Starting Strength

high G-forces in acrobatic maneuvers; the increased support maintains an open vascular column, which supplies blood to the brain, so that consciousness can be salvaged under momentary high-G conditions that would otherwise cause a blackout due to a drop in blood supply to the brain. The same conditions exist under a heavy bar; the back must be supported, and the increased blood pressure provided by the Valsalva maneuver serves to maintain blood supply to the brain when pumping that blood gets harder under a bar weighing 405 pounds.
    What is most important is that no one gets under 405 pounds and squats it without having trained enough to be able to do so. The cardiovascular system adapts to resistance training, just like all of the other tissues and systems in the body, and this adaptation occurs as strength increases. Anyone who is capable of squatting extremely heavy weights is adapted for it in all the necessary ways. And no lifter has ever pulled 800 pounds off the floor while exhaling. For any trainee – and certainly any athlete – it is incalculably more likely that following the advice to “inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up” will actually cause an orthopedic injury, rather than prevent a stroke.
    In fact, it is a good practice to take and hold the biggest breath you can before each rep of your heaviest sets. Get in the habit of breathing correctly during your lighter sets so that the pattern is well established by the time the weights get heavy. The Valsalva maneuver will prevent far more problems than it has the potential to cause. It is a necessary and important technique for safety in the weight room.
     
    Spotting the Squat
     
    Spotters in the weight room can often be more trouble than help. Inexperienced, inattentive, stupid spotters can get you hurt. The squat and the bench press are the only two exercises in this basic program that require spotters, and if they do it wrong, it’s almost better to just take your chances without them. Almost. Squats and benches can be dangerous when they’re heavy, so good spotters become an important commodity at some point in everybody’s training.
    Weights used in the squat can be sufficiently heavy and are in such a position that it is not safe for one spotter to work alone. Any squat attempt or set of squats you are uncertain you can do, or you’re even a little worried about, should be spotted by two people. The squat requires two spotters. They have to learn to watch each other and work carefully together to minimize the effects inherent in having two people apply force to the same object. The differential loading caused by one spotter jerking the bar up while the other one doesn’t is a potential wreck, and it has caused many back injuries. But this situation can be managed by having spotters learn how to do it correctly. Spotters should apply force to the bar in a balanced way, coordinating their efforts to keep the bar as level as possible while minimizing the chance of hurting themselves in the process ( Figure 2-56 ).

    Figure 2-56. Spotting the squat requires attention, teamwork, and some finesse. Spotters should assume their positions prior to the start of the set. If the lifter misses the rep, the spotters use both hands and the crook of one elbow to catch each end of the bar. This effort must be balanced and coordinated, or the lifter gets uneven de-loading of the bar and a possible torsion injury. Any lifter who bails out of the missed rep and leaves the spotters holding the bar needs to be beaten with a hammer.

    A one-person spot for a squat cannot be safely accomplished. When one spotter stands behind the lifter, leaning over with his arms wrapped around and under the lifter’s chest, this is not only an embarrassing position but also a terribly ineffective and unsafe one. After all, if the lifter is so ungracious as to drop the bar off of his back, what will a single spotter do? Catch it in his elbows? If you are the ungracious lifter, any help the spotter gives you from this position will be applied to your chest with his hands, thus altering your position at precisely the worst time it could be altered. So put embarrassing, ineffective, and unsafe together, and you can see why using a single spotter for the squat is always a bad idea ( Figure 2-57 ).
    In a dire emergency, a spotter might be able to help by standing directly behind you and pushing up on the bar with as even a hand position as can be managed around your grip