Power Rack Training

The Power Rack - More Than Just a Spotter

A tricked-out power rack: note overhead a two-pulley lat pulldown; also note that this guy’s safety catch pins are set way too low. If he missed the rep, he could be pinned with the barbell on the front of his neck while leaning backward. A power rack is only a spotter when the safeties are set correctly.

For the serious strength athlete, next to the barbell, the power rack is the most important piece of strength equipment in any progressive resistance gym. Used right, the power rack creates a dozen different exercise possibilities. Most importantly, the power rack acts as a spotter for two of the Core Four lifts, the squat and bench press. The power rack enables the lifter to perform a half dozen deadlift assistance exercises otherwise undoable.

The power rack overhead crossbeam provides a perfect pull-up / chin-up bar. I have a simple extension on my power rack that houses a dual overhead pulley allowing me to do lat pulldowns and triceps pushdowns with all the different handles.

Why Serious Lifters Need a Power Rack

With a simple flat or adjustable bench and a power rack, I can safely do heavy, limit, full-range-of-motion sets in the seated incline press, front press, and braced press-behind-the-neck press. I can also perform partial reps in any pushing or pulling exercise. A friend of mine has a dip attachment on his power rack that I am highly envious of.

We lean against one upright to make our biceps curls stricter: head and glutes stay in contact with the upright throughout the curl set, great with both barbell and dumbbells. Let the elbows rise up at the end of each rep for extra biceps contraction.

The Rack as a Stretching Enhancer

I use the power rack as a “stretching enhancer.” I have devised a series of standing, hanging and lying stretches for my hamstrings, quads, calves, pecs, shoulders, biceps, lats, and triceps. The combination of the rock-solid immobility of the power rack and skillful body positioning enables me to stretch, say my hamstrings, with increasing amounts of my own bodyweight. I modulate the amount of pressure. I relax while at my current stretch limit.

Want a fabulous pec / shoulder stretch? Set a cross-pin at waist height. Back up to it, grasp the pin with both hands and sink down gradually, allowing more of your bodyweight to increase the intensity of the stretch. The stretch should be gradual, pain-free and controlled.

There is no better latissimus dorsi stretch than to use lifting straps to strap yourself to an overhead power rack cross member and just hang. Take the grip out of the stretch equation. A person can hang a lot longer and get a far better, deeper lat stretch with straps, assuming the shoulders tolerate hanging and the lifter has a high pain tolerance.

Effective stretching, like effective resistance training, is all about bumping up against the limits of capacity: resistance-training capacity equals poundage, reps, and technique selected; stretching capacity equals increasing current limits on range of motion. Flexibility is not improved by repeatedly doing only what you are already capable of. Flexibility improves by stretching farther and better, with improved technique, than you ever have.

Where the Power Rack Came From

The power rack was designed to aid Olympic weightlifters. In the early 1960s there was great interest in pure isometrics as a potential strength breakthrough. To that end, the York Barbell company began marketing isometric devices. In old strength lore, the original York power racks were outgrowths of the primitive York commercial isometric devices. The isometric rack never got commercial traction, but the York isometric push-pull device helped birth the modern power rack.

The Rack as a Solo-Lifter Safety System

The power rack, used right, allows the lone lifter, a man without spotters, to train hard and heavy with an exit strategy. The key phrase is used right. For spotting in the squat and bench press, set the safety pins or cross-members slightly below the correct turnaround point: the bottommost controlled point in the squat and just below the level of the prone torso in the bench press.

If you miss a squat rep, ride the barbell down to the pins and pop out from underneath. Miss a bench press rep? Ride the bar down to the safeties, exhale, stay calm, and work out from underneath only if the safeties are set correctly. Test safety height with an empty bar and warm-up weights before going heavy.

When the power rack first came into existence in the mid-1960s, the rack was used by Olympic lifters and powerlifters. Bodybuilders have always shied away from rack use. The low reps and short strokes used in power rack training seemed the antithesis of “attaining a maximal muscle pump,” the eternal credo of the bodybuilder. Powerlifters have made the longest continual use of the power rack, primarily for deadlift improvement and muscling up the back muscles. The power rack is also one of the greatest grip-enhancing tools ever devised.

Partial Repetition Strategies

The original rack protocol was quite unusual and demanding. The major lifts were broken down into thirds. In the overhead press, the pins were set to allow the lifter to push upward from the shoulder to nose height. The lifter would perform three partial reps and hold the bar against the top pin on the third rep: three partial reps followed by an isometric hold.

Then, three reps and a hold in the mid-range. Finally, three reps and a hold eight inches from lockout. This strategy was used on every lift.

Isometrics in the Rack

This combination of partial reps ending in an isometric hold was, and remains, unique in resistance training. Wrestlers and football linemen found isometrics of indeterminate length, lasting until the lifter can no longer hold the bar upward against the pin, to be ideal strength training for the repeated clenches and tie-ups they experienced during a match or game.

