Quite possibly the single most difficult exercise you can do in the gym is the Dead Stop Rack Squat. We talk about “grinding” reps out all the time, but nothing embodies the “grinding” rep more so than a Dead Stop Rack Squat. The difficulty of the exercise has the potential to make you incredibly strong, but it must be respected as well. It is not an exercise for a beginner, and there are some inherent risks involved with the exercise, that even intermediate and advanced lifters should be aware of.
First, let’s define the exercise. The Dead Stop Rack Squat begins with the bar resting on the pins of the power cage. The height of the pins will vary from lifter to lifter. The bar should be set at a height that allows the lifter to start from a position with the crease of the hip joint just below the top of the knee. In other words, just below parallel or right at parallel. No higher, no lower. Once the bar is set up, the lifter begins each repetition by starting at the bottom of the squat. There is no stretch reflex, and the lifter does not actively lower the bar to the pins to start the repetition. Because of this, you can expect to be using weights much lower than your regular squat or even the regular rack squat that we addressed in the last article. Once the lifter is set up under the bar, he/she must explode into the bar to break it off the pins. Expect the first few seconds of the lift to be the hardest. It is not uncommon for the weight to feel like it isn’t going to budge. STAY WITH IT! The purpose of the exercise is to learn to get the bar moving from the dead stop. You will have to learn how to strain. Once you get the bar up the first few inches the rest of the lift gets easier…but not easy. The weight will generally move slowly for the entire range of motion. Without the rebound out of the hole, you will develop very little momentum, and it is hard to get any speed on the bar at any point. When the lift is done, return it to the pins.
Because the focus of the exercise is to lift the barbell from a dead stop, the lift is best trained for singles only.
Important Considerations
The Dead Stop Rack Squat has tremendous carryover to both the squat and the deadlift. Training the squat with zero stretch reflex will obviously make squatting with a stretch reflex much easier. However, breaking the bar off the pins from a dead stop mimics very closely what happens when we break a deadlift off the floor. So for a lifter who is struggling with his/her deadlifts, this is an excellent assistance lift to build a more powerful break from the floor.
Mechanically there are also a few other similarities to the deadlift. First, the Dead Stop Rack Squat generally forces the lifter to use a slightly more horizontal back angle than whatever their regular squat uses. Second, the Dead Stop Rack Squat does not employ any significant amount of hip drive to get the bar moving. Doing so will almost always throw the lifter too far forward and he won’t be able to move the bar. So the exercise is initiated much more so with the quads than a regular squat is – just like a deadlift.
For these reasons, I think of Dead Stop Rack Squats to be as much an assistance movement for the deadlift as I do for the squat – maybe more so.
Programming
Dead Stop Rack Squats will be used on whatever day the lifter schedules their heavy squatting/pulling. Generally the exercise will be done in place of the heavy squats or deadlifts (or both), not in addition to them. It is a very stressful exercise and must be respected. This is not an exercise that should be used on a weekly basis for any significant length of time. Every other week is probably a good idea if you want to implement them into your routine. The movement creates a lot of stress on the back and the knees, and the slow grinding nature of the lift is very hard to recover from.
Below are some typical training splits. The examples show where the Dead Stop Rack Squat might fit into the plan. Only squatting and pulling movements are show for the sake of simplicity.
Texas Method
Volume Day – Squat 5×5, Power Clean 5×3
Recovery Day – Squat 2×5
Intensity Day – Dead Stop Rack Squat – 1RM, followed by 5 singles @ 95%. RDL – 3×5 (we would intentionally select a pulling movement that creates less stress than a heavy pull from the floor, if we are going to pull on the same day as we rack squat).
Heavy-Light-Medium
Heavy Day – Dead Stop Rack Squat 10 singles @ 90% in place of normal Squat 5RM.
Light Day – Squat 3×5
Medium Day – Squat 4×5
Split Routine
Monday – Bench Day
Tuesday – Squat Day: Squat 5×5
Thursday – Press Day
Friday – Deadlift Day: Replace Deadlifts with Dead Stop Rack Squats for 5 singles across
If using a Westside styled template with a Dynamic Effort Squat/Deadlift day, and a Max Effort Day, Dead Stop Rack Squats make an excellent max effort exercise to work into the rotation with other squat and deadlift variations.
Below is an old video from a little over 2 years ago of yours truly doing some Dead Stop Rack Squats w/ 445 lbs.
Wow, those look rough. These definitely seem like a late intermediate type exercise to me.
Yes, the lifter has to be competent. I would never attempt these with a client or athlete if I had any doubt about their ability to execute the lift properly.
This article and the comments from the rack squat article make me think I’m misunderstanding the rack squat. While the dead stop squat has to start with the lifter under zero tension, my understanding is that the rack squat is more like a paused squat – so the lifter just taps the safety stop and doesn’t try to unload on to the stop and stays under almost full tension at the bottom of the squat. Is this correct?
On the regular rack squat, I like to keep tension at the bottom. Pauses will be from 2-5 seconds in length, but you want to stay tight. Otherwise, just do the dead-stop version of the rack squat
This may be a stupid question and I’m pretty sure I know the answer but in the video you rack the weight after completing the lift. If you were doing mulitple reps would you then lower it back down to the supports? Thanks Andy and I appreciate all the free content you put out there.
In the video, that was my final rep. Yes, if another set was coming, I would have reset it on the pins instead of the Jhooks.
Great article,
Just started TM, so not ready for it still. Is there a way to subscribe to your articles, say RSS Feed or Twitter?
If you download either the free deadlift workout or the article about assistance exercises from the homepage, then you will automatically be placed on my subscribers link. Every time I write a new article or make a promotional offer with my coaching services you will be contacted via email. Glad you liked the article. I should be getting back to writing more frequently in the very near future.