The Role of Spotter

A spotter during your training can be either of valuable benefit or totally useless. An adequate spotter will know when you are in trouble on your reps and require extra assistance. A bad spotter will either not recognize if you are in trouble or will spot you from the very beginning. Remember that you want to be lifting weights and if the spotter is helping you on each rep, it means two people are doing the same job.

An example of a good spotter would be the exercising on the bench press. A good spotter will support you unrack the bar for you not to waste a lot of energy with this exercise. The spotter will hold it while you are stabilizing yourself, then take away themselves from the process when you are ready to carry on with the exercise. They’ll only help if you’re struggling on a rep, or when the bar might be slipping from out of your hands.



One common mistake is for people to become dependent on their spotters, almost to the degree that they’ll refuse to do a curl without someone spotting them. This is a poor trap to fall into. Remember, a flourishing bodybuilder has a strong mental game plan. They can lift all by themselves. A spotter should only be used to watch your form or offer assistance on dangerous exercises (squat, benching). These exercises are dangerous because, if you become stuck at the bottom and no one is there, you’re going to have a few problems racking the weight or it will crush you.