I may be biased here because the front squat is probably my all time favorite exercise, but, there's nothing more badass than a MASSIVE front squat! If you train it right, you might even be able to beat a completely detrained, un-roided Lu Xiaojun circa 2022. 

Front squats make you a better athlete; they keep your mobility honest through multiple key joints and muscle groups (hips, knees, ankles, upper back, lats, wrists); they build massive and monstrously strong legs; they build a level of thoracic extensor strength that is unrivaled by any other movement; and they make you a much better all around squatter compared to non-front squatters.

So front squats are super valuable in general. They improve pretty much everything, so they've been included on several of my lists of key accessory movements for other exercises as well.

But what about for the people who just want to improve the front squat for its own end because they realize how badass of a movement it is? Today your prayers will be answered because I'm going to teach you guys how to take your front squats gains to the next level!

If your goal is to build the biggest front squat possible for it's own sake then the most important thing you can do, perhaps more so than on any other lift, is incorporate HEAVY front squats. If you want to get strong at front squats then in this particular case you have to do heavy front squats.

Submaximal work is amazing, but in this case it just doesn't quite hit the same way, probably because getting good at heavy front squats is very dependent on being able to hold a reliable front rack position with a rigid upper back under maximal loads, and building that type of massive thoracic extensor strength requires frequent, task specific work.

Repeat triples for general training purposes and autoregulated top set triples during blocks when you're really trying to push maximal strength are probably the sweet spot here. For example, in my quest to get a strong enough upper back to zombie front squat 405lbs, I tripled 355lbs something like 10-15 times in total over the several months it took me to hit that lift. I basically went out every single week and tripled 355 at a minimum.

Once it got comfy enough I pushed  the numbers a little bit and hit PR triples with 360lbs, then 365lbs, and finally 370lbs. That 370 pound triple yielded a 405 single. And those auto-regulated heavy triples every single week were the reason I was able to work up and hit that big single. 

But doubles and singles are also going to have a lot of value here as well, you just have to be a little bit more careful because it's easier to get too close to the absolute ceiling the less and less reps that you intend to do in a set. My lifetime best front squat of 430lbs in sleeves came after a barrage of heavy singles that I executed over the course of several months. I also managed to hit 455 in wraps in the same way.

So if you want to get good at heavy front squats, you need to do some heavy front squats. They're hard, they're uncomfortable, they're sometimes painful, but they are damn effective.

If the heavy front squat is the meat of our dinner when it comes to building a massive front squat, then the high bar squat is the potatoes. We are going to rely on the front squat itself to build most of the applicable strength, and then we are going to use the high bar squat to augment that strength and give us a nice dose of leg hypertrophy in the process as well.

As such, the majority of your high bar squat work should be done with moderate training weights and in moderate reps ranges. The sweet spot here is probably going to be 6-8 reps, but you are also going to benefit from time spent in the 4-6 rep range for some heavier work, as well as in the 8-10 rep range for some lighter work.

The high bar squat is going to allow you to get in that ultra important training volume with a little bit more margin for error, as the movement is quite a bit more forgiving of technical discrepancies under fatigue as compared to the front squat. This makes it a good accessory movement and base building tool for general squatting prowess, that we can then convert into front squatting strength and skill specifically.

As an added bonus, if you have access to a safety squat bar then you should absolutely make use of that implement and it can fully replace your straight bar high bar squat if you want it to. The SSB has the added benefit of sitting really high up on the back and trying to pull you forward a lot more than a straight bar does.

This has a similar but slightly different effect on the thoracic extensors as compared to the front squat, and as such it is going to complement the front squat very nicely by providing this added bonus benefit, while also still retaining all the aforementioned benefits of the high bar squat.

Finally, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but now you gotta eat your vegetables, sonny. In this case you're going to be sucking down some PIN FRONT SQUATS, one of the most brutal squat variations that you can choose to subject yourself to.

The pin front squat sees you break up the eccentric and concentric phases of the movement at the deepest part of the lift (which is the most mechanically compromised position of the squat) by fully deloading the bar onto the pins, pausing for a second or two, and then exploding back to the top.

This deload and explode sequence accomplishes two important things.

1. It teaches your body how to go from 0 to 100 instantly. By deloading the weight onto the pins you release all of the tension from your body at the most mechanically disadvantageous portion of the lift, and then you have to learn how to re-engage all of that tension immediately so that you can explode maximally and generate enough bar speed to break through the sticking point.

You will become monstrously strong out of the hole and you will take the thoracic extensor strength benefits of front squats and amplify them to the thousandth degree. 

2. The second benefit is positional. Becoming a good front squatter is highly contingent on mastering the positions of the movement. That means learning to keep your hips under you, learning how to keep your upper back rigidly extended, learning how to keep your elbows tall, and the most challenging part of all: maintaining those positions as you drive out of the hole of the squat.

Pin lifts force you to learn how to maintain more optimal positions. As you get stronger and more skilled at lifting off of pins you will find that you naturally maintain better position throughout more of your heavy lifts, and those positional improvements will have a direct and immense carryover to your free front squats as well.

So there ya go! If you want to become a badass front squatter you are going to have to learn how to love some hard, gut wrenching work inside the squat rack. There is no secret trick to building a big front squat other than that. Front squat heavy, supplement that with some base building high bar or SSB work, and then do some pin work or maybe even some zombie work to enhance your overall front squatting skill.

Rinse, wash, repeat and you will be putting 2022 Lu Xiaojun to shame in no time. You probably won't be beating 2021 Lu anytime soon, but no one else is either so you don't have to feel bad about that!

Keep training hard and I will catch you guys next time!