Where are your elbows on the backsquat? Are they pointing down to the ground? If so, you have a wonderful technical deficiency to correct. In order for you to be able to carry the weight optimally during the backsquat, you must have you elbows pointed backwards (although not parallel to the ground).

Why? In order to fully support the bar, your elbows must be angled backwards to that they create a shelf for the bar to sit in. When your elbows drop, it allows the bar to roll down your back. A higher elbow position will feel much more stable and will make it easier to feel balanced under the weight.

If you have trouble getting your elbows into the right position then mobility work is a must. I know that I have to do shoulder flexibility work so that I can move weight overhead and lift more in both the front and backsquat. A temporary fix while you are waiting for your hard mobility work to pay off is to widen your grip on the bar. This lets you point your elbows back further, although it may make it harder to keep your back tight. I find it much easier to squat with a wider grip on the bar, and with a little focus the loss of back tightness won’t effect your lifts.

In the front squat a strong rack is crucial. There are two things that are important about the rack position. The first is that you need to have the bar balanced on your shoulders, not in your hands. The second is that you need to have a strong upper back to help hold the weight in place.

Keeping an upright posture is the best way to ensure that the bar stays on your shoulders. The best cue for this is to try and lean backwards. Don’t worry you probably won’t fall back (emphasis on the probably, don’t be an idiot and overdo it). With larger weights your center of mass changes, and although you will never truly be leaning back it may feel like a substantial lean is necessary in order to keep the bar lined up over the center of your foot. The tendency that you need to fight with an load on the front of the body (anterior, if you want to use a big fancy word) is a lean forward caused by the bar being positioned in front of your spine. It is obviously impossible to place the bar at shoulder height directly over your spine, at least I would hope this is obvious, but the closer the bar is to being over your spine the easier it will be to keep in place.

Another word of warning, if the bar is racked too deeply on the shoulders you may be at risk of passing out due to the loss of blood flow caused by embedding the barbell in your neck. In the event that you feel feint, bail the bar. Take a minute to recover an try again. There is no need for you to pass out, it does not make you a badass, it just makes you someone who missed a rep and risked injury for nothing.

A second component to the rack position is a strong upper back. This is important in both the front and backsquats, but I’ll address the backsquat in a later article. A strong upper back serves two purposes. The first is to better translate the power from your hips (the real core strength) by turning your torso into a solid block. The second is to act as a buffer to the inefficiency of the front rack position. Due to the position of the barbell there is inherently more strain on the rack position than in the backsquat. Therefore it is crucial to have a strong upper back to hold the bar into the proper position. Arm strength is mildly relevant; however if you are using your arms to hold the bar in position then you are most likely not keeping a high enough elbow position.