Video
Olympic Weightlifting Squat Position - Trust What Works For The Best
When it comes to squatting for weightlifting, somehow there are still pockets of resistance to the obvious, and instruction contrary to all evidence.
Here are the bottom positions of the biggest cleans from each weight class from the most recent world championships. This includes male and female lifters with body weights from 45kg to over 160kg, a range of body types, and from a variety of countries.
In not one single case is the athlete sitting the hips back and leaning the trunk forward or keeping the knees back behind the toes.
They’re sitting as straight down and as deep as their anatomy, balance and correct spinal extension allow.
As a fun bonus, not a single one has the toes pointed straight forward, and none is trying to push the knees outside the feet.
Are there ever exceptions to these things at the international level? Of course—there are exceptions to everything. But they’re anomalies, not models to mimic.
This position is used by the world’s best weightlifters because it’s what works best—not because they’re idiots who haven’t been educated on a better way to squat.
Quit fighting the obvious facts, and quit misleading inexperienced lifters with nonsense novelty drills and positions to try to get a following.
Find your squat stance easily with this.
Dial it all in with this.
Here are the bottom positions of the biggest cleans from each weight class from the most recent world championships. This includes male and female lifters with body weights from 45kg to over 160kg, a range of body types, and from a variety of countries.
In not one single case is the athlete sitting the hips back and leaning the trunk forward or keeping the knees back behind the toes.
They’re sitting as straight down and as deep as their anatomy, balance and correct spinal extension allow.
As a fun bonus, not a single one has the toes pointed straight forward, and none is trying to push the knees outside the feet.
Are there ever exceptions to these things at the international level? Of course—there are exceptions to everything. But they’re anomalies, not models to mimic.
This position is used by the world’s best weightlifters because it’s what works best—not because they’re idiots who haven’t been educated on a better way to squat.
Quit fighting the obvious facts, and quit misleading inexperienced lifters with nonsense novelty drills and positions to try to get a following.
Find your squat stance easily with this.
Dial it all in with this.
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- there may be a survivor bias
- these movements may increase the risk profile for maladapted or unadapted tissue (some suggest it takes 3 years of resistance training for connective tissue to optimally adapt
- these movements are goals for anyone that can keep their ego in check and abide by progressive overload of peak load, accumulated load, frequency of load within the concept of acute: chronic workload ratios (whose initial steps might be the foundational work you rail against)
- tribalism gets clicks, real life is found in-between the extremes
Greg Everett
And there ARE in fact arguments about front squat posture and stance - if there weren't, I wouldn't have felt compelled to make such a video.
Toes forward with knees out and sitting back with a more upright shin angle IN A FRONT SQUAT is absolutely taught by some. You don't have to squat this way, or teach anyone to do it, but you can't erase the existence of these things.
Greg Everett