Squatting is a vitally important movement regardless of your goal, however putting a straight bar on your back isn’t always going to be the best thing to do. Although we have a few different bars at the gym to get round this (hopefully more bars to come in 2021) the belt squat is a great option to allow people to train the pattern around restrictions they might have.
Some pro’s
- Less spinal loading – Due to the weight being positioned around your hips, the axial loading that you would have from a barbell squat is gone. The direction of the belt (with the additional weight) almost provides a traction like effect on the spine, easing the stress on the lower back
- You can train around injuries – As all you need to do is put the belt on and clip in. The belt squat can be used when people have any type of upper body issue that would prevent them from holding any weight.
- Less taxing on the whole body – To get better at squatting most people need to generally squat more. The problem is too much heavy barbell stuff drains our central nervous system and takes away the potential to get more squatting in. With the belt squat you can squat more often and allow yourself to better master the movement.
- Allows safe introduction to accommodating resistance methods – Accommodating resistance methods like bands and chains allow us to the change the force curve of a movement to make the exercise harder at different points in the movement – something that wouldn’t be possible with just weight plates. The added band pegs and low starting position allow you to band load the top portion of the movement where the movement is normally easiest.
- You can set the depth of your squat – Due the bottom pin position you can set the depth of the squat to ensure you get used to squatting to parallel. If you go much further than this the bar will rest on the pin providing reassurance to inexperienced squatters that they can safely grasp the movement.
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