18 June 2009

**Shit You've Never Tried Before #1- Steinborn Squats

Though it's been talked about on other sites before, I doubt you've ever had Steinborn Squats presented to you quite like this. First off, I'll mention that the following pics were taken of me when I lived in the frozen hellhole known as Cleveland, several years, about ten pounds, and several percentage points of bodyfat ago. That stated, I'm no Johnny Come Lately to this fucking exercise. I'm not saying I was there when Henry Steinborn invented the fucking things, but Ive been doing them longer than anyone at Diesel Crew or Straighttothebar, insofar as I know, and this exercise is a fucking man-maker.


Before I get into the whys and wherefores of how they're done, I'll tell you why I do them, why they were invented, and why I'm posting this blog, after so many fucking yahoos have blathered on about the exercise.


First, I'm posting this because some whiny bitch on Bodyspace was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't squat because he had no rack, and innumerable goofballs suggested such retarded shit as loading the barbell onto a dip station. Don't bother with any of that. Be a fucking man and do a Steinborn Squat.

These things were invented for the simple reason that no one had a squat rack back in the day, and Henry Steinborn was too fucking manly to be bothered with silly shit like leg presses, sissy squats, or leg extensions. Instead, he loaded up a fucking barbell and manned the goddamned thing up. Eventually, that fucker was Steinborn squatting 500 lbs, and being generally so fucking hard that babies wilted and died in his presence and women would involuntarily give up their virginity to him.


Why'd I start doing them? I read about them, and Steinborn, in an old school lifting book and they looked like someone who wanted to eat plate steel and shit pins would do. Thus, I began doing them, and my lifting partner decided to take pics to try out his new camera.


How to do them:



  1. Be a fucking badass.

  2. Load up a barbell with at least 135, and put on collars. tight collars. In fact, collars are the limiting factor here, which is why I'm only using 225 in the pics. 315 kept pushing the collars off, and I didn't have any good locking collars.

  3. Stand bar on one end.

  4. Lean into bar with legs bent.

  5. Set bar onto your traps, and bend legs further, pulling the bar into place on your back.

  6. By now, you should be in a full squat with the bar on your back. Start squatting.

  7. Reverse all the steps to get it back onto the ground.

  8. Rape and pillage.

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2 comments:

  1. Makes me want to get a bar and plates, get a smaller bed and do this in my room. F my gym.

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  2. Most useful post yet. I assume that in the old days, they used barbells that had the weights welded on (as opposed to having superior collars). I would also guess that at full weight, the transition to/from the floor is done lower with more bend in the knees and less twist in the back than in your pics.

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