T Nation

How Much Weight for Rack Lockout

Powerlifting
#1

I did rack lockouts for the 1st time today and wasn’t sure how much weight I should be doing. I thought I read 1.5 times your max somewhere but I’m nowhere near that. My max is 290. I put 315 on bar. Range of motion was probably 6-10 inches. I felt heavy as fuck and I could barely do 3 sets of 3.

My face got red and I thought I was gonna shit in my pants I pushed so hard. I hear its supposed to be all triceps but I felt alot in my shoulders. The other thing is I did these after 3 sets of 6 close grip (6 inches apart) to failure.

So is this an indicator that my triceps are too weak or is this weight normal for lockouts?

#2

Are these bench rack lockouts? I thought you were talking rack pulls at first, and was going to tell you to slap the person that mentioned triceps?

#3

Haha yeah, bench lockouts. Sorry for the confusion.

#4

some people can full ROM banch more than they can lockout. yeah id say that triceps may be what you need to work on. it may be as simple as practicing the movement though. you may find that when you do them for a few weeks they get a lot stronger real quick. i would say do them a few more times. start light and work your way up.

#5

When I do rack lockouts they pound my shoulders, but I can lock out at lot more than I can bench. They are so taxing on the shoulders I don’t do them very often.

To me lockouts depend on so many things (bench height, rack height, bench style) its tough to make generalizations from person to person. For example, 2 inches of rom reduction makes a huge differences in the weight you can use.

#6

Rack lockouts can be rough on your joints- more so high board press in my opinion. For me, a heavy triple with a narrow grip (I go pinkie 1 or 2 inches insde the rings on these) is right around my shirted bench max. For example, I did an easy 580 in my last meet, so I go 585 to 605 on rack lockouts. This works out to about a 3 inch ROM.

If you use a wider grip or higher pins, you can hit some really big weights, but at some point you have to question the value of doing lockouts with a 1 inch ROM 700lb max singles when your best bench is 500.

#7

6-10 inches is far too much ROM for a lockout. It’s longer than some peoples bench stroke!
I was under the impression that 4 inches and less is a lockout. 4 inches seems to work for me, it isn’t stupidly heavy but still a decent weight.

#8

[quote]smokotime wrote:
6-10 inches is far too much ROM for a lockout. It’s longer than some peoples bench stroke!
I was under the impression that 4 inches and less is a lockout. 4 inches seems to work for me, it isn’t stupidly heavy but still a decent weight.
[/quote]

Agreed.

Sounds like the OP’s describing a regular pin press tbh.

#9

[quote]Hanley wrote:
smokotime wrote:
6-10 inches is far too much ROM for a lockout. It’s longer than some peoples bench stroke!
I was under the impression that 4 inches and less is a lockout. 4 inches seems to work for me, it isn’t stupidly heavy but still a decent weight.

Agreed.

Sounds like the OP’s describing a regular pin press tbh.[/quote]

I thought they were the same thing. I’ll have to measure exactly how high the bar goes but it’s definitely the more than 4 inches. I’m going to stay with 315 since its hard as hell but I can still manage 3 sets of 3. And I do agree it feels really heavy on the joints. I would never thought 25lbs over my max would feel that much heavier.