Anderson Squat: How to Do It, Pin Height and Programming

The Anderson squat is a back squat you start from the bottom. The bar sits on the safety pins of a power rack at your squat depth, you get under it in the bottom position, brace, and stand up. There's no lowering phase to load your muscles and tendons beforehand, so you get no spring out of the hole. That makes it one of the most honest tests of how strong you are at the bottom of a squat, and one of the better tools for fixing a squat that dies there.

It's named after Paul Anderson, the American weightlifter who won heavyweight gold at the 1956 Olympics and was known for squatting huge weights from a dead start. If you've already read our pin squat guide, the Anderson squat is its stricter cousin: the pin squat lowers first and pauses, while this one starts cold.

How to do an Anderson squat

1. Find your pin height. With an empty bar, squat down to the depth you want to train and have someone note where the bar sits, or set the pins a hole lower than you think and adjust. For a full Anderson squat, aim for the hip crease level with or just below the top of the knee.
2. Set the bar on the pins. Load it there. The bar should sit squarely on both pins or spotter arms, not on an edge.
3. Get under it. Squat down beneath the bar and wedge your upper back into it in your normal back squat position. Feet in your usual stance, hands where you normally grip.
4. Build tension before you push. Take a big breath into your belly and brace hard. Then push your upper back up into the bar and your feet into the floor at the same time, gently, until you feel the bar start to want to leave the pins. That's the slack coming out.
5. Drive. Now push hard through the whole foot and stand up, keeping your chest and hips rising together.
6. Return it to the pins. Lower the bar back onto the pins under control, settle into the bottom, reset your brace and go again. Each rep starts from zero.

Step 4 is where people go wrong. If you just yank, the bar slams into your back, you lose position, and the first few centimetres turn into a grind with your hips shooting up. Squeeze the slack out first and the rep feels completely different.

What the Anderson squat fixes

A normal squat gets help at the bottom from the stretch-shortening cycle, the elastic rebound you get when muscles and tendons stretch quickly and then reverse. Starting from the pins strips that out. Lab work on half squats backs up how much it matters: when researchers compared eccentric-concentric reps with concentric-only reps, the bar moved slower at the same relative load when lifters started from a dead stop. The gap shrank as the weight got heavier, which fits with the idea that the bounce helps most when the load is moderate.

So the Anderson squat targets two problems in particular.

Weak out of the hole. If you can hit depth but stall the moment you try to reverse, your squat depends on the bounce. Anderson squats make your quads, glutes and adductors produce force from a standstill, right where you need it.

A sticking point higher up. Plenty of lifters get out of the bottom fine and then slow to a crawl a few centimetres above parallel. Set the pins at that height and you can train it directly, often with more weight than your full squat.

There's also a technique benefit you'll notice quickly. You can't hide a soft brace or a bad bar position when the bar is sitting dead on the pins. If your back rounds or your hips shoot up as you start, you'll feel it on the first rep.

How much this carries over to your regular squat is less clear. There's no good long-term trial on the Anderson squat itself. The closest evidence is a 10-week study in 26 men comparing squats with a roughly 2-second pause at the bottom against normal rebound squats. The pause group made larger gains on most strength and velocity tests, while the rebound group did better on the countermovement jump. That's a pause, not a pin start, and it's one small study, so treat it as a reasonable sign rather than proof.

How much weight to use

Expect to lift less than your normal squat to the same depth. Start around 60% to 70% of your usual back squat working weight for the first session and work up in small jumps. Your first Anderson squat session will probably humble you a bit; that's normal, and it usually improves fast over two or three sessions as you learn to build tension against a dead bar.

Pin height changes everything. A full-depth Anderson squat will be your lightest version. Raise the pins 10 to 15 centimetres above parallel and you'll often handle close to your full squat weight, or above it for a quarter-depth start. Keep separate notes for each pin hole, because comparing numbers across heights tells you nothing.

How to programme it

Low reps suit the Anderson squat. Restarting from zero every rep is tiring in a way that sneaks up on you, and form tends to slip by rep five or six.

• As an accessory: 3 to 5 sets of 1 to 3 reps after your main squat, once a week. Pick a weight you could lift for one or two more clean reps.
• As your main squat for a block: swap it in for 4 to 6 weeks, working sets of 3 to 5 reps, then go back to your normal squat and test. This suits lifters who've plateaued and need a different stimulus.
• For a sticking point: pins set at that height, 4 to 6 singles or doubles at heavy loads, 2 to 3 minutes' rest between sets.

Keep one session of regular squats in the week so you keep practising the full movement with a normal rebound. The rebound is a skill too, and you'll want it back on a competition or testing day.

Common mistakes

Pins too low. If you have to tuck your pelvis under or round your lower back just to get under the bar, the pins are too low. Raise them a hole. Your bottom position should look like your best normal squat, not a contortion.

No slack pull. Exploding off the pins without first wedging into the bar wastes the rep. Build pressure, then drive.

Hips first. A common fault is the hips rising before the bar moves, turning the lift into a squat-morning. Think about pushing your upper back into the bar as hard as your feet push into the floor.

Bouncing between reps. Lowering the bar and then rebounding straight off the pins turns it into a pin squat with a bad habit. Let it settle, reset your breath, then go.

Slamming the bar down. Dropping it onto the pins from a height is hard on the rack and on your shoulders. Lower it under control, as you would on a pin press.

Variations

Anderson front squat. The same thing with the bar in the front rack position. You'll lift noticeably less, your upper back works much harder to stay upright, and it's a strong option if your front squat dies in the hole. Our front squat vs back squat comparison explains how the two differ in muscle demand.

Half and quarter pin starts. Raise the pins to half or quarter depth to overload the top of the squat. These let you handle very heavy weights, which builds confidence under the bar, but don't let them become your main squat. Full-range work still matters for muscle and strength.

Box squat. A close relative rather than a true Anderson squat: you sit back onto a box, release some tension, then drive up. It also breaks the stretch reflex, but you lower the bar yourself and your hips do more of the work. The box squat guide covers box height and how to tell which suits you.

Pin press. Not a squat, but the same idea for the bench press. If you like what Anderson squats do for your squat, the pin press does the equivalent for your bench lockout and off-the-chest strength.

What you need

A power rack or cage with safety pins or spotter arms you trust to take a loaded bar repeatedly, plus a barbell and plates. Squat stands with short spotter arms can work, but the bar has to start on the safeties every rep, so solid, adjustable safeties at small height increments make a real difference. Our best power cage UK guide compares the safeties on each frame, and the home squat rack roundup covers cheaper stands and half racks if space is tight.

Recommended reads

• Pin squat: how to do it and programme it
• Box squat guide
• Front squat vs back squat
• Pin press guide
• The best power cages in the UK