Adding Safety Bars to Squat Rack?

Hi everyone,

I wasn’t sure which forum to post this in, since there isn’t one for “Equipment.”

I bought a squat rack off of Craigslist, which is awesome since I didn’t have one, but it doesn’t have any safety bars on it. Is there a way to add something to it, or should I toss this one up on Craigslist and put the funds toward one with some sort of safety system on it? I won’t be doing any 1 or 3-rep maxes, just using it in a 5x5 workout…so I wasn’t even sure if safety bars are necessary. It’s similar to this one:

I only paid $35 for the rack. I’m a poor graduate student, so that was one heck of a deal. I have someone who’s handy with welding if anyone has any ideas…

A couple of sawhorses adjusted to the right height should work reasonably well.

Maybe you could get your guy to hook something up like the spotters on these stands. I don’t know handy he is or what kind of tooling he is working with.

But if he is good he could design something that works the same way. He would need to drill holes in your stand for them to function the same way. Or maybe he could just weld them into a fixed position based on your biomechanics. You could find where the bar is when you hit just below parallel and weld them around that area.

It’s nothing you could be doing heavy rack pulls from, but it would provide you with a little assurance that if you miss the rep you have somewhere to go with the bar.

I would think that without this kind of assurance you probably aren’t going to go as heavy as you could, there by not getting the training effect that you potentially could have.

what about this:

http://www.amazon.com/TDS-C-95085-W-Safety-Stand-Attachment/dp/B000TCRNTK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1253004653&sr=8-3

or this:

[quote]linnrose wrote:
what about this:

http://www.amazon.com/TDS-C-95085-W-Safety-Stand-Attachment/dp/B000TCRNTK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1253004653&sr=8-3

or this:

http://www.amazon.com/TDS-C-93015-W-Safety-Stands/dp/B000TF66NG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1253004653&sr=8-1 [/quote]

Hell yeah…good find. I think the second one is specifically for their benches and stands, but the first one would definitely fit the bill.

I don’t know how broke you are OP…but for $84.00 I think they would be worth it.

[quote]JPCleary wrote:
linnrose wrote:
what about this:

http://www.amazon.com/TDS-C-95085-W-Safety-Stand-Attachment/dp/B000TCRNTK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1253004653&sr=8-3

or this:

Hell yeah…good find. I think the second one is specifically for their benches and stands, but the first one would definitely fit the bill.

I don’t know how broke you are OP…but for $84.00 I think they would be worth it.[/quote]

Wow, uh, yeah. That’s the exact brand of squat rack I have, actually. So those totally work. Thanks!

I’m not super-broke, just trying to avoid someday justifying to some student loan suit how gym equipment was necessary for my education. :wink:

[quote]

I don’t know how broke you are OP…but for $84.00 I think they would be worth it.

Wow, uh, yeah. That’s the exact brand of squat rack I have, actually. So those totally work. Thanks!

I’m not super-broke, just trying to avoid someday justifying to some student loan suit how gym equipment was necessary for my education. ;-)[/quote]

Spend the money and get those. An emergency room visit because you got STAPLED will easily cost several times more than that. A wise investment.