The first time I wrote my wife a workout program it included barbell squats. She asked how she was supposed to do them. My caveman response was along the lines of "go into the squat rack and squat." To which she replied, "I don't do that". After some back and forth, I figured out it wasn't that she didn't want to do barbell squats, it was more she didn't know how to go about doing barbell squats. Not so much how to do the exercise but how to set up the squat rack for the exercise.
Let's talk about the squat rack. They come in many different shapes and sizes but they are all mostly large, hulking and somewhat foreboding pieces
of equipment usually off in the corner of the gym. The fact that it houses the weight plates that aren't being used and is called the cage by some, I can see why the squat rack might not crack your 'Top 10 Places to Visit in 2016' list.
That being said though, the squat rack/cage (whatever you want to call it) should be one of the places that you visit the most when you go to the gym. Despite it's name, the squat rack is one of the most versatile pieces of equipment in every gym. You can obviously do barbell squats but you can also do overhead presses, bench presses and bent over rows to name a few other barbell exercises. Most cages will come equipped with pull-up bars and may even have attachments so you can do other body weight exercises such as dips and elevated push ups. Oh yea, you can do curls in the squat rack also. You shouldn't do them there but you can. Let me repeat, YOU SHOULDN'T DO CURLS IN THE SQUAT RACK.
Here's a short video describing how to set up a squat rack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrvr12a5eHw
