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It works when it works :) I've seen my fair share of folks pick up Olympic lifting. While many eventually "get" it, the overhead squat does not force good form

It works when it works :) I've seen my fair share of folks pick up Olympic lifting. While many eventually "get" it, the overhead squat does not force good form. People lean forward, or pick up their heels. After shoulders, hips, and ankles eventually gain flexibility, then, yeah, the overhead squat ensures good form because you can't support much weight on the bar otherwise. If you can overhead squat a solid amount of weight, you must have good form. A kind of survivorship bias :) For me, I have flexibility issues. I've been lifting from years now. I can "Asian squat" now and I can back squat well over 300lbs, but I can only overhead squat 125lbs once, and then I'm tore up for days.

noobly 9y ago
It creates good form because it forces your shoulders, spine and hips to be in the proper positions for a real squat. Of course, there are ways around this (such as inflexibility as you mentioned) but I've found it's a great teaching method for transferring into real back squats. In general it's much harder to screw up an overhead squat than it is a back squat, and often (in my experience) people struggle to kinematically understand even a weightless body squat. If you've ever spent a couple evenings trying to teach someone proper back squat form, you may know the struggles involved. In my experience a quick lesson on overhead squats speeds this process up greatly. And just to be clear, I'm not advocating anyone try weighted overhead squats, I just thought I'd share what I felt was a great intro/supplement into this "Asian" squatting. Also, 125 is a solid overhead squat!