Pin Squat: How to Do It, Benefits and Programming

A pin squat is a back squat where you lower the bar onto the safety pins of a power rack, let it settle there so your muscles go slack for a moment, then drive it back up from a dead stop. Taking away the bounce at the bottom makes the hardest part of the squat harder, which is exactly why it works. If you stall coming out of the hole, or your depth gets shallower as the weight goes up, this is the variation to add.

How to do a pin squat

1. Set the pins. Put the safety pins or spotter arms at the depth you want to train, usually parallel. Do a test rep with an empty bar: the bar should touch the pins when your hip crease is level with the top of your knee.
2. Set up as normal. Unrack the bar on your upper back as you would for a back squat, walk it out, and take your usual stance.
3. Brace and lower under control. Big breath into your belly, then sit down at your normal speed until the bar rests on the pins.
4. Dead stop. Let the bar settle for about a second, enough that it stops moving and the tension leaves your legs, but keep your back tight and your chest up. Don't relax your whole body or let the bar roll on your neck.
5. Drive up. Rebrace, push your upper back into the bar and drive through the whole foot until you're standing tall.

The dead stop is the bit people fudge. Touching the pins and bouncing turns it into an ordinary squat with a noisy bottom. If you hear a loud clang every rep, you're dropping onto them rather than placing the bar.

Why pin squats work

Normal squats get help at the bottom from the stretch-shortening cycle, the spring effect you get when muscles and tendons stretch quickly then reverse. A pause on the pins lets most of that stored energy fade, so your quads, glutes and adductors have to produce force from a standstill. That builds strength at the exact point where most heavy squats fail.

It also locks in your depth. You can't cheat a few centimetres high when the pins tell you where the bottom is, and depth matters. In a 12-week trial, lifters who trained deep squats gained 4% to 7% more front thigh muscle than those training shallow quarter squats, and they jumped higher too. The shallow group got very good at shallow squats and not much else.

Then there's safety. The bar ends every rep on the pins, so if you fail, you're already where the bar needs to be. That makes pin squats one of the better heavy squat variations for anyone training alone in a home gym. You do need pins or spotter arms you trust, and our home squat rack guide compares the safeties on each model.

Common mistakes

Pins set too low. If the bar comes down onto them below your normal depth, your lower back will round to reach them. Raise them a hole.

Bouncing off the pins. Covered above, but it's the most common fault. Count "one" at the bottom before you drive.

Losing your brace at the bottom. The muscles in your legs should relax a little; your trunk shouldn't. Rebrace before you push.

Going too heavy too soon. Expect to lift less than your normal squat. Start at about 60% to 70% of your usual working weight and build from there.

Pins too far back or forward. Set the rack so the bar lands squarely on the pins rather than on the edge, especially with uprights that are close together.

Variations

Anderson squat. Start each rep with the bar resting on the pins at the bottom, then stand up. There's no lowering at all, so it's a purely concentric lift. It's harder still and good for very low-rep strength work.

Pin squat at sticking point. Set the pins a few centimetres above parallel, where your squat usually slows down. Useful in a peaking block.

Smith machine pin squat. Set the safety stops at depth and pause on them. Our Smith machine squat guide covers stance and bar position, and if you'd like one at home, our compact Smith machine and home gym picks start with a frame that fits a spare room.

Front pin squat. The same idea with the bar in the front squat rack position. It's brutal on the upper back, so go lighter.

How to programme it

Use pin squats as an accessory after your main squat, 3 to 5 sets of 2 to 5 reps at a weight you could lift for one or two more clean reps. Alternatively, swap them in as your main squat for a 4 to 6 week block, then go back to regular squats and test. Low reps suit the lift, because restarting from zero every rep is tiring in a way that sneaks up on you over a set of 8.

Strength training twice a week is the baseline for health, according to the NHS physical activity guidelines, so one pin squat session plus one regular squat session fits neatly into a two or three day plan.

What you need

A power rack or cage with adjustable safety pins or spotter arms. That's it, plus a bar and plates. If you're shopping, our best power cage UK guide covers the options, and our Ultrasport Power Rack review looks at a budget rack with spotter arms and a lat pulldown.

Recommended reads

• Back squat: how to do it properly
• Front squat guide
• Smith machine squat
• The best power cages in the UK
• Workout guides