5 cues to master the High Bar Squat

I don't have OCD, I'm just well prepared. When I invest in something I dive in, so when I reasoned out that I will change over from High Bar Olympic squatting to normal High Bar squatting, there was no other option for me but to watch countless youtube videos and read up on it as much as I could. I am a big believer in creating cues to elicit good form on lifts, so I decided to collate text and video evidence to come up with some helpful ones for me to use. Before I get into that though, here are two independent examples of the Olympic high bar squat and the normal highbar squat. 

Olympic high bar: 

Normal high bar:

The two movements are very similar obviously, but the key differences seem to be the torso is more bent over with the normal high bar squat, which means more leverage from the lower back and glutes as well as the hamstrings. However I have read that there is nowhere near as much involvement as there would be with low bar squats, so once I have finished this routine I will put romanian deadlifts on my squat day to hit up that posterior chain a bit more. 

So from what I have seen and read, the cues from start to finish should 'feel' a little something like this:

1. Unrack: Deep breath into your stomach

Gets tightness through the abdominal region and helps with achieving proper thoracic extension.

2. Eccentric/descent: Pull yourself down 

Something that hit home like a tonne of bricks. I read this gem in a Dan John article, and essentially by using this cue you're making the eccentric an active motion that helps keep you tight at the bottom. Nothing is worse for a high bar squat than falling apart at the bottom and losing tension for the all-important stretch reflex.

3. Reversing the momentum: Drive through the heels after 'hitting' the bottom position

The general rule with high bar is to squat as deep as your mobility allows you to so as to elicit the stretch reflex best. So, after 'pulling yourself down' it makes sense to counter that momentum with explosiveness. As soon as you feel that hamstring tension your mind needs to go 'UP UP UP' while transferring power through the heels to keep the bar over mid-foot.

4. Getting through the sticking point: Hips back under (the bar/your body)

Watch the 462x20 video again and you will notice that the squatter has exquisite rhythm. This comes about because he makes an effort to get through the mechanically weakest part of the lift (the 'sticking point' about halfway up) by pulling his hips back under as quickly and as powerfully as he can. This is the cue that changed how I viewed the act of a high bar squat, so I know it will be a good one to use. 

5. Locking out: Throw the bar backwards 

This is a useful one because it teaches you to lock out powerfully and keep tight by getting that 'pop' at the top. The idea is to end the movement as if you're going to heave the bar behind you as far as you can. 

So that's about the size of it as far as I can tell. I didn't decide on these cues as opposed to others because I think I'm some sort of guru; I did it because when I was simultaneously watching and reading about the high bar squat, these are the one's that leapt out and 'spoke' to me. And for me, that is the key to learning. This is coming from the guy who stayed up til 3am watching Wimbledon, swinging my racquet in time with the guys on screen so I could perfect my strokes. So I will take these cues and use them next time I squat, and I'll put a video up as soon as I get some sort of rhythm going.