5 Underrated Exercises You Can Do in a Squat Rack That Trainers Love

Squat racks are as essential to weight rooms as pumpkin spice is to autumn. Walk into any globo or garage gym setup and you'll see ‌at least‌ one squat rack or squat cage welcoming strength trainers into its metal majesty.

Sadly, most exercisers aren't using squat racks to their full potential. Typically, when someone is using a squat rack it's because they are back squatting, according to physical therapist Grayson Wickham, DPT, CSCS, founder of digital movement platform Movement Vault. No doubt, back squats are beneficial. But "there is so much more you can do in and with a squat rack than just back squats," he says.

Read on for proof. Below, Wickham shares five of his favorite squat rack exercises (besides back squats!). All you need for these muscle-building moves is a squat rack or basic squat stand, a barbell and some weight plates.

On paper, the front squat sounds nearly identical to the back squat. After all, both exercises involve squatting while holding a barbell. However, a front squat requires that you hold the barbell in a front rack position across your chest, rather than along your back.

When you shift the barbell from the back side of your body to the front side, the main muscles used to move the weight shift from the posterior chain muscles to the anterior chain muscles, according to Wickham. Meaning, the front squat works the muscles along the front of your body — like your quads and core more — than the back squat does, he says.

Due to the location of the bar, during a front squat people are able to maintain a more upright torso than they are when they back squat, he says. Generally, this allows you to sit deeper into your squat, which means the exercise works your squat muscles (hamstrings, quads and glutes) through a greater range of motion.

The love-child of a lunge and a barbell squat, the Bulgarian split squat involves lowering and raising your body while in a split-leg, lunge stance.

A unilateral exercise, it allows you to train your lower-body muscles one side at a time, which helps you correct for muscle imbalances that have cropped up between sides.

"Due to the fact that we all have a lead leg when we walk or run, most of us have some asymmetry between the right and left side of our bodies," Wickham says. While some asymmetry is normal, too much can lead to improper movement patterns and even up your risk of injury.

Adding a barbell along your back while you do the movement helps maximize the muscle-building, balance-improving benefits of it, according to Wickham. "Weighting the movement increases the demand on your leg and core muscles," he says, which ultimately makes the movement even more effective at improving balance.

Also known as deadlift rack pulls, rack pulls are a deadlift variation that involves pulling a weighted barbell from the rack rather than the floor.

There are two groups of people who can benefit from rack pulls, according to Wickham. First, are people who can't, from a standing position, bend down and touch their toes.

"If you don't have the hamstring mobility to touch your fingertips to the floor, you don't have the hamstring mobility needed to safely deadlift from the floor," he says. In fact, trying to do so can put your lower back in a sub-optimal position, he says.

"When you don't have adequate mobility in one muscle group or joint, another muscle group or joint will have to compensate," he explains. Raising the height of the bar with the help of pegs and a squat rack allows you to reap the hamstring-strengthening benefits of the deadlift, while essentially mitigating the injury risk, he says.

The second group who can benefit from rack pulls are elite-level athletes, such as powerlifters. People are weakest at their end ranges of motion, which means the hardest part of the deadlift is the first few inches off the floor, Wickham explains. If you eliminate those first few inches of the deadlift by raising the start position, you'll be able to lift more weight, he says.

"When you can pull more weight, you increase the demand on your muscles as well as the demand on your central nervous system," he explains. This helps increase your overall strength, as well as helps prep your body for lifting more weight during a traditional deadlift later on down the line.

People mistakenly think the standing barbell strict press — also known as the shoulder press — ‌only‌ works your shoulder muscles. While the exercise absolutely does strengthen your shoulders, Wickham says it also works your entire upper body, core and legs.

"When you're doing the movement correctly, you are squeezing your quads, feet, glutes, midline and nearly every other muscle for stability while you press the weight overhead," he says.

While the most well-rounded exercise routine will include a variety of shoulder exercises, Wickham says the standing barbell strict press is better for building muscle compared to other pressing movements.

"Both of your arms are working together to lift the same implement, which allows you to lift more weight than you would if you used two dumbbells or kettlebells," he explains.

When you lift more weight, more muscle fibers are activated, which leads to greater strength and power gains after you recover, he says.

Few exercises are as loved by weightlifters as much as the bench press. But very few of the people who love to bench regularly incorporate the decline bench press into their routines ‌—‌ much to the detriment of their strength goals, according to Wickham.

The decline bench press works the same pressing muscles as the standard bench press (pecs, triceps and delts), he says. "But because the decline bench press positions your chest lower, it works those muscles through a greater range of motion than the standard bench press," he says.

Your move: If you have a decline bench, use it to grow your upper-body.