The most common squat technique error we see at The Strength House is falling forward. This could be due to a number of different reasons. If you want to fix your squat, you’ve gotta figure out WHY you’re falling forward so you can take action.
Here are the six most common reasons for falling forward. Identify whichever one(s) apply to you so you can fix your squat.
1. YOU DON’T GET TIGHT ENOUGH
If you want to lift heavy with proper technique, you MUST get tight. Not skinny jeans tight. More like, main riff from Master of Puppets tight. No wasted energy or movement, just TIGHT.
But seriously, if you’re not squeezing the shit of your bar, bracing your abs like crazy and attaching your feet to the ground like you were made of cement, you’re not tight enough.
Remember, lifting weights is fighting gravity. The earth wants to pull the bar down at 9.8 meters per second, which is pretty fast. It’s not just your job to prevent the bar from crashing DOWN, but also to prevent the bar from tipping you FORWARD. Full-body tightness is your braking system that prevents the bar from stapling you to the floor. It’s also how you store kinetic energy to help lift the bar back up, like compressing a spring.
Take this step-by-step approach to make sure you’re getting tight:
- Grab the bar and squeeze it as if you were trying to melt it in your hands.
- Pinch your shoulder blades together as if you were trying to crack a walnut.
- Make a double chin and try to bend the bar into your traps.
- Take a breath into your stomach, sides and lower back as if you were about to spend 5 minutes underwater.
- Corkscrew your feet into the ground as if you were trying to tear the earth in half.
Now you should be so tight that if an NFL linebacker tried to tackle you, they’d bounce right off. Kinda like our favorite retired New England tight end.
2. YOU ARCH YOUR BACK TOO MUCH
Old school powerlifting wisdom tells us that arching your back will keep your chest up. We don’t want to round our back, so doing the exact opposite and arching our back will put us in the best position. Right?
Not so fast. Over-arching the lower back disengages the abs, and puts the pelvis in a lousy position to allow the femurs (thigh bones) to move within the acetabulum (hip sockets). Sure, arching the back at the start of the squat will keep the chest up, but continuing to arch the back as you squat down will lead to a handful of technique errors.
Arching the back limits hip internal rotation as you squat down, and you need lots of hip internal rotation to squat deep. If you rob the hips of internal rotation but keep trying to squat deep, the body will organize itself into a position where it can regain hip internal rotation, and in this case, that involves rounding the lower back and tucking the pelvis into posterior tilt. This leads to the knees caving in, failing to squat deep enough, and – you guessed it – the torso falling forward.
So how do you squat without your spine moving? You must create moments – not movements – at different sections of your spine. You must create an extension moment (i.e., pull the chest up without overarching the lower back) at the upper back to lock it into place, and you must create a flexion movement (i.e., tuck the hips under without rounding the lower back) to allow the hips to move freely. The goal is to end up not too arched, and not too flexed, just right in the middle.
Here’s a great video to help visualize pelvic positioning and spinal alignment during the squat:
3. YOUR USE THE WRONG BAR PLACEMENT
Everybody’s different. Some squatters thrive with a high-bar position, others dominate with low bar. But it bears repeating: just like the previous point, starting somewhere in the middle is a good idea.
Where you place the bar on your back will dictate your torso angle. If you place the bar too high on your back, you’ll stay very upright initially, but eventually you’ll struggle to keep the bar from rolling around when it gets really heavy. A low bar placement keeps the bar close to your hips and typically allows you to move heavier weights, but place the bar TOO low on your back and you’ll simply lean forward too much from the get-go.
If your high bar crumbles under heavy weights or you lean forward too much with your low bar, adjust your bar placement until you achieve the desired torso angle.
4. YOU LACK ADEQUATE SHOULDER MOTION
Related to the previous point, if you lack the adequate shoulder motion to get into a good squat position, you’ll end up falling forward, chewing up your elbows, or both.
I discuss this concept at length in a previous post, 6 Ways to Reduce Shoulder Pain During Squats, so give that a read for a more detailed explanation.
