouts (you you are warm prior to static stretches).
Wrist & Finger stretches:
http://www.physioadvisor.com.au/8114...sioadvisor.htm
Wrist:

[zzt]

greg. I agree with your points, but my experience has been that unless you have the requisite strength and modility in your upper back, you just wont be able to get your elbows up...i.e. you will only get them so far. Solving the upper back problems (if indeed they exist) will go a long way to solving the wrist issues. A weak rack position is rarely caused by a wrist flexibility issue, although it may be symtomatic of another structural weakness

[Greg C]

Pain in the wrists is almost always more frequent due to inflexibility - I've noticed more people run into that before the upper back strength becomes an issue (although I agree it can be a cause for dumping).

[TheTonyT]

Hey thanks alot my Iron Brothers. I will take all this info to the barbell next wensday when I front squat. It was during my "light" TM day, and I was going for heavy front squats. My goal was to grab 3x3 w/ 290 but I managed to grab ony 1 set of 2, with the third rep being a dump. My elbows were all over the place, and thinking back I do think it has to do with my in ability to keep my elbows perfectly up, and learning a bit to foward in the bucket.

I did manage to squeeze of two more sets of 3 w/ 260, but I had to dump the 1st rep of the last set because my damn wrists were killing me. I got under the bar and hit the set of 3 , but again I noticed my elbows were lower then they probolly should be and the weight was rolling onto my finger tips.