Barbell Anderson Squat

1. Set the safety pins in a power rack at your chosen bottom position, typically where your thighs are at or just below parallel, and rest the loaded bar on them.
2. Duck under the bar and set it across your upper back, taking your normal squat grip and stance beneath it.
3. Take a big breath, brace your entire trunk, and create full-body tension before anything moves.
4. Drive the floor away and stand up with the bar, keeping your chest up and the bar over mid-foot.
5. Finish at full lockout, hips and knees extended, then exhale.
6. Lower the bar under control back onto the pins.
7. Let the bar settle completely dead on the pins, release your tension briefly, then re-brace and repeat; there is no rebound between reps.

Common Mistakes

• Bouncing off the pins: dipping and rebounding defeats the entire point; the bar must be motionless before every rep starts.
• Losing tightness before the drive: pushing against a slack trunk from a dead bottom folds the torso forward; brace fully before initiating.
• Setting the pins randomly: a bottom position that does not match your squat depth trains the wrong range; set pins at your actual sticking point.
• Loading like a normal squat: without the stretch reflex you are meaningfully weaker from pins; start around 60 to 70 percent of your usual squat weight.