To summarize, you need:
- Thoracic Spine Extension (the ability to pick your chest up without arching your lower back)
- Scapular Posterior Tilt (getting your shoulder blades to tip backward on your ribcage)
- Shoulder External Rotation (rotating your arm back like you were throwing a baseball)
A lack of any of these movements will push the elbows backward and the torso forward. It looks something like this:
In this picture, my elbows are pointed too far backward and the front of my shoulder is pushed forward. Not only is this really uncomfortable and tough on my joints, but if I squat with heavy weights like this, I’m going to fall forward.
Granted, adjusting the bar placement could fix this instantly, but if you STILL can’t get into a good position (or you want to use a lower bar position without destroying your elbows), you’ll need to improve you shoulder motion.
Some people say they “don’t believe in mobility” or “don’t need corrective exercises to warm up”. It’s trendy to shit on warming up… until you get hurt. A little bit goes a long ways, plus it’ll make your squat better, so suck it up and warm up.
My three go-to exercises for getting my shoulders ready to squat are:
Bench T-Spine Mobilizations to work on thoracic extension
Forearm Wall Slides to work on scapular posterior tilt
External Rotation End Range Liftoffs to work on humeral external rotation
5. YOU DESCEND TOO FAST
Remember how we talked about gravity earlier? Turns out lifting weights would be a hell of a lot easier if it wasn’t for another one of Newton’s discoveries. This time it’s his first law of motion that comes into play:
An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an external force acts upon it.
In this case, unless you control the bar on the way down, it’s gonna keep wanting to go down. So if you dive bomb your squats, you’re more likely to fall forward simply because you’re giving in to gravity rather than throwing on the brakes against it. As you try to reverse the weight, inertia will still be pulling the bar DOWN, so as you go to stand up, your hips will shoot back and your torso will pitch forward.
My favorite exercise to emphasize tempo and control is the squat to pins. This would be my first choice to fix just about any technique error, but it works especially well for tempo because if you drop too quickly, the bar will crash into the pins and you’ll feel like you got hit by a bus.
6. YOUR GLUTES AND QUADS ARE WEAK
Research shows us that the main movers in ANY squat – regardless of stance width or bar position – are the glutes, quads and adductors. The hamstrings don’t do much because they don’t change length much. Check out this article by Greg Nuckols for more on that.
When you squat, you need your hips and knees to extend at the same rate. Typically in a bad squat, the knees extend must faster than the hips, leading to a “good morning” squat that’s inefficient at best and dangerous at worst.
Your glutes extend your hips. If your glutes are weak, your hips won’t extend as fast as your knees, and BAM! Good morning. More like bad morning, amirite?
Now if your quads are weak, one would think it wouldn’t be too big of an issue as long as your glutes are strong. However, Dr. Megan Bryanton’s research in biomechanics helps us understand that quad weakness ALSO leads to early knee extension and feeds into the good morning position too.
If your quads are weak, your body will self-organize into a more advantageous position. In the case of a good morning squat, it’s your body saying, “We don’t think our quads can help move this weight, so let’s get into more of a deadlift position so we can rely on hamstrings and lower back to get the job done.” Unfortunately, the bar is on your back and not in your hands, so this self-organization is also self-sabotaging.
Basically, stronger quads mean you don’t have to “max out” your knee extension early and then rely on your hip extensors to finish the lift. Dr. Bryanton explains it all in this Reactive Training Systems Podcast, so have a listen.
If you want to fix your squat it’s a safe bet to hammer the glutes and quads with accessory exercises that focus on strength and hypertrophy. We’re talking:
- Front squats
- Lunges and split squats
- Glute ham raises
- Reverse hypers
- Kettlebell swings
FIX YOUR SQUAT
While these aren’t the ONLY reasons why you might fall forward during heavy squats, they’re the most common ones we see on a daily basis. Avoid these mistakes and take action to fix your squat.
If you like this kind of in-depth analysis of lifting technique, you’ll love our Optimizing the Big 3 online powerlifting course. From coaching cues, to exercise selection guidelines, to program design recommendations and more, this course will make you a better lifter and coach. Click here to sign up today!
