Power Rack
A four-posted cage with adjustable safety bars for barbell exercises.
A power rack (cage) is a four-posted frame with adjustable safety catches that allow safe solo training with barbells. You can fail a squat or bench press without a spotter - the safeties catch the bar. Power racks also have hooks for starting exercises. Essential for home gyms and serious strength training.
What the rack is really for
A four-post frame with adjustable J-hooks to hold the bar and safety pins or straps set below your working depth. The pins are the point. They let you squat and bench heavy alone, because a failed rep ends with the bar on the safeties rather than on you. Everything else the rack does — pin presses, rack pulls, pin squats, a pull-up bar, band pegs — is secondary to that.
How to set it up
Set the J-hooks so you can unrack without going onto your toes, roughly at mid-chest for squats. Set the safeties just below the lowest point the bar reaches at full depth, which you find by walking a light bar down and adjusting, not by guessing. For bench, set them just above chest level so a failed rep can be lowered onto them without trapping you. Test the settings with an empty bar before loading.
Common mistakes
Setting safeties too low, which means they cannot catch anything before the bar reaches you, or omitting them entirely because the rack "gets in the way" of the last inch of depth. Both eliminate the reason the rack exists. Confusing a power rack with a squat stand — the stand has no safeties at all — is the version of this mistake made at the point of purchase.
Examples
- Four posts with safety catches
- Allows safe solo training
- Adjustable height settings
Related Terms
Compound exercises
Put this into practice with exercises from the library.
Two-Arm Kettlebell Clean
Strength · Kettlebells
Two-Arm Kettlebell Jerk
Strength · Kettlebells
Two-Arm Kettlebell Military Press
Strength · Kettlebells
Two-Arm Kettlebell Row
Strength · Kettlebells
Underhand Cable Pulldowns
Strength · Cable
Upright Barbell Row
Strength · Barbell
Upright Cable Row
Strength · Cable
Upright Row - With Bands
Strength · Bands