You can't do squats on a smith machine. What you do instead on the smith machine is some bastardized, unnatural movement that tries to look like a squat.

There's a guy at my gym I talk to all the time who doesn't really lift. I saw him doing "squats" on the smith machine. I told him he would be better off doing real squats. His response was "well, I talked to a trainer and he told me to do this".

perfect cliffs post for this thread really

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_..._smith_machine

as far as what to do instead of back squats, you can do goblet squats, step ups, lunges, split squats, bulgarian split squats....

re: BB's post - yeah, most trainers are idiots.

Or they/their employer is too scared of liability, but it amounts to the same thing.

Then the employer is in the wrong business.

BustoRhymes and Hardball

Yeah that's what I was a bit worried about. Thanks for confirming!

I can try all of these! Thanks!

Load up a bar on the ground, then clean the weight and do front-squats?

Saw a bro bench 396lbs today. He probably only missed depth by like 4" and only took his butt off the bench on the ascent and his spotter didn't do all the work. So it's legit.

Also, bros always finish their session with ab work, broettes always start with ab work.

every time i see a guy who could have been fresh out of auschwitz whats the first thing they do?

cardio. every damn time.

fat ass bros coming in the gym, **** the cardio, straight to the bench!

Legit reduced ROM tho.

if all i had to work with was a smith machine i would clean the weight and do front squats.
my max clean and what i do working sets of front squats with are only like 30 pounds apart

This probably is the wrong thread for these questions but I realized that I really can't do overhead presses at my gym either. Or well can and can, I can clean the weight but problem is I can't really drop it so to be on the safe side I need to keep the weight a bit lower so that I can set the bar down "peacefully". Should I keep doing this or do you have suggestions to other movements? I have spaghetti arms so the weight is really low, think 35-40kg.

To not totally put this as OT I had 3 guys clearly doing something comparable to SS at the gym today. Every single one squatted in the smith with a ½ ROM, nowhere near parallel, weeee

Fox,

Why can't you drop the weight? Seems like the optimal solution. Might even help some scerred gym employees grow some chest hair.

I was about to reply "can't you set up the squat rack to do overhead presses in?" and then was like ohhhh, right.

Better question is why do you need to "drop" the weight.

^5 on being a total pussy at OHP, btw. I'd never done them before today (prior to that I was doing some dumbbell shoulder press, though probably not as often as I should have been) and could barely squeeze out sets at 40kg. DYELbros unite.

Yeah dropping the weight shouldn't rly be necessary, esp not at low weight. Can't you just drop it back into the top of the clean position if you fail the lift?

I did the presses today without dropping the weights and I think that will work for some time but them spaghettiarms 'be trembling on the last reps I tell you. I think it's just a matter of time before I'll plunk them in the floor from a bit higher.

And that is a bad thing because there is only this 0.5cm thick rubber mat with a wooden floor beneath which will prolly take some damage if I drop it from an altitude. But I'll tackle that problem if it comes to that. I should be able to control it enough! Thanks guys!

If you're in danger of dropping a 35-40 kilo OHP, maybe working out just isn't for you

Have you ever tried doing actual cleans and not dropping the weight between reps? Really should just be a matter of swinging the bar back down from your chest to your thighs without losing your grip.

I mean, "dropping" the bar from the top of the rep shouldn't even be a possibility, your hands are under it ffs. A failed rep should just drop down to your chest.

Are you just starting to work out seriously? 40kg seems like a lot for a poker nerd's first time. I think I started with around 30-35k.

Was ask how much I got left I need while I was doing snatches in a corner next to an incline bench. Guy approaches me and asks, and I say four. Then he looked depressed, so I ask him what he wanted to do.
"Incline-bench!"
I tell him to simply get a barbell from one of the empty flat benches. He looks at me like im Einstein, and then asks if he doesnt disturb me. He doesn't.

Other guy in the smith machine, using a moveable bench upside down as 45° degree negativ-bench, but he can't move the part for the butt down, so he permanently has his chin on his chest...

Other other dude doing curls, not lookig into the mirror, but directly to the left. Though, he did not check his form from the side, he just didn't seem to be wanted to see himself in the mirror, I think.

16 yo kid doing 1/8 smith-squats, then curls, then 1/4 smithsquats, then curl, then leaves to hit the cardio-floor.

This was all today.

One guy incline-pressed 100kg for ~8 reps alone, though.

Oh GTFO. I mean this chatter should probably be in beginner questions or w/e, but believe it or not beginners do struggle at 40kg OHP. I failed on one rep today, and though I didn't drop the weight (just dropped it back to start position), I understand being afraid that you might. It's a weird feeling if you're not used to it heaving the weight up and not actually knowing whether your arms are going to cope with the lift or not. Feels very unstable.