Bar tiltinig to one side - Front Squat, Clean

[Brian Lawyer]

My wife and friend have both commented when I have been doing Front Squats or Cleans that the bar is slanting to one side when looking at me from the front. It must be a fairly pronounced slant if they have both noticed and commented.

I personally can't feel myself doing it. I have always been more concerned with having the bar in all the proper alignment when looking from the side view. In other words, a correct bar path, having bar over mid-foot area, proper back angles, etc.

So is the bar slanting from one side to the other a problem as long as all the aformentioned proper form is in place? If so, how do I fix it when I can't even feel that I am doing this.

My guess is that one of my shoulders is more flexible then the other from the "Rack" position which is causing an un-even rack. So maybe the answer is keep working on the flexibility.

Also, I have some video of me doing clean on another thread of mine. I don't know if this problem is evident in the video.

[Steven Low]

Vid the front angle! Probably one of the few times the side is not useful, eh?

[Brandon Oto]

I often find this fixes itself at heavier weights.

[Brian Lawyer]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Vid the front angle! Probably one of the few times the side is not useful, eh?

I'll try to get a video from the front.

Originally Posted by Brandon Oto

I often find this fixes itself at heavier weights.

I don't think the weight is correcting my problem. My buddy at the gym commented when he saw me Front Squatting 265 and my wife commented about it today when I was doing CJ's with 205.

I don't feel out of balance at all. I generally face away from the mirror when I go to the local globo, but I think next time I do front Squats the easy way to fix this problem is to face the mirror and correct it myself.

I am pretty sure it has to do with one shoulder being more flexible than the other. I can do the shoulder stretch where you reach behind your head with one arm (i.e. a tricep stretch) and reach around your back with the other arm and clinch your hands together. I can clinch hands together going one direction and barely touch fingers going the other direction. I bet that tight side is throwing it off balance.

[Brandon Oto]

Yeah, the mirror is the right tool in this case.

[John Filippini]

It could be an imbalance in strength between the two sides of your body. For example, if your right leg is stronger, you may lean ever so slightly to the right, and it takes a 7' barbell for anyone to notice. Or for the same reason you could be unconsciously setting yourself just slightly off center on the bar (I have a friend that just recently noticed that he does this). A flexibility imbalance in your arms/shoulders could place you off center too.

I actually really dislike mirrors myself, because the distraction is way too much cost for the benefit during the lift, though that's just personal preference. Could help to make sure that you're centered on the bar though.

[Allen Yeh]

If you lookup the SquatRX videos over on youtube, I sem to recall in the troubleshooting video he addressed this type of problem.