Overhead squat: what your movement says about your body
Some movements forgive nothing. The overhead squat is one of them: arms locked out overhead, elbows extended, hips breaking parallel. One weak link is enough for execution to fall apart, and it shows immediately.
Why the overhead squat matters
The overhead squat is an excellent movement to surface an athlete's deficits. It concentrates the main demands CrossFit® places on the body, zone by zone.
A quality overhead squat then carries over into many other CrossFit® movements: snatch, jerk, thruster, wall ball. The qualities it demands are the ones that come up everywhere else.
Why it's a revealer
To pull off an overhead squat, several qualities have to express themselves at once. The shoulder is put to the test: it needs range of motion, stability and motor control. The core has to stay stable to allow the movement to flow. The hips have to be both mobile and strong to allow the descent. The ankles have to allow the anchoring to the ground, essential to the triple flexion of the squat. The wrists, for their part, have to support the bar. If just one of these qualities is missing, the movement degrades fast, or even becomes impossible.
That's exactly what makes it a revealer. Because it demands all these qualities at the same moment, it becomes far harder for the body to compensate by leaning on other zones. The deficient zone almost always shows up.
What an overhead squat can reveal, zone by zone
Shoulders
A lack of range of motion, strength or stability.
Wrists
A lack of dorsiflexion or stability.
Trunk
A lack of stability or strength.
Hips
A lack of flexion or strength.
Ankles
A lack of flexion or stability.
How to progress
- 1
Work the overhead position.
- 2
Stabilise the core.
- 3
Build hip flexion and strength.
- 4
Work ankle flexion.
Load isn't the priority. By loading up too fast, you get into the habit of leaning on your strengths and compensating. First you have to put the tension in the right place.
Key takeaway
If you watch your own overhead squat video tomorrow morning, three things are already observable by yourself: arm position, torso lean, and squat depth.
The overhead squat is a demanding movement. And that's precisely why it surfaces your imbalances and deficits better than any other.
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