Belt squats are a valuable addition to any sports performance facility. By loading the athlete at the waist rather than the shoulders, they allow continued lower body training without placing stress on the spine or upper body. This makes belt squats ideal for athletes who are banged up or managing low back issues. The loading style is also more comfortable for newer athletes learning to squat, as it reduces technical demands while reinforcing proper movement patterns. As a result, belt squats provide a safer, more accessible alternative to traditional back or front squats while still delivering meaningful lower body strength development.
Top 5 Reasons To Add A Belt Squat
- Low back decompression happens naturally with a belt squat because the load is attached at the hips rather than placed on the shoulders. Traditional squats press the spine downward, while belt squats remove that compression entirely by loading from the waist.
- Arms Free Squat: Since belt squats are loaded from the hips, athletes with upper body injuries or limitations can still train heavy squats. I have seen athletes in slings, with broken arms, hands or wrists, and they have all been able to continue lower body training safely because the belt squat removes the need to involve the upper body.
- Safer: Belt squats are one of the safest ways to train to failure because the load can never fall on the athlete. If someone cannot return the trolley to the top they can simply lower the belt to the bottom and unclip or step out. This makes it an ideal option for hard sets, high effort work and situations where you want athletes to push without risking a failed rep turning into an injury.
- Ease of Movement: Belt squats remove most of the margin for error. As long as the athlete is positioned over the pulley the movement is very stable and predictable. This lets them put all of their effort into each rep without the same concerns about balance, bar path or safety that come with a traditional squat. The result is more focus on intent and less mental fatigue from managing the lift.
- Versatility: The low pulley on a cable belt squat turns the unit into far more than a belt squat station. It can be used for Lat Pull Downs, Low Rows, Pull Throughs, loaded marches, split squats, good mornings, RDLs and many other movements. This versatility gives coaches a single piece of equipment that can cover a wide range of lower body and trunk training needs without taking up additional space.
If you do not have space for a full belt squat machine, we offer compact options. Our Compact Belt Squat Rack Attachment installs between the front and back uprights of a half or double half rack. It requires the front foot to be bolted down and extends 20 inches forward, but that area already overlaps the lifting zone or platform so you are not losing any usable floor space.
Our Lever Arms and Alpha Arms can also function as a belt squat when you clip a belt to the eye bolt at the base of each arm. Most athletes will need an elevated platform such as bumper plates or DC Blocks to reach full depth, but this setup is extremely space efficient and far more cost effective than a full platform style belt squat. It gives athletes a versatile way to load the lower body without adding another large machine to the room.
Additional Training Options On Belt Squat Machines
Our belt squats are plate loaded with both high and low pulley capability, allowing them to perform many movements beyond traditional belt squats. Standard cable columns and low row pulleys often do not reach a true low position, which makes exercises like cable RDLs or bent over cable rows difficult. With our platform and compact belt squat units, you can stand directly over the pulley, removing that limitation and opening up a wide range of cable training options.
- Split Squats (Low Pulley)
- Low Rows (Low Pulley)
- RDL's (Low Pulley)
- Bicep Curls (Low Pulley)
- Bent Over Rows (Low Pulley)
- Pull Throughs (Low Pulley)
- Tricep Push Downs (High Pulley)
- Face Pulls (High Pulley)
- Straight Arm Pull Downs (High Pulley)
- Lat Pull Downs (High Pulley)
- Assisted Nordic Hamstring Curls (High Pulley)
Our First Belt Squat
Shown below is the first cable belt squats we built in 2013. This specific unit was a rack attachment on a double half rack designed by our founder Matt Purdy. After my shoulder labrum surgery my junior year of high school, my father, Matt did not want me to lose the lower body strength I had built. So he built this unit and I used it just a few weeks post surgery while still in a sling. It let me safely train my posterior chain and even get conditioning work with high rep sets of 25 and heavier lower rep sets. I performed squats, split squats and hip throughs by facing away from the machine. I added this to show how this is not a fad we have jumped on or a new idea at all, this is something we have been working on for years.
