Powerlifting
Equipped Back Squat
The equipped back squat is a barbell squat performed in a supportive powerlifting suit. It trains your legs and hips while requiring practice to control the suit’s resistance and rebound.
Higher injury risk. Read the safety notes before adding weight.
- Advanced
- Compound
- Higher injury risk
- Rest 3 min
How to do it
- Put on your fitted squat suit with its straps positioned for your planned set.
- Position yourself under the bar with it supported across your upper back, hands gripping evenly outside your shoulders.
- Lift the bar clear of the rack by straightening your legs.
- Step back into your practiced squat stance with your toes turned slightly outward.
- Lower into the squat under control until your hip crease is below the top of your knee.
- Drive upward to a stable standing position with your hips and knees straight.
- Walk forward until the bar contacts both rack uprights.
- Lower the bar into both hooks.
Form cues
- Brace before you descend.
- Keep pressure through your whole foot.
- Track your knees over your toes.
- Bring hips and shoulders up together.
Common mistakes
- Dropping into the suitMaintain a deliberate descent rather than letting the suit abruptly catch your weight.
- Forcing an excessively wide stanceUse a stance that lets you reach depth without rolling onto the inner edges of your feet.
- Adding weight just to reach depthHave an experienced equipped lifter check your suit fit and technique before increasing the load.
Safety
Heavy loading and an uncontrolled rebound from the suit can pitch you off balance, straining your back or knees. A failed repetition can pin you beneath the bar.
- Use competent side and rear spotters with an agreed plan for assisting a failed repetition; do not attempt to dump the bar.
- Set rack safeties just below your intended bottom position and secure the plates with collars.
- Increase loads gradually during warm-ups, stopping before fatigue prevents you from controlling the bar.
- Remove or readjust the suit if you develop numbness, tingling, or sharp pinching.
Choose an unequipped squat until you have consistent back-squat technique, and seek professional advice before heavy equipped work if you have ongoing back, hip, or knee pain.
Muscles worked
Primary muscles
Secondary muscles
Equipment
- Power Rack
- Powerlifting Barbell
- Powerlifting Squat Suit
Sets and reps
- Sets
- 3–4
- Target
- 2–5 reps
- Rest
- 3 min
This is specialized powerlifting practice rather than a general-fitness starting exercise; keep working sets comfortably short of failure.