Starting Strength

and bar placement ( Figure 2-57 ). This method will not work if the weight is heavy or the miss is profound; in either case, everybody needs to take care of himself by getting away from the bar as safely as possible. In fact, some coaches teach their athletes to dump the bar off their backs – when they’re using rubber bumper plates and no spotters – in the event of a miss. You can’t hurt spotters this way, since there aren’t any, and spotters can’t hurt you, either. But this action requires practice, bumper plates, and the permission of the gym owner. Don’t try it without being shown how by a good coach.

    Figure 2-57. (A) The incorrect way to spot. Single-person spotting of the squat is tricky. The purpose of the spot is to take some of the weight off the rep so that it can be completed by the lifter. This cannot be safely accomplished by applying force to the lifter’s body. (B) A better way to perform a one-person spot if necessary. Spot the bar, not the lifter.

    But this is a completely avoidable situation, one that indicates that either the wrong weight is on the bar or there is not enough help in the weight room. Things should be changed so that it does not happen again, because the potential for injury is high. Either come prepared to squat weights that require spotters, by having them with you, or change your training plans for that day.
     
    The Power Rack
     
    Squatting inside a power rack is sometimes necessary. If the weight room is not set up correctly – i.e., the surface of the platform against the power rack is not flush with the inside floor of the rack so that you can walk the squat back across a level surface, or if your rack lacks a floor – you will need to stay inside the rack to avoid stepping down or over things with the bar on your back. And if there are absolutely no spotters and it is squat day, you might have to squat inside the rack with the pins set at the correct height for the bar: low enough that a below-parallel squat doesn’t touch them, and high enough that a missed rep doesn’t drive you into the floor.

    Figure 2-58. Squatting inside the power rack. If necessary, the bar can be lowered to the pins.

    Power racks should be designed 1) with a heavy floor inside that can be made flush with an adjacent platform so that most of the time, squats can be walked out; 2) with uprights built using the correct depth dimensions so that people can squat inside the rack; and 3) with the pin holes spaced at a 2½- to 3-inch interval so that lifters can set the pins at the right heights for their personal dimensions (a 4-inch or greater interval is not useful). Squatting inside the rack as a matter of regular practice might be required because of a poorly designed rack and platform, or if you train alone, but when you’re squatting heavy in the normal gym environment, it creates a potential risk for the spotters and their hands. For the lifter, having the uprights visible peripherally might be distracting; their presence might alter the bar path as the lifter tries to avoid touching them. You can get accustomed to having them there, but squatting outside the rack is preferable, since available spotters remove the only reason to squat inside a rack in a properly equipped weight room.
    “Squatting” in a Smith machine is an oxymoron. A Smith machine is not a squat rack, no matter what the girls at the front desk tell you. A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster. Sorry. There is a gigantic difference between a machine that makes the bar path vertical for you and a squat that is executed correctly enough to have a vertical bar path. The job of keeping the bar path vertical should be done by the muscles, skeleton, and nervous system, not by grease fittings, rails, and floor bolts.
    A leg press machine – the “Hip Sled” – is even less useful to a lifter who is already strong enough to squat. By restricting the movement of joints that normally adjust their position during a squat, this device eliminates the expression of your normal biomechanics. The leg press may be useful for geriatric trainees or for special populations that cannot effectively use the squat as an exercise. But it is particularly heinous for healthy younger people because it allows the use of huge weights and therefore facilitates unwarranted bragging by those who should be squatting. A 1000-pound leg press is as irrelevant as a