How to do the Barbell Front Squat
Step by step
- Rack the bar across the front of your shoulders with elbows pointing high.
- Set your feet about shoulder-width with toes slightly out.
- Brace your core and squat straight down, staying tall.
- Keep your elbows high the whole rep so the bar stays put.
- Drive up through your feet to stand tall.
The thing people get wrong
Squat in a rack with the safety pins set. If a rep stalls, drop your elbows, push the bar forward off your shoulders and step back - never fight it.
Coaching cue
Stay as upright as you can and let your knees travel forward as you sit straight down.
Stay safe
If your elbows drop and the bar starts rolling toward your fingers, rack it and lower the weight.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: Do a goblet squat or a dumbbell front squat instead.
- Harder: Pause for two seconds at the bottom of each rep.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Quads
- Secondary: Glutes, Core, Upper Back
What to do instead
Same job, different movement — useful if you don't have the equipment or it doesn't feel right today.
Daily Coach builds this into a real weekly plan. It picks the exercises for your equipment and experience, swaps around injuries you tell it about, and tracks what you actually lifted.