Without a Squat Rack for 10 Weeks


Hey everyone, I’ve attached a few pictures of my gym situation for the next ten weeks. As you can see, it’s lacking a squat rack. I’m curious about what you’d recommend for the next few weeks here in lieu of that.

I’ve been running a modified 10x3 variant, working up to 415 deadlift, 385 squat, 235 bench, and 145 press. Obviously the upper body stuff is significantly lacking. Moving forward I’d like to focus on hypertrophy. I was thinking of either deadlifting twice weekly instead, doing a deadlift day and an olympic lift day (cleans, snatches, or both), or doing a full-body routine 4 days per week. Curious about what you guys think of the setup here. I’d love to get some opinions.

What are your training goals?

BB hack squats
BB hack squats with heels elevated
smith squats
bulgarian split squats
goblet squats (if top db weight is too easy, use intensifiers like 3 sec negatives, or 1 1/2 reps, or pause at bottom)
jefferson squats
clean to front squats (probably pretty light, so gotta go high rep on front squats here)

“…obviously upper body is lacking…”

You have 10 weeks w/o a squat rack. It’s upper body time, get to work.

You have a bench, seated rows, a preacher, more dumbells than your upper body can handle and surely some pull up bars.

Blast yourself into a new realm. No mercy.

High rep front squats would be my choice for squatting.

I’d probably go Upper/Lower split. It looks like you’re good to go up top. One of the “lower” days could be deadlift oriented.

Another, squat-style “Lower Day” could be

Dumbbell Goblet Squat
(to keep the squatting “pattern” or “groove”)

Reverse Lunge In Smith Machine
Barbell Romanian Deadlift
Leg Extension

Sidebends

Or a different “Lower Day” could look like

Bear Hug That Heavy Bag and Free Squat

Leg Curls
Dumbbell Step Ups
Standing Calf Raises Holding Dummbells

Decline Situps

Or you could mix deadlift/squat

Deadlift

Bulgarian Split Squat

Leg Extension/Leg Curl

Leg Raises off of the Decline Bench

[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:

Bear Hug That Heavy Bag and Free Squat

[/quote]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the heavy bag. I was going to suggest dragging it through the gym backwards like a sled. Absolutely fry the quads out.

I didn’t catch the heavy bag. Here’s one for LOLs - bear hug that sumbitch and pound out Bulgarian split squats.

[quote]DavidMas wrote:
Hey everyone, I’ve attached a few pictures of my gym situation for the next ten weeks. As you can see, it’s lacking a squat rack.[/quote]
You’ve got a Smith machine. Don’t be a closed-minded bro, use everything available:

Just to clarify, are those your current numbers? Or does “working up to” mean those are what you’re aiming to get eventually?

Either way, you can learn to power clean in a few sessions, which means you can clean the bar before overhead presses. So, there’s that.

That’s not obvious.

I’m not sure how heavy the dumbbells go, but seriously, other than a rack, what more do you need to train upper body? You’ve got multiple bars, a full cable setup, at least a few dumbbells, a Smith machine, pull-up bar, preacher station, pec deck, ab bench, flat bench station, multiple free benches including an adjustable incline (which means you’ve got a decline bench if you toss a plate or the aerobic step under one side), and a Swiss ball (which can double as a “bench”/“incline bench”).

Dude, if you can’t train upper body, it’s not the equipment’s fault.

Seriously, you have way fewer limitations than you think. You should be able to make almost any program work in that situation.

gird up yer loins and Zercher squat that bar

you HAVE a squat rack!

get under that bench bar, lift it off from the hole, and do box squats. Problem solved. You can do Zerchers like this too.

Thanks for the replies everyone, some good advice there. I’ll be giving a lot of this a go and build up a routine.

Just to clarify, are those your current numbers? Or does “working up to” mean those are what you’re aiming to get eventually?

That’s current. About two weeks ago.

I’m not sure how heavy the dumbbells go, but seriously, other than a rack, what more do you need to train upper body?

Sorry, I was saying the upper body strength is obviously lacking, not the equipment. There’s more than enough equipment there for upper body.

get under that bench bar, lift it off from the hole, and do box squats.

I’ll definitely give that a shot and see how it works.

Looks like I’ll be trying quite a bit of new stuff out, which I’m sure will be good for me.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
What are your training goals?[/quote]

Could you answer this? It is hard to offer advice without knowing this.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
What are your training goals?[/quote]

Could you answer this? It is hard to offer advice without knowing this.[/quote]

You bet. Right now I want to focus on fat loss, partially for vanity reasons and partially to see how much muscle I’ve got. I’m about 210 at 6’ and I’ve been noticing some minor recomp as I’ve cleaned up my diet. I realize that’s going to be the biggest thing to change my physique. To figure out where I’m at I’ve been eating 2900 kcal per day at 122 fat, 200 carb, 250 protein. Like I said, that’s had some noticable recomposition effects so I’m thinking of keeping that for a bit then lowering slowly as changes seem to stagnate. I’m planning on taking measurements in the next couple days and keep track of those weekly. I don’t have a scale but I don’t really care what I weigh as long as the measurements are moving in the right direction.

To maintain muscle I figured keeping heavy lifting in would be good. I’ve been enjoying 10x3 and making progress so I think sticking with that may be good. Why change it if it’s working, right? I’ve also thought about going to a basic 5x5 routine since that’s actually something I’ve never done. I’d love to hear thoughts. I’ll see if I’ve got time in the morning to take some pictures too.

lunges

[quote]DavidMas wrote:
Why change it if it’s working, right?[/quote]

Why change if its working is exactly what I was thinking.

Because change is good. Don’t do the same routine for 10 weeks. I’d be like, 4 ball buster 5 day cycles, back off one cycle, annihilate cycle 6, repeat with different program. There’s your 10 weeks, give or take.

[quote]TX iron wrote:
you HAVE a squat rack!

get under that bench bar, lift it off from the hole, and do box squats. Problem solved. You can do Zerchers like this too.[/quote]

Funny, that’s what I was thinking but I didn’t wanna say it.