# Proper Spotting for the Squat



## nissan11 (Dec 21, 2020)

I am doing a mock meeting this Wednesday evening, my first one, and I am concerned about spotting. There will on be two other guys there and both are novice lifters. One of them is my brother who has been running a good program for about 6 months who hopes to total 900 . The other is a bodybuilder with no powerlifting experience. We will be in my brother's garage and he has a power rack with safety pins but I am still concerned about lifter safety when attempting heavy squats because I got hurt real bad years ago squatting in a cage with pins and I don't want it to happen again.
The problem is that with only two people available, there can be only one spotter if one person is in front of the lifter judging the squat. I do plan to video tape all attempts on my phone so should I just skip having a person watch the lift and have one person on each end of the bar? Is that even safe? Am I better off just having one person spot from behind the lifter so there is no problem coordinating when to pick up each end of the bar? 
I am mostly concerned about my safety. I dont think either of these guys will be attempting more than about 275. I tore my adductor and ab muscle squatting 353 years ago and plan to attempt over 400 this week. I have not attempted that much weight since the injury but worked up to a 395 single two weeks ago which felt ok. 
Anyway. If you guys only had 2 inexperienced spotters at your disposal how would you want them to spot you?


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## Adrenolin (Dec 21, 2020)

Spot me? No, not at all, personally. I've never used a spotter for squats or bench in training. 

Imho you're really overthinking this and appear to be afraid of the weight.


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## tinymk (Dec 21, 2020)

Personally, if I had only 2 spotters and both were novice I would put the most trusting experienced guy behind me and let the other guy video.  

i don’t use spotters on squats as I always squat in a rack and have lots of experience with missing a weight and just lowering it I to the rack. 

in a meet you have 3 spotters but really the behind guy is doing 90% of the work


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## tinymk (Dec 21, 2020)

Good luck brother, hit big numbers


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## nissan11 (Dec 21, 2020)

Adrenolin said:


> Spot me? No, not at all, personally. I've never used a spotter for squats or bench in training.
> 
> Imho you're really overthinking this and appear to be afraid of the weight.


I don't think im overthinking it. If I am attempting a new PR, go down, get half way up and stall, I dont want to carefully have to go back into the hole with that weight, and then go even deeper to reach the safety pins. 
If I stall I want to be DONE at that point in the lift.


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## Robdjents (Dec 21, 2020)

I'm with Nissan here...I did a meet Saturday and literally squatted every single ounce of weight I could manage. Having spotters gave me confidence to try weight I have never went near and knowing I wasn't gonna get fukked up if I failed was nice


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## Adrenolin (Dec 21, 2020)

nissan11 said:


> I don't think im overthinking it. If I am attempting a new PR, go down, get half way up and stall, I dont want to carefully have to go back into the hole with that weight, and then go even deeper to reach the safety pins.
> If I stall I want to be DONE at that point in the lift.



I guess our racks are a bit different, I can completely step outside of my rack to to go ass to calves. If needed, every 4" I can rack the weight. I also have rubber/foam flooring outside the rack for the off chance I feel the need to dump the weight


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## nissan11 (Dec 21, 2020)

Yeah that sounds nice. We are lifting on a concrete floor in a garage.


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