Isometric training is a lost art and the power rack is the ultimate isometric training tool. The caveat: isometrics are brutally specific. They strengthen the joint angle being trained. Use them intelligently and do not confuse a static hold with a full-range lift.

Rack Deadlifts and Sticking-Point Work

Breaking the smaller lifts, bench presses and overhead presses, into thirds eventually proved problematic. Most rack users reduced from breaking the lifts into thirds to breaking the lifts in half. If your sticking point in the bench press is 10 inches from lockout, that is where you set the pins.

Rack lockouts have been used with great success for decades. To improve the deadlift lockout, set the pins right above the knees. Lightly touch the bar to the pins at the bottom of each rep; triples are the preferred rep range. Wherever your sticking point is, regardless of the lift, set the pins slightly below it and give extra work to the identified zone of weakness.

Milo-Style Rack Work

Don Reinhoudt is a superheavyweight powerlifting legend. He hailed from New York, stood 6-3 and weighed roughly 360 at his peak. He used the “Milo and the calf” approach to build a massive deadlift. Whereas Milo lugged an ever-growing animal around the barnyard, Don would start his world-championship deadlift preparation pulling what he wanted to deadlift in competition for a mere 6 inches.

Each successive week, Don would lower the pins and repeat. Old strength-history accounts credit him with high-800s deadlift power, and the rack story captures the larger point: overload the exact range, lower the range gradually, and allow the body and mind to acclimate to tremendous poundage.

Hugh Cassidy and Squat Energy Leaks

Want to see if you have any “energy leaks” while squatting? Stand erect with a limit poundage: 300, 400, 500 pounds or more. Place a heavily loaded barbell on your back. Take it out of the squat racks as if you are going to squat it. Now stand there, erect and locked out, until it buckles your knees. The pins are set six inches below squat lockout.

Any structural energy leak in the squat involves unlocked knees, unlocked hips or both. The goal is to create a bone-on-bone lock. When this is accomplished — knees locked, pelvis rotated under, glutes flexed — the athlete can “stand all day,” as Cassidy noted. The man with unlocked knees and a bowed tailbone will begin to shimmy and shake like a palm tree in a hurricane within 10 seconds.

“Get Used to the Weight”

Walter Thomas used the power rack similarly. If the multi-time world champion wanted to squat 720 in an upcoming competition, at the end of every squat session during the 12 weeks leading up to the competition, Walter would break 720 out of the racks, step back, set up as if to squat — and just stand there. His pins were set six inches below. Each successive week he sought to stand longer, and each successive week that 720 felt lighter and lighter.

Rack Grip Work

As Iron Guru Hugh Cassidy once pointed out, the best assistance exercise for any lift is the assistance exercise that most closely resembles the lift. Ergo, the best way to improve gripping a barbell is grip work where you use a barbell. Getting good at squeezing hand-grippers does nothing for hanging onto a limit deadlift.

The best grip strengthener ever invented, in my world, is short-distance lockouts in the power rack. The most favored rack grip exercise is to set the catch pins three inches below deadlift lockout. Using a double-overhand grip, the lifter stands erect and simply holds the barbell for as long as possible.

Hold until the bar opens the hands, breaks out of the lifter’s grasp and falls onto the pins. Fight like hell as the weight pries open your fingers. Grip work is done at the end of the training session or on off days.

Equipment Notes for Power Rack Training

Power rack training requires dependable equipment and exact setup. The rack, pins, bar, and plates must match the lift, the lifter, and the load.

Lifters and facilities can compare power cages and platform racks, Olympic weightlifting bars, weight plates, and weight plate trees.

A serious power rack setup might include the Body-Solid SPR1000 commercial power rack, a power bar such as the Iron Cowboy Powerlifting Bar, loading such as IRON COMPANY premium rubber bumper plates and plate storage such as the Legend Fitness Olympic A-frame plate tree, when those tools match the room, budget, rating, and intended training style.

The equipment does not create the strength. The rack simply gives a trained lifter a safer, more precise place to express and build strength.

Safety Note for Heavy Rack Work

Power rack training can make heavy solo lifting safer, but only when the rack is set correctly. Pin height must be tested before limit work. The rack must be rated for the intended use. The bar, plates, floor, bench, hooks, pins, straps, and attachments must all be suitable for the load and exercise.

Do not assume the rack will save you from bad setup. Bench press safeties set too low can still pin the lifter. Squat pins set too low can turn a miss into a collapse. Rack pulls, static holds, and partials can exceed normal full-range loads and can stress the spine, hands, bars, pins, and frame.

Stop or scale back for sharp pain, dizziness, numbness, grip failure before the intended range, technical collapse, uncontrolled drops, bar bend that concerns you, or any rep that becomes a different lift than the one being trained.

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW power-rack training philosophy and old-school powerlifting experience. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, equipment-rating, or programming advice.

Related Power Rack Reading

For buying and configuration help, read Commercial Power Rack Buyers Guide and Review. For another Marty Gallagher article on why the rack belongs in a serious home gym, read Every Home Gym Needs the Indispensable Power Rack.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.