There’s more total-body benefits to be gained inside the squat rack than just everyone’s favorite legday staple, the squat. And, no, we’re not talking about biceps curls, but other heavily effective moves not quite mainstream yet that you should be aware of.
At one time, the squat was considered a bit unconventional. Henry “Milo” Steinborn, a German immigrant who arrived in America after World War I, is recognized as the inventor of the modern squat. Because of the difficulty of getting a heavy barbell on your back, many lifters use dumbbells and lighter barbells “cleaned; into position to squat.
But Henry figured out an awkward way to get a heavy barbell on the back without performing a clean. Steinborn put an Olympic barbell bar perpendicular to the floor, bent to the side to slide the weight on his shoulders, and squatted down to put the entire barbell on his back and squatted up.
When other lifters saw what he was doing, squats almost overnight became a standard among lifting exercises in gyms and competitions. Steinborn has been credited for squatting over 500 pounds using this method.
Then back in the 1940s, barbell manufacturers like Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider made the first squat racks commonplace in gyms today because only some were freaky strong like Steinborn. If you liked this trip down memory lane, you will love these six unconventional squat rack exercises bought for you by some of the best coaches in the business.
Let’s dive in.
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Rack Chinups
Gareth Sapstead, MSc C.S.C.S. (@thefitnessmaverick), is a strength coach, writer, and official trainer for BBC Studios.
Rack chinups are an excellent pull-up variation that works wonders on all levels. For one, beginners will like these since you can unload a fraction of your body weight and build confidence. That doesn’t mean they’re easy, however. Bodybuilders will love these since the angle of pull is highly efficient for lats engagement, and you get a good stretch at the bottom, talking your lats through a large range of motion.
Stretch-focused exercises target the “lower” lats a little better, and rack chinups do a great job of that. There’s a lot of control and focus, making them excellent for that mind-muscle connection. Strength enthusiasts and athletes will adore them, too, since you can easily throw some plates or chains across your hips and go for broke.
How to do it:
Set your bench to a point where you can hook your feet over the top of the incline.
The height of the bar should allow you to grab hold of it and hand it without touching the floor.
Grab the bar using an underhand grip and hook your feet over the bench.
The most essential thing is to ensure you pull in a vertical body position. A good cue to think about would be to “show your butt off to the floor” to ensure your hips stay lower than your feet when pulling.
Engage your last and drive your elbows down to pull your chin up over the bar.
Lower yourself to a point where you can maximize the stretch on your lats. This is helped by the slight posterior tilt of your pelvis at the bottom of the movement.
Take 2-3 seconds to lower down, focusing on control.
Sets & Reps: Three to four sets of 8-12 reps work well, where load or reps are progressed over time. For example, start at eight reps and build up to 15, add weight to start at eight reps again, and repeat. 8-12-8-12, and so on.
2 of 6
Scrape-the-Rack Overhead Press
Travis Pollen, Ph.D. (@fitnesspollenator), is an exercise science professor and personal trainer and co-creator of the “Strength for Yoga” program, and co-founder of 3M Athletic Performance Gym
What if you could get all the benefits of a Smith machine without actually needing access to one? Well, with the “scrape-the-rack overhead press,” it turns out you can—as long as you’re not too worried about your squat rack’s paint job.
The scrape-the-rack overhead press is an unconventional barbell exercise performed precisely how it sounds. You literally do an overhead press while scraping (i.e., sliding) the bar along the rack. This exercise can be done kneeling, seated, or standing; my favorite setup is a staggered stance.
This overhead press variation has a couple of applications:
Like a Smith machine, it reduces the stability demands. This means you can focus all your energy on force generation and, therefore, shoulder muscle and strength gains.
If you struggle with overhead mobility or tend to overarch your back when you press, you can use this variation to guide you into a better overhead and trunk position.
Overall, the scrape-the-rack overhead press offers a unique blend of shoulder strength and mobility, all with just a squat rack.
How to do it:
Start with the barbell against the rack and set it up in your overhead pressing stance, standing close to it.
Select a weight allowing you to press up and into the rack simultaneously.
Drive your elbows forward while pressing to keep the upper back involved.
Lockout out the elbows and push the head forward.
Slowly return to the starting position and reset and repeat.
Sets & Reps: Use as an accessory exercise for the overhead or bench press, performing 2 to 4 sets of six to 12 reps.
3 of 6
Kang Squat
Dr. Bo Babenko (@drbobabenko) is a physical therapist and strength coach specializing in total-body strengthening.
What is better than seeing squats and good mornings in your program? Seeing one exercise that combines both moves. The Kang squat is a fantastic way to warm up for the advanced lifter and a better learning tool for the beginner to the intermediate lifter.
The Kang squat’s unique stimulus is that it emphasizes your posterior by shifting from the hinge pattern to the squat pattern is unrivaled for neurological gains as your brain switches these two very specific patterns and reverses them too.
