reckonerSmith machine squat
A squat on a bar locked into a vertical track. The machine holds the bar's path so you do not have to, which removes the balance problem and changes where your feet have to go. It is a real leg exercise with a real cost, and the cost is worth knowing before you choose it.
Brace the belly, knees track the toes.
- Pattern
- Squat
- Trains
- Quads, glutes
- Kit
- Smith machine
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 4 sets of 5 to 8 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2.5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- High
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Knee, hip, neck
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the bar on your upper back
Across the shelf of muscle at the top of your shoulder blades, the same as a back squat. Unhook it by rotating the bar out of the catches, and know which way rehooks before you are tired.
Walk the feet forward, not under the bar
On a free squat your feet stay under the bar. Here the bar goes straight down whether you are under it or not, so your feet sit a step forward of it. Without that, the fixed path pushes your knees a long way past your toes.
Brace the belly and descend
Big breath into the stomach, brace, then bend the knees and hips together. Knees track over the toes. That is the cue on your wrist.
Go as deep as your hips allow, then drive up
The track does not adjust to you, so if a depth pulls your pelvis under, that depth is not available on this machine today. Stop above it and push back up through the whole foot.
What goes wrong
Standing directly under the bar
It feels correct because that is where you stand for a real squat. On a fixed path it jams the knees forward through the whole descent, because your body has to bend around a bar that is going straight down. Step the feet forward and the problem goes away.
Comparing the number to your free squat
You will lift more here and it does not mean more. Six lifters measured in both conditions at the same relative effort produced 43 per cent more muscle activity averaged across every muscle in the free weight squat, including 49 per cent more in the inner quad1. Six people is a small study, so read it as a direction rather than a ratio, and keep the two lifts as separate records.
Fighting the track
If a rep feels like you are being bent into a shape, the fault is usually your foot position rather than your effort. The machine will not move. Your feet will.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 60 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 x 5 at 60 kg | More reps 5 → 6 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 4 x 6 at 60 kg | More reps 6 → 7 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 4 x 7 at 60 kg | More reps 7 → 8 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 4 x 8 at 60 kg | Load up 60 kg → 62.5 kgYou hit the top of the range at RPE 7, so the bar goes up 2.5 kg to 62.5 kg and reps reset to five. |
| 5 | 4 x 5 at 62.5 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 5 at 62.5 kg | More reps 5 → 6 repsYou finished every set at RPE 7, with room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to four sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Is the Smith machine bad for you?
No. It is a supported squat that trains the legs, and the honest limitation is that it does less than a free squat does: less muscle activity for the same relative effort in the one direct comparison here1, and none of the balance and bracing demand. It is a good option when a rack is taken or when you are training alone at a load you would not want to fail under.
Does the bar weigh anything?
Yes, and how much depends on the machine, because the counterweight and the sled are different on every one. Reckoner records this against a Smith machine grid and does not assume a bar weight for it, so log the load you selected the way you read it on the machine and keep reading it the same way.
Will Reckoner give me this with a neck restriction?
No. Knee, hip and neck are all recorded against it. Declare any of them in setup and it comes out of your plan.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Schwanbeck, Chilibeck and Binsted, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2009. A comparison of free weight squat to Smith machine squat using electromyography six participants squatting at an eight repetition maximum in both conditions, muscle activity averaged across every muscle measured being 43 per cent higher in the free weight squat, with the gastrocnemius, hamstrings and inner quad higher by 34, 26 and 49 per cent. Six people is a very small sample and the study is older than five years