Front Squats?

[Philliagorillia]

Ok guys, i have a really hard time doing squats in general ebcause of an injury i had a few years back. I started doing front squats to change things up a little and see if it would help ease up on the pain in my knee, well it worked wonders. I can do fairly heavy and deep front squats, and it seems as if my legs are developing better by doing these than normal squats, plus im getting no pain in my knees from it. Think it would be ok to just do front squats instead of regular squats?

[Philliagorillia]

Obviously nobody cares!

[Shredz]

You have to give it more then an hour bro!!! Some of these guys never make it out of the AR Lounge!!!

As for your question, well really you may not have a choice. If regular squats are agravating an already injured knee then I would stay away from them. I have had great sucess with front squats in the past. So I throw them into the mix from time to time. What other exercises are you able to do??

[Philliagorillia]

Yeah i do find myself in the ar lounge more than any other room on here too, haha, im too impatient... Anywho i just figured i need to do some sort of squats to keep building good leg mass.

[Shredz]

You could look at lunges and leg presses. Leg presses will put on some quality mass ans lunges are a great shaper.

[palme]

Lunges are even harder on the knees (for me atleast). I also have problems with me knees and ive basiclly stopped doing squats/front squats now, just legpresses and legkicks for my fronts and they still grow.

[phreezer]

Front squats can not and will not replace the Regular squat.. Regular squating is king of all weight training exercises for a reason... Nothing will add more over all body mass than squating..yep.. I said overall body mass.. Pushing and Pulling heavy weight from the floor stimulates the body to grow more so than anything else..that is why core movements are so important to training..

Front squats are great for quads. but will not recruit the hamstrings or the hip flexors. If you were having knee pain from squating you should be having knee pain from doing front squats.. This leads me to believe that your form wasn't very good..Maybe you were too squating to narrow stance or perhaps your hips were too weak for the amount of weight you were squating..and your knees were turning in on the upward motion of the lift.. I posted something on how to properly squat (I can't take credit for writing it) but it's definitly one of the best articles I've seen on the subject.. you may also want to check out the pics I attatched. http://anabolicreview.com/vbulletin/...ad.php?t=89176

Oh one more thing.. if you like doing front squat you should try doing zerchers..they are IMO the best quad building exercise going.

Take care,

Phreezer

[Juggernaut]

Interesting....front squats I've seen and done are the type where thw bar is across the top portion of the pecs with arms crossed. It feels as if it sits across my front delts. The reason I mention this is I can handle a hell of a lot more weight in this fashion than in the one you have on your post Phreezer. Is that a normal front squat you picture? Or the other you mentioned?

Imho if all you feel you can get away with (Philla) is front squats....it's better than no squats at all. Full squats are flat out the best but if you've back and neck problems you do what you can.....

[phreezer]

The pic I posted is of Zerchers bro.... Try the zerchers some time.. they recruit the upper body and stabalizer muscles much more than regular front squats..

And honestly, if he can do deep front squats and have no knee pain..then the pain he's getting from doing regular squats is more form related than injury related.

[Juggernaut]

My bad bro I thought it was a bad back Philla was suffering from as well. I think Phreezer has a point about form. Philla are you doing squats on a Smith or free weights?

Phr....I will try those out week after next (with my current routin legs are tuesday and every forth week I toss in a different form of the squat) They look like fun. I'll hunt you down and let you know how I did.

[Juggernaut]

Phr....that post on squats was great. I'll be printing that one off for sure. Thanks

[Philliagorillia]

Im doing them free weight, and i have tried many positions over the last few years and i just can do regular squats without a bit of pain. But the front squats i was referring to are the ones where the bar rest upon your delts across your chest, but my general leg workout includes front squats, leg presses, leg extensions, leg curles and calf raises...