squats at home

karozel · 10-13-2009, 04:33 PM

I work out at home, and I have been doing front squats and goblet squats. So far these have been fine, and they still are, but since I have limited equipment, I'm starting to wonder how I can progress with them.

Basically, yesterday I was doing the wave-loading from NROL Strength I A and I wanted to go up on my weight for the singles, but I could not get the weight up by just lifting the bar up to my shoulders as I have done in the past. I'm guessing what I have been doing is a sort of "clean" but I'm not 100% sure, and maybe I'm just not doing it right.

So is there some way (not having a squat rack) that I can get the bar loaded and into position for my front squats without having to "clean" it? Or do I need to learn how to do the "clean" properly?

Also, when I do goblet squats they seem to work best -- at least for my forearms and wrists -- if I basically hug the dumbbell against my chest. Is that the right way to do them?

Spartan300Man · 10-15-2009, 04:27 PM

I can see 3 options: 1. Learn and practice the cleans, and squat with that much weight.....2. Get a simple weight lifting bench, I think some are as cheap as $25. It seems they are always at garage sales, or try freecycle.com, or local newspaper ads, or the used sports equipments stores like Play it Again Sports.......3. get some cinder-blocks in the garage to stack up.

karozel · 10-15-2009, 07:09 PM

Some good suggestions there. And actually I'm a big dummy, because I already have a bench with uprights.

I didn't think about using it for that because of the way my workout room is set up. I'm going to have to rearrange in order to be able to get to it from that side.

But since it only seems to be an issue if I'm trying to do the max, I'm also going to try to improve my clean and use that method as much as I can.

Spartan300Man · 10-15-2009, 08:16 PM

Sounds like you will have the best of both!