# Overhead Squat: how to do it

- Main muscles: quads, glutes
- Also works: front delts, upper back, abs
- Equipment: barbell
- Level: advanced
- 3D demo (side view): https://media.trainaq.com/exercises/overhead_squat/982ec107bf/side-m-720.mp4

## Steps

1. Hold the bar overhead with a wide grip and locked elbows.
2. Stand with feet a little wider than your shoulders, toes turned out.
3. Keep the bar over the middle of your feet and sit straight down.
4. Lower until your thighs are level, chest up.
5. Push through your whole foot to stand, bar steady overhead.

## Cues

- Push the bar up to the ceiling.
- Chest tall, arms beside your ears.
- Bar over your mid-foot the whole way.

## Common mistakes

- Letting the bar drift forward.
- Bending the elbows as you go down.
- Leaning the chest forward at the bottom.

## Starting position

The barbell is held overhead with a wide (snatch-width) overhand grip: hands spaced so the bar would sit in the hip crease with the arms hanging straight, roughly twice shoulder width. Elbows locked, arms straight, shoulders pushed up into the bar, bar directly over the mid-foot and over or slightly behind the back of the head. Heels a little wider than the shoulders, toes turned out about 20°, whole foot flat. Chest up, ribs down, gaze ahead.

## The movement

Hips and knees bend together and the body sinks straight down under the bar. The bar stays locked out and travels in a vertical line over the mid-foot; it does not drift forward. Because the bar is overhead, the trunk stays much more upright than in a back squat. The knees track over the toes. The arms stay vertical from the side, so as the trunk tips forward a little the arms open further behind the line of the trunk. Stand up by pushing through the whole foot, hips and shoulders rising together, the bar still steady over the mid-foot.

## End position

Bottom: thighs at or just below parallel, arms straight and vertical, bar over the mid-foot. That limit is why the trunk must stay upright; leaning past about 30° would push the arms forward of vertical or demand more shoulder range than most people have.

## Tempo

2.5 s down, 0.3 s pause at the bottom, 1.5 s up, 0.5 s locked out at the top. Slower than a back squat, because balancing the bar overhead is the hard part.

## Form in numbers

| Measure | Target | Good range | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Stance, heel to heel | 1.2 × shoulder width | 1.0–1.5 × | [2] [4] |
| Toe-out, each foot | 20° | 10–30° | [2] |
| Elbow flexion, whole rep | 0° (locked) | ≤ 5° | [2] |
| Arms from vertical (side view), whole rep | 0° | ± 5° | [1] |
| Depth: hip crease vs top of knee | 2 cm below | 0–6 cm below | [2] |
| Knee position, front view | over 2nd–3rd toe | no inward collapse | [1] [4] |
| Heel lift | 0 cm | 0 cm | [1] |

## Sources

1. [NASM, The Overhead Squat Assessment: A Step-by-Step Guide for Trainers](https://www.nasm.org/resource-center/blog/training/how-to-perform-an-overhead-squat-assessment-osa)
2. [ExRx, Overhead Squat](https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/OlympicLifts/OverheadSquat)
3. [Aspe and Swinton 2014, J Strength Cond Res, "Electromyographic and kinetic comparison of the back squat and overhead squat"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24662228/)
4. [Myer et al. 2014, Strength Cond J, "The back squat: a proposed assessment of functional deficits and technical factors that limit performance"](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4262933/)

Source: https://trainaq.com/exercises/overhead-squat