For my sins, I enjoy writing articles. I probably do it more often than I should for my eternal damnation.
I’m currently writing an article on the evolution of the back squat, a history I’ve previously discussed on this website and elsewhere. As part of this research, I’ve been deep-diving the history of squat stands, and the squat rack. While most of this history has been covered in drips and drabs by me, I wanted to share a discovery while my enthusiasm is still flowing. I present to you, one of the first squat rack prototypes I’ve come across which dates to 1932.
What is It?
Put simply it was a design submitted to Mark Berry in Strongman in 1932 by readers Frank Gibson and Wayne Harold. Created to ‘aid flat foot squatting’, the design shows a simple, but very effective, set of squat stands. This came roughly about a decade before squat stands, and later squat racks were sold on a mass scale by Bob Hoffman of York Barbell which, for new visitors to the website, was America’s biggest equipment manufacturer of the mid-twentieth century.
It was no surprise that Gibson and Harold submitted their sketch to Mark Berry. During this period Berry was popularising, and promoting, the use of high-repetition squats, combined with a gallon of milk a day, in one of the first, and most effective, bulking routines that the fitness world has ever seen. Its effectiveness was solidified in the pages of Strongman and Strength magazine when Berry received a letter from American trainee J.C. Hise who claimed to have gained 29 lbs. of bodyweight in one month using Berry’s bulking routine. Now, this was not all muscle gain and, in fact, Berry often argued that a bulky and strong body was more desirable than a lean and slender one.
As Randell Strossan outlined in his later book about 20 rep squats, Hise’s story was the catalyst for innumerable American men to strap a heavy barbell on their back and begin squatting. The early squat stands, shown here, were a physical indication of the method’s impact.
What Problem Did the Squat Stands Solve?
I am always fascinated by the creativity of gymgoers. As a proud home gym owner (picture me saying that as smugly as possible), I have realized that one of the few things I have in common with the lifters of yesteryear is that I, like them, have to come up with solutions for my lack of equipment. Don’t have a lat pulldown in your home gym? Invest in a pull-up bar, resistance cables, and/or a pulley system. Impossible to do leg extensions or curls at home? Invest in resistance bands and spend 10 minutes setting up the most precarious, and somewhat effective way to do curls. No preacher curl machine? Stick a foam roller under your armpits and stand up while curling.
Some of these solutions are god-awful but as the kids used to say YMMV. Some individuals design solutions that change the fitness industry (like when Bob Peoples built a power rack in the 1940s out of timber). Others, like me, come up with half-assed and questionable solutions. That being said, I was clever enough to invest in sandbags and playground sand during the COVID-19 pandemic before it became impossible to find anything heavy. Likewise, I bought a set of adjustable dumbbells before everything went shut. That last purchase resigned me to leg workouts consisting solely of sandbag squats, sandbag over-shoulder throws, and Bulgarian split squats so maybe I was a fool on that one.
I digress, fitness inventions exist for a reason. In the case of Gibson and Harold, the issue was that Berry, unlike others promoting high-repetition squats, encouraged lifters to use as heavy a weight as they possibly could. At that time people had just begun to squat with their feet on the ground – the previous method was to squat on their tippy toes.
They thus had two solutions. Number one, they could do a Steinborn Squat, as shown below
Or they could clean the bar up to their chest and then military press it overhead to bring it to their back.
Admittedly I think the fitness space would be a much better one if we were still forced to clean and press every weight we wanted to squat. This ‘hot take’ was brought to you by years of half-assing the Olympic lifts and also reading an excessive amount of Dan John books. If you are going to radicalize yourself on anything, John’s no-nonsense and considered writings are probably the best thing you can do.
Alas I, like many others, am too lazy to use either of these methods. Instead, we use squat stands and racks. The squat stand shown here was an early, and very creative means of allowing individuals to squat as heavy as their heart desired.
Whether or not that was a net good for society depends largely on how much, or how little, you enjoy leg day.
As always… Happy Lifting!