Bottoms Up Front Squats, Bottoms Up Back Squats & "Primal Scream"...

Bottoms Up Front Squats - 10 reps - 95#

Bottoms Up Back Squats - 10 reps  - 125#

The simplest way to set up for bottom-up squats is to set the safety pins in a power rack at the bottom position. This is where you'll start.

You can spend as much time in the bottom position as you need to before bearing the complete weight of the bar. This is a big deal. It allows you the freedom to adjust in any way necessary to establish superb posture when you're still unloaded.

Once you're ready, you'll smoothly increase the amount of weight you're bearing by pressing up into the bar until you achieve liftoff. From here, you'll attempt to stand as explosively as possible.

There should be no apparent jumps or jerks as you stand – this is particularly important during the initial weight transfer. The entire point of this exercise is to strip your squat of movement inefficiencies and compensations. When the speed or intensity of loading outstrips your core strength, your spine will buckle (that's bad).

Lowering yourself back into position should be done with control since you'll have to be able to decelerate the weight effectively once you return to conventional squats.

That said, you'll notice that the position of the safety pins does allow you to take away much of the eccentric demands of the lift and to simply drop, which you may opt to experiment with.


"Primal Scream"

5-4-3-2-1 of: Muscle Ups
10-8-6-4-2 of: Air Squats
20-16-12-8-4 of: GHD Sit-Ups
9:25 Rx