Post: #1

Maybe this is a silly question, but I am working out alone, I have a squat rack not a cage, so if the weight is too heavy and I fails to finish the rep what is the safe way of getting the bar off my shoulders?

I thought about just dropping it, but it might hit my back or my feet

Post: #2

I dunno the answer, but I fucked up using one of the A-frame squat racks with no safety bar once. Face plant and had a bruised neck for about a month. Would not recommend.

So, I'd figure yourself out a god damn safety bar system! (this is a home gym?)

Post: #3

If you don't have horizontal bars in the rack or the cage, do NOT dump the weight forward. You can literally kill yourself doing that. Let it roll off your back. Yes, it might fuck up the ground, but it's better than having hundreds of pounds smash your neck and face into the ground. But the best thing to do is always make sure you have enough left in the tank to get each rep up if you are squatting without a cage and spotter.

Post: #4

Don't go to failure on squats. There really is no need. If you really feel like you need to push it, do front squats. It is nearly impossible to fall backwards on FS and the weight will just slam to the ground in front of you.

Watch Olympic lifters train. Part of oly lifting is learning how to safely fail since they really never use full power racks.

Post: #5

Are you at a gym? Get a new gym. Are you at home? Make some horizontal bars with a couple of two by fours. In the style of the greek letter pi.

I would not squat without horizontal bars, especially if I hadn't been lifting for at least six months.

Post: #6

Yeah, if you're working out alone and you don't have a safety rack, the chance of death by weights is much more possible.

You could try doing zercher squats instead. Most people will say that there is no replacement for the back squat, but it's still better than nothing.

Post: #7

You should definitely practice how to drop it behind you. I have personal experience hurting my back from letting it collapse on me with a lot of weight and I can assure it's painful as fuck.

The hardest part is releasing the bar as you step forward, depending on how you grip the bar. Obviously you don't want to let the bar go backwards and take your arms with it...

Post: #8

Ghetto solution: Buy two cheap flat benches and prop them up on bricks or on wood to get them to the right height. These are you "safety bars".

Post: #9

Option A: Squat from the bottom up, so the pins/whatever you are squatting from is at parallel. This will build great strength, but forces you to work from the weakest position, so you will get stronger as you work through the range of motion. I train alone, and squat from a pair of old scaffold trellises, that are adjustable. I set them just below parallel, and squat up. If I fail at any point, they are set in bottom position, and would catch the weight.

Option B: Work with higher reps/slightly lower weight. Squats respond really well to high reps, up to 20 reps. You'd still see great strength and size gains.

Post: #10

(02-01-2013 06:45 PM)pobreinvestidor Wrote:  Maybe this is a silly question, but I am working out alone, I have a squat rack not a cage, so if the weight is too heavy and I fails to finish the rep what is the safe way of getting the bar off my shoulders?

I thought about just dropping it, but it might hit my back or my feet

Even assuming it's a true squat rack (see below), it won't be 100% "safe". I believe it's SAFER to dump it forward than back. But IMO you should play it safe and squat in a cage. They aren't all that expensive nowadays.

Post: #11

Always throw it off your back. Tossing it overhead is dangerous. Just throw it off your back & move forward to get out from under it.

Post: #12

where are you located?
I bought mine from ebay. It's not the best, but it serves it's purpose

Post: #13

Get two sawhorses from home depot and use them for safety bars.

Post: #14

No squat rack?

You do lunges with dumbell or the bar and some dimes or a quarter. Do high reps.

Your going to need a cage or good rack to squat. Its like trying to bake in the microwave. It can be done but itaba shitty way to do it and won't ever step to the real deal. If you don't have access to rack of any sort then... You don't squat. You adjust and do something else.

The biggest my legs ever got was from a traditional hack squat machine, lunges, and just running around on grass from football.

What your attempting to do is how people die working out. All the time some dude gets crushed by the bar from some shady ghetto home set-up.

Post: #15

I'm gonna go with what Doctor said and suggest that you become a front squat or zercher squat specialist. You can simply move around the weight as it leaves your grasp and finds the floor.

Now maybe having no safety plan will push you to new heights of swoleness, because you're supremely confident that there is no weight you can't move and nothing is going to pin you down, but for me it would just fuck up my ability to lift because I don't want power-walking treadmill grandma to wander into an empty gym early some morning to find my bloated corpse pinned under a barbell.

Assess your risks and make your own judgement call, but if you insist on back squatting then I would recommend forgoing the rack entirely and just buying some hose clamps and doing Steinborn squats, because if you are unable to shoulder the weight then you have no business unshouldering it.

Post: #16

Exactly like this: