I’ve decided to include bottom position squats in a power rack as part of my routine. I don’t know if these are better, but I’m eating up the Dinosaur Training book, so I decided to give them a try. Yesterday was my first time ever doing this, 8 sets of 3 reps.
Man, is this hard! I didn’t expect it to be so much more difficult to get the weight moving. It seems like you need to be in perfect alignment to budge the bar. Once I got it moving, it seemed no harder than traditional squats. The safety bars seem to help me with form, I know for sure I am going all the way down.
I don’t have a specific question, I just would like to know how you all feel about these and if you have any pointers? If you do these, do you pause for a moment at the bottom, with the weight on the safety bar? What is more benificial for overall strength; using more weight starting from the top, or slightly less starting at the bottom?
[quote]combatmedic wrote:
I’ve decided to include bottom position squats in a power rack as part of my routine. I don’t know if these are better, but I’m eating up the Dinosaur Training book, so I decided to give them a try. Yesterday was my first time ever doing this, 8 sets of 3 reps.
Man, is this hard! I didn’t expect it to be so much more difficult to get the weight moving. It seems like you need to be in perfect alignment to budge the bar. Once I got it moving, it seemed no harder than traditional squats. The safety bars seem to help me with form, I know for sure I am going all the way down.
I don’t have a specific question, I just would like to know how you all feel about these and if you have any pointers? If you do these, do you pause for a moment at the bottom, with the weight on the safety bar? What is more benificial for overall strength; using more weight starting from the top, or slightly less starting at the bottom?[/quote]
They work awesome for me. I rotate them with Bench squats and regular squats all depending on mood, goals, needs, etc.
I personally feel they can be very beneficial if you are used to doing regular up & down reps. I perform them starting in the bottom position,locking it out then lowering it gently onto the pins. I recently used 525 for a single in this exercise and even though I have not maxed out on the regualr squat yet I know I have gotten stronger.
Been doing these for years. I think they’re great for beginners because it teaches perfect form and gets lifters used to being in the “hole.” No glorrified knee bends on this one.
I love these. The first time I did them from bottom position I managed 405 x 7 with pauses in between. Very tough.
[quote]MachineAZ wrote:
I love these. The first time I did them from bottom position I managed 405 x 7 with pauses in between. Very tough.[/quote]
Nice. Pretty impressive!