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the rack), this is also an issue of safety. When dropping or throwing a bar into a rack, it’s easy to miss the cradles, especially on one side only, resulting in a potentially injurious explosion of bar, rack and plates. (As an ex- tension of this, move out from under the bar cautiously at first until you’re sure it’s actually in the rack completely.)


Don’t Drop Empty Bars on the Floor I know you see all the cool European lifters on the IronMind training hall videos drop- ping their empty barbells right onto the platform after doing some warm-up exer- cises, but you’re not those guys and their gym, coach, federation or competition host isn’t paying for the bar you’re dropping. Bars are meant to be dropped on the floor when loaded with bumper plates—drop- ping an empty bar directly onto a platform is unnecessary stress on an expensive piece of equipment that already has to survive a great deal of stress day-to-day. If you’re not strong enough to set an empty bar down when you’re done with it, you’re not a weightlifter and you have zero chance of ever becoming one.


Don’t Put More Than 10 kg of Change on One Side of a Bar If you have more than 10 kg of metal plates on one side of a barbell outside the bumper plates, you need to put another or a heavier bumper plate on instead. This is especially true when there is only a single bumper plate on each side, and even more especially when that single bumper plate is a light one, like a 10 kg plate. Dropping a bar loaded this way puts undue stress on the bumper plate: first, it’s absorbing more force than it’s meant to, but more importantly, it likely will not land perfectly evenly between the two sides, which means the bumpers are hitting at an angle and being torqued sideways by the additional weight. This can cause plates to crack and/or bend, and the hubs to de- form so they don’t fit onto the barbell as well. Suck it up and throw the right bumpers on the bar (and don’t load heavier plates outside lighter plates in most cases).


Reset Squat Racks If you adjust the uprights of a squat rack to be narrower or wider, return them to the po- sition they’re supposed to be in before you put the rack away. If you don’t know how to do this or where they’re supposed to be


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set, you shouldn’t be adjusting them in the first place. You more than likely never need to adjust a rack this way. The only time the width of squat racks at Catalyst Athletics need to be adjusted is to use them as dip bars. If you’re not using the rack for such a purpose, leave it alone. Don’t be the guy who narrows the rack so you can grip the bar directly for your overhead squat (outside the uprights)—do what you should and adjust your hands wider after you take the bar out of the rack on your back. It’s unnecessary, and it’s dangerous to load and unload a bar- bell with such a narrow base of support (See the loading/unloading rule below).


Keep Chalk Where it Belongs You’re not flocking Christmas trees—you’re lifting weights. Chalk all over the floor and elsewhere in the gym is not helping you hold onto your bar. Stick your hands in the chalk bucket and keep them in there while you rub the chalk in. Don’t grab a handful of powder or a chunk and then proceed to rub it in out- side the bucket, and don’t slap your freshly- chalked hands together like an emotional slow-motion montage in a Lifetime original gymnastics movie. Yes, some chalk is going to end up on the floor in lifting areas—let it get there in unavoidable manners—don’t be lame and lazy and spread it around. Not only is it a pain to clean up, it clogs HVAC fil- ters and forces more frequent replacement, and it’s a slipping hazard for lifters on the platform.


Don’t Mix Bumper Plates Use matching bumper plates on each side of the bar. Different brands and models (and even the same model manufactured in dif- ferent time periods) can be different widths, different diameters, and different durom- eters (hardness). This means that when dropped, the two sides of the bar bounce differently and different points of the bar re- ceive the impact, and the bumper plates are torqued sideways. This can mean anything from a dangerously unpredictable bounce of the bar into you or a neighboring lifter, to damage to the barbell and the bumpers from hitting at odd angles.


Control Your Bar When You Drop It After a snatch, clean or jerk, return the bar under control to the platform. This doesn’t mean you can’t drop it—it means keep your hands connected to it until it’s fairly close


to the floor, and pay attention to it until it’s done moving. Don’t be the athlete who lets go of the bar from overhead and walks away, letting it bounce across the platform into an- other lifter, off of something back into your own legs or into other equipment. This is just common sense and a low threshold of respect and awareness.


Don’t Stand on Bumper Plates I realize you think bumper plates are inde- structible because you drop them when you lift, but they’re meant to be durable for exactly one thing—being dropped on an evenly loaded barbell on a proper lifting surface. Many times a bumper will be ly- ing partially on top of something (a change plate, another bumper plate or the edge of a platform, for example), and by standing on it, you’re stressing the plate in a way it’s not meant to be stressed—like being folded in half. Which leads us nicely into the next rule:


Lay Bumpers Flat on the Floor or Stand Them Up If you need to lay a bumper plate on the floor, lay it flat so it’s evenly supported by the floor in case someone isn’t paying atten- tion and breaks the previous rule or drops more weights on top of it. You can also lean them up against something if they’re close enough to vertical to not be stepped on or end up on the bottom of a stack. Otherwise, put them away where they belong.


Don’t Step on Barbells Yes, they’re strong, and yes, I get it, they’re surprisingly springy and this entertains you, but barbells are not meant to be stood on. If you’re curious about how elastic the bar is, load some weight on it and lift it. Don’t put your foot on the middle of the bar and step on it to see how much it gives. Don’t slam your foot down on it to spin it before you lift, don’t kick it after you miss that lift and don’t sit on it between lifts. Want to know if the bar spins? Do it with your hand. Want to sit down and rest? Find a bench or a chair or a box or anything else that’s built to keep your big butt from hitting the floor.


Load/Unload One Plate Per Side at a Time When you’re loading or unloading a barbell in a rack, do it one plate on one side, then one plate on the other side, and alternate in this way until all of the plates are on or off. Don’t take multiple plates off the same side


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