Spotting the Squat
<I train in a very small gym (often alone in the place), but grabbed a guy to spot me anyway. Kind of unusual that anyone was there. He was a big kid, but not much of a spotter.... Bill>
This brings up an interesting thought we don't hear much about. More often than not when you see someone spotting a partner on the squat, you'll see the spotter with their hands about waist high, fingers open and ready to wrap their hands around a failing squatter's waist as if to lift them up by the hips. If you've ever seen anyone actually fail squatting, you'd know that this would not be an effective way to spot this movement, so Bill's note made me think to mention this.
If the squatter truly fails, you'll need to wrap your arms around the person from the back with your arms basically through and under the person's arms nearer the armpits and toward the front of the shoulders so you can lift up and back. A failing squatter will fall forward, not downward, so the waist grab will do nothing, but a pull from behind will [hopefully] lift him or her back upright and past the failure point.
Guess this doesn't get taught because it's really not needed that often, which is a good thing I suppose. In a way.
Laree
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