Utah Jazz Front Squat

Utah Jazz's Kosta Koufos and Morris Almond perform the Front Squat at Peak Performance Project, while Dr. Marcus Elliott, director of P3, explains how to properly perform the drill.

Dr. Marcus Elliott: We used the back squat a lot with our athletes like most people do, but we hardly ever back squat anymore. That was driven by a few different things. Front squat's more athletic; it trains the trunk and anterior thighs and doesn't wear out your lumbar spine as much. We encourage deep front squats. We like guys to go as deep as they can as long as they can maintain lordosis or low curvature in the lower back. We don't want the hips curling under. As long as they can maintain lordosis we'll let them go as deep as possible. You've got to keep pushing the knees out. The knees can't fall inside the feet. You've got to keep pushing the knee's out. We also let athletes push knees past their toes. A lot of athletes are taught not to let their knees go past their toes, we like our athletes to let their knees go past their toes they just have to be really stable. It's a much safer position for the knees. Generally when we front squat with a moderate to elite level athlete we don't do more than five reps, generally not more than five sets of five reps but sometimes we'll do more. Occasionally we'll do as many as ten sets, usually only five reps or so.