The Front Squat has been toted as the “Safest” squat to do. One of the many reasons people say this is because:
- You don’t load your back as much
- You can’t use heavy weights, in comparison to the back squat.
This is a Back Squat:
It’s all Bull $HIT
To knix the back squat is crap unless you have a specific contraindication than yes you should. But to put out a generalization like this is typical of the fitness field to over react and jump on the bandwagon of a fitness guru.
I’ve heard people say that the front squat is safe and it’s ok to do high reps with it…The problem is with the front squat, your upper back can become the weak link as you fatigue. This means that you can very well round and potentially injure yourself. Personally I’ve hurt my back twice with the front squat because I was fatigued and rounded in the bottom position, which left my lower back vulnerable to herniation.
In the back squat you don’t have to worry about this as much, therefore I don’t believe the front squat is “Safer” than the back squat.
As for the “you use less weight, therefore it’s safer” comment:
Klokov 250kg
I think that speaks for itself…To add to this I believe Rob Panariello had said “it’s like comparing a V6- to a V8 engine” The V6 of course won’t have as much power as the V8, in this case the front squat is the V6 and the back squat is the V8.
The point here is that you can’t look at the exercise and just right it off, you should be looking at the person and how they execute it. You can easily hurt yourself stretching as you can lifting weights, so does that mean I should write off stretching?