Overhead Squat: "Death on a Stick"

This is a great video from Glenn Pendlay and Jon North, both formerly with Cal Strength.  The latter  provided the subtitle for this post, "death on a stick."  Funny.

The overhead squat is a useful diagnostic tool for assessing an athlete's mobility as hip, ankle, thoraic, shoulder and even wrist flexibility all come into play.  An added benefit is the limited margin for "cheating" this movement due to its emphasis on positions.  Other benefits stemming from the overload squat include strengthening the trunk and overhead position, reinforcing the vertical torso position, challenging maximum depth on the squat and building confidence for heavier snatches.  Despite the value overhead squatting provides, I rarely see people in the gym training this movement, let alone going heavy.

Critics argue the overhead squat is a poor movement for building strength as a result of the lighter loading when compared to the back or front squat.  I agree with this argument.  The overhead squat is inferior to the aforementioned squat varieties.  However, that does not mean the movement should be discarded completely.  It still has its place in a well-balanced training program.  For instance, the overhead squat fits nicely into a four-day-per-week training schedule (Monday - back squats, Wednesday - front squats, Friday - back squats and Saturday - overhead squats).  This is the way I organize my own squatting when training four times per week.  I want to reiterate greater emphasis is placed on the back squat days.

Much like the front squat, I think fives or threes are a good place to start once an athlete has developed a working competency with the overhead squat.  More advanced athletes can progress to, and benefit from, singles or doubles as the lower number of repetitions allow for near-maximum loading.  Taking a page out of Bill Starr's book, I think an athlete should be able to overhead their bodyweight for a set of five before progressing to lower rep schemes, but this standard is not set in stone.  "Supers” – men weighing over 105 kilograms (230#) and women weighing over 75 kilograms (165#) – may need a lower benchmark, but it all depends on the athlete and their mobility.

Some years ago, Dan John challenged athletes everywhere to try and overhead squat their bodyweight for fifteen repetitions.  The best way to train an athlete for tackling this challenge is to push up their back squat and press/push press numbers; continue to improve their thoraic and shoulder mobility and perform higher-repetition sets of overhead squats once a week.  This can be accomplished as either "back-off" sets after training the snatch or as part of a Crossfit-style "couplet."  My favorite couplet is pairing overhead squats with strict toes-to-bar, possibly three rounds of ten overhead squats plus twenty strict toes-to-bar (I don't have a problem with an athlete kipping the latter movement, but I, personally, suck at kipping due to lack of coordination).  The load for the overhead squat should be challenging, but not too heavy, as the athlete needs practice staying tight during higher-repetition sets.  Something like 75 percent of a three-repetition-maximum strikes me as reasonable.  I have also found Prilepin's Chart to be a valuable tool when self-programming.