How to do it:
Start with the bar on your back in a high-bar position, maintaining a neutral and braced spine.
Start hinging your hips behind you as far as you can, keeping that straight spine angle.
Once you hit the point where you feel max tension on the posterior chain or you feel you are about to round your back, start to drive your hips and knees forward into a squat position until you are at the very bottom of it.
Then reverse it by standing out of the squat only to that same end of your hinge spot, aka the end of your good morning, then return to standing by bringing your hips forward.
Sets & Reps: You should start with a PVC, then progress to a training bar; when you feel great, you probably should not progress much more than an empty barbell with these. I like three sets of 6-10 reps in my warmups, especially on squat days.
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Barbell Inverted Hamstring Curls
Tasha Wolf Whelan (@ironwolf03), pro-SCC manager, personal trainer, mentor, and PPSC master instructor
Hamstring exercises are an essential component of any comprehensive and well-designed training program. Regardless of your specific fitness objectives, be it strength, endurance, fat loss, or performance enhancement, the hamstrings are vital in ensuring optimal physical health, freedom from discomfort, and peak functionality.
Unlike typical hamstring exercises, such as machine curls or Romanian deadlifts, the Inverted hamstring curl stands out as a distinctive bodyweight exercise. It offers a challenging workout with significant rewards for strength, hypertrophy, and performance enhancement. This exercise effectively activates and strengthens the entire posterior chain, specifically targeting the hamstrings while improving lat and thoracic mobility throughout the full range of motion.
How to do it:
Set up a barbell at a height similar to a bench press, placing the bench or box at the end of the rack for elevated feet and parallel body alignment.
Assume a setup similar to an inverted row, with heels driving force into the bench and arms straight.
Engage the lats, glutes, and core muscles for stability and a neutral position.
Using your hamstrings to pull your body forward from the lengthened parallel position, simultaneously contracting the hamstrings and glutes.
At the end range, the knees should move forward while the hips move upward, resulting in a 90-degree leg bend. Glute contraction stabilizes the movement and prevents excessive stress on the lower back.
Maintain straight arms and avoid excessive stretching of the lats for stability.
During the return phase, maintain consistent tension for stability and ensure a neutral spinal position.
Sets & Reps: For intermediate to advanced lifters, 3 to 5 sets of six to 15 reps, and for beginners, 2 to 3 sets of 4 to 6 reps work well.
If you want to load up more plates on the bar for squats, you must master your weak points. Almost all squats hit failure at the end range of motion when you are lowest. People often bounce out of the bottom as well to get momentum. The bottom up squat targets these exact areas. You’ll challenge your core strength, flexibility, and technique.
The hardest part of the squat for most is coming out of the hole or the bottom range of motion. You usually build up elastic strength by lowering down into the hole. Starting at the bottom removes the eccentric loading, making lifting the weight more challenging. This variation forces you to create extra tension in your core and builds power out of the hole. This can be done as your main movement or as an accessory movement.
How to Do it:
Set the safety pins in the squat rack so the bar is at your end range of motion in your back squat.
Start the squat by getting under the bar on the safety pins.
Keep your back, core, and grip on the bar tight.
Drive the bar up to standing, then slowly lower back to the pins. Rest the bar on the pins so there is no momentum, and reset and repeat.
Set & Reps: Three to five sets of 3 to 6 reps using approx. 60% to 80% of 1RM back squat.
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Trap Bar Pullup
Chris Cooper, (@chris_coopercpt), is a strength and nutrition coach at Nerd Fitness.
Don’t have access to a pull-up bar but want to do pull-ups? Why not try pull-ups using a barbell or trap bar in the squat rack? You might get some hate for doing something else, but it isn’t curling. I prefer setting up the trap bar in the squat rack for its benefits over using a barbell.
Since the trap bar gives you a neutral grip when doing Rack Pull-ups, it puts the shoulder in a more natural position, which makes it more shoulder friendly. Additionally, it puts less stress on the wrists as well. This is a good variation if you want to do pull-ups and deal with wrist or shoulder issues.
These trap bar rack pull-ups also allow you to modify how much of your body weight you lift. If you need an easier variation, put both feet on the floor so your legs can assist the upper body. Want a more complex version, put both feet on a bench and crank out your reps or place a weight on your legs.
How To Do It:
Set up a flat bench or box near a squat rack, with the trap bar set high enough to get a full range of motion pull-ups without your butt hitting the floor.
Grab the trap bar handles with a neutral grip, place your feet on the box or bench, and pull yourself up.
Keep your upper body vertical and your hips at 90 degrees. If you start to let your hips drift forward, you’ll turn this into more of a row than a pull-up.
Sets & Reps: Use this as your main pull movement of the day. Do three to five sets of 6 to 12 reps to smoke your biceps, upper back, and lats.
