Oly Bar Squat Pad et al.

[BuckyBoy]

My wife is having problems squating with enough weight to actually work her legs because the bar hurts her back/neck because it is bruising her up. Anyway I am looking for a pad to soften that bar up some for her to keep her squatting.

Also I am using spring clips on my bar and am wonder if that is necessarily the best thing. I have a concern that the spring clips may not hold if for some reason the weight got unbalanced. It hasn't happened yet but I don't want to live and learn....


Thanks!

[Wildcat33]

Walmart has the pads cheap or you could get a Manta Ray. I used a towel when I started squatting, eventually got a pad, and now I've gotten used to not using anything.

For what it's worth about the spring clips ... I use them exclusively and lost my balance squatting a couple weeks ago. Dumped the bar backwards on the power rack pins and the plates didn't move at all. But the spring clips I use are pretty tight.

[ctgblue]

Chances are, the bar is too high up on her neck and sitting on TOP of her traps
If you will teach her proper bar placement, it will only take 2-3 times and there won't be any more pain
PLUS it will allow her to move more weight with better balance and take the strain off her lower back
I see ladies in the gym all the time squatting with no pad and there is some guy, with the bar too high, using a pad for the same amount of weight
get the bar down, keep it up with NO pad, and REAL SOON she won't need one

[BuckyBoy]

Ok well I guess I am gonna have to figure out exactly where she needs to have the bar.

Where I hold the bar just feels natural. I never had any problems and guess I just assumed that everyone holds it the same way. Maybe I will go shirtless on one set of squats so that she can see what I am doing because I am not sure I can explain what I am doing to her w/o seeing it.

That's good to know about the clips Wildcat. I would like to think mine are as tight. Since we are moving to GVT for about 6 weeks it won't be that big of a concern for me now because the weight will be a bit lighter and the wife probably won't be using any weights on her squat, just the bar.