DON´T DROP THE BAR

Let's talk about the most effective way to use the power rack for squatting. The power rack is an essential tool for training. Mark Rippetoe, the author of Starting Strength, doesn't regard it as optional. They don't squat off of squat stands at the Wichita Falls Athletic Club. They always squat either outside of or inside of the rack. Outside or inside depends on a couple of things.

• If you've got two good spotters that you know that they know what the hell they're doing, then we would set the bolts up on the outside. You can walk out of the rack. Spotters are on either side of you and you are you are not encumbered by the presence of the uprights around you when you're having to squat. You're back out away from the rack and the spotters assume the role of the safety pins when you're inside the rack.
• If you do not have spotters and you are training by yourself (you're at home, you've got a gym set up in your garage...), you're probably going to want to squat inside the rack.

In both instances, the bar is going to come out of the rack at a position that allows you to stand up a little bit. You raise the bar up a little bit, you back up without touching the inside of the of the bolt, you do your set, you walk it back in, and set it back down. This means that the bar will be set in a position that is lower than your carry position on your back because you have to have room to get it out of the pins (out of the racks rather), and set up your squat stance, squat down, stand back up, do your set of 5, and then walk it back in, even if the bar has settled a little on your back. So, you need to have it low enough that this can take place. And if you are in doubt, carry it lower. This is this is terribly important for safety, especially if you are inside the rack and you don't have any spotters.

The inside of the rack position is useful because of the fact that if you handle this correctly, you don't actually need any spotters because pins are your spotters. What you're going to do is to set this position up, for example, at about pinhole number 13. Of course, this varies with the rack, and you'll have to experiment with it to determine exactly where the pins are.

The pins are to allow you to choose to do the fifth rep of a hard heavy set. If you're right at the edge of your ability and there's some question about the fifth rep of the set, and you have to set the bar down on the pins, then that's what the pins are for. You can't do the last rep. If that happens on the fourth rep, then you chose the wrong weight. But the fifth rep could, logically, be in doubt. Even with everything else set correctly, the fifth rep may be a limit rep. If it's a little outside limit, you're going to have to set the bar down on the pins. If you see someone taking the bar out of the rack and squatting deeply, you'll notice that at the bottom of his range of motion, there's about 2.5-3 inches between the bar and the pins.

It is a bad idea to drop your bar on the pins. If you've got any amount of weight on the bar at all, even a good bar can be bent this way. If it's in your garage, you paid a lot of money for that bar. If it´s in the gym, the gym paid a lot of money for it. If you are in the habit of dropping the weights on the pins, that is to say, free fall through the air, Mark Rippetoe will ask you to leave the gym if you do that, especially if you do it the second time because you're going to have a talk about it if you do it the first time.

So, a bar can be set down on the pin. If you've done all four reps, you get down on the bottom and you're going to get stuck at the bottom, what you're going to do is just bend forward and set it down on the pins. The bar doesn't have to fall if you do it like that. You're going to control it setting it down on the pins. The result is the bar is OK, the rack's OK and you're OK. But that also requires that you have the pins set at the correct height.

• They can't be too high because that'll interfere with the bottom position of your range of motion.

• They can't be too low because if they're too low, then you've got too far to go to set the bar down on the pins.

You don't want to get folded up under a bar that you're trying to set down on the pins. So, there's a little narrow range where the pins can go. But don't jump out from under the bar and let it fall onto the pins because that will bend your bar. Bars are expensive and a bent bar is not good for much of anything except rack pulls. So keep all these things in mind when you're setting up in the rack.

Bibliographic references:

• Starting Strength. (2026). Don't Drop The Bar! [Video file]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/azPFCSD0MCU?si=ywCC84n4WPZTnRng