maratoolFrankenstein Squat
How to do the frankenstein squat
- This drill teaches you the proper positioning of both the bar and your body during the clean and front squat.
- Place the barbell on the front of the shoulders, releasing your grip and extending your arms out in front of you. The shoulders should be pushed forward to create a shelf, and the bar should be in contact with the throat. Ensure that you only move your shoulder blades forward; don't round the thoracic spine.
- Squat by flexing the knees and hips, sitting in between your legs. Keep the torso upright, the arms up, and the shoulders forward, and the bar should stay in place. Go to the bottom of the squat, until your hamstrings contact your calves.
- Return to the upright position by driving through the front of the heel and extending the knees and hips.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the abdominals brace the trunk so force can pass between the hips and the shoulders; the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the glutes finish hip extension.
The hamstrings take a share of the work as well.
Every exercise for:QuadricepsAbdominalsCalvesGlutesHamstrings
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under olympic weightlifting. The bar must move fast enough for you to get underneath it, which makes this a skill rather than a grind: low repetitions, well short of where fatigue starts editing technique.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
Every exercise using:Barbell
These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Freehand Jump Squatbody only
- Front Squats With Two Kettlebellskettlebell
- Hack Squatmachine
- Hip Adductioncable
- Hip Flexion with Bandband
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 62 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.