Hey Jim. Just wanted to say you are a weak piece of crap and you look like an abercrombie and fitch model.
Lol, ok ok, I’m just joking. Don’t come to my house and beat my ass (though that would be an honor)
Jokes aside, I’ve recently just discovered scrape the rack squats. It’s similar to John Meadow’s scrape the rack overhead press. I’ve noticed there’s a lot less stability required, so in a sense its like a nice squat/smith machine squat hybrid. Would you think it would be an acceptable assistance exercise?
The problem with any ‘scrape the rack’ exercise is that you are damaging the bar and the rack when you do it unless you’ve devised some kind of sleeve to protect the surfaces.
If it’s my own home gym, there’s no way I’m going to grind the knurling off my bar and grind the metal off the rack. If its a commercial gym, then you’re being a fucking dick screwing up the gyms equipment.
These sound silly as hell and unnecessary, however, if they help your squat and don’t hinder your main sets, I say scrape away. Honestly, do whatever assistance work helps you build muscle and increase your main movements.
Don’t major in the minor here. 90%+ of your strength development is going to come from eating! sleeping! and your big lifts. Focus on getting those 3 right and everything else will fall into place.
You don’t need to “scrape the rack.” You need to squat to parallel or just below. I also agree with the poster above who mentioned ruining equipment that you paid hard earned cash for, or being an asshole and damaging a commercial gym’s equipment.
The smith machine is essentially the same thing as what you are describing anyway.
[quote]Boffin wrote:
Surely ‘Scratch your dick’ squats er sorry ‘scrape the rack’ squats will do allsorts of bad to your squat style / groove?[/quote]
See it’s comments like this that remind me why I don’t post often. It was a genuine question. Let alone the fact that it wasn’t an exercise that I was ever planning on replacing full range of motion squats. It’s just an accessory movement.
Regarding possible equipment damage:
I’ve done scrape bench presses and scrape overhead presses, and if the bar used has very poor knurling (like a lot of bars in regular gyms), the risk of damage to the bar or the rack is minimal. If, however, it’s a good bar with proper knurling it should NEVER be used for scrape movements, unless you’re willing to replace it. So in my old gym I would use the crappy “regular” bars for scrape movements, but never the good Pendlay bar.
Regarding scrape squats as assistance:
Not sure what Jim’s stance on assistance work is, but ask yourself this - is the scrape squat the BEST exercise to address the SPECIFIC weaknesses that YOU have?
[quote]forbes wrote:
Hey Jim. Just wanted to say you are a weak piece of crap and you look like an abercrombie and fitch model.
Lol, ok ok, I’m just joking. Don’t come to my house and beat my ass (though that would be an honor)
Jokes aside, I’ve recently just discovered scrape the rack squats. It’s similar to John Meadow’s scrape the rack overhead press. I’ve noticed there’s a lot less stability required, so in a sense its like a nice squat/smith machine squat hybrid. Would you think it would be an acceptable assistance exercise?
[/quote]
I had a number of funny responses to this but I’ll just say this:
[quote]SShafley wrote:
The problem with any ‘scrape the rack’ exercise is that you are damaging the bar and the rack when you do it unless you’ve devised some kind of sleeve to protect the surfaces.
If it’s my own home gym, there’s no way I’m going to grind the knurling off my bar and grind the metal off the rack. If its a commercial gym, then you’re being a fucking dick screwing up the gyms equipment.[/quote]
seriously? Not that I care to do these lifts, but I think you’re being too conservative with your equipment. You aren’t gonna take any metal off the rack with the bar’s knurling. You will probably flatten the knurling, but at the upright width, it’s really inconsequential anyway. All mine is gone that far out cause from the hooks anyway.
[quote]Boffin wrote:
Surely ‘Scratch your dick’ squats er sorry ‘scrape the rack’ squats will do allsorts of bad to your squat style / groove?[/quote]
See it’s comments like this that remind me why I don’t post often. It was a genuine question. Let alone the fact that it wasn’t an exercise that I was ever planning on replacing full range of motion squats. It’s just an accessory movement. [/quote]
Might of been a genuine question but the way you started it is the reason I don’t post very often. That wasn’t even close to being funny & somewhat of insult to Wendler.
Sooooo… before you start casting stones, maybe you should proof read your own post box.