What's Your Grip?

Where do you put your hands when you overhead squat?  There are a bunch of different reasons why you'd put your hands in different places.  The first thought, maybe the most common, is that you'd put them at your snatch grip.  Traditionally, the overhead squat exercise has been used to strengthen the positions of the snatch when the bar is overhead, most importantly the bottom.  Then Crossfit came around and made the overhead squat an event of its own.  With this perspective, if you're just being tested on your overhead squat strength, you'd want to put your grip wherever gives you the strongest overhead squat position.  A lot of people find that moving the grip in from the snatch grip provides a more solid position overhead.  There is an interesting balance here of moving the grip in for a stronger overhead position.  You want to move your hands in where they feel stronger, but not too far where your shoulder mobility doesn't allow you to keep the bar overhead.  Everyone has there own sweet spot.  
Bringing the grip in on the overhead squat can also be a great exercise to open up the shoulders and thoracic spine for snatching.  You may find that after working on bringing the grip in for some narrow grip overhead squats, the snatch then feels more comfortable and "opened up" overhead.  
Here is Haley overhead squatting a little bit narrower then where she snatches.

Workout:

5 x 5 Overhead Squat

100 push ups
80 box jumps (24/20in)
60 toe to bar
*every time you rest, give yourself a tick and move on to the next movement
*15 minute CAP
*score time or reps and ticks, goal is least amount of ticks.