Valor Athletics BD-8 Deluxe Squat Stand Review

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The Valor Athletics BD-8 Deluxe Squat Stands combine a useful collection of safety features to support squats and bench presses in your own home gym.

But how does the strength compare to squat racks? Is it better to save your money and invest in something like the Valor Athletics BD-6?

This review looks at the design of the stands in more detail, together with the customer reviews and a comparison with the top-of-the-line BD-9 stands.

Design features

If you aren’t sure which squat stand to buy for your own home gym, it’s often best to base your decision on 3 things; how much weight you want to lift, how much space you have, and how often it will be used.

If you are fortunate enough to have a large amount of free space for exercise equipment, and will focus on free weight barbell exercises in most workouts, a full squat rack will be your best bet.

But in many home gyms this just isn’t practical, and you need to find a way of performing heavy free weight exercises safely, even without a spotter.

This is the problem that the Valor Athletics BD-8 Squat Stands have been designed to solve.

The height of each barbell support is fully adjustable through a wide range of settings, spaced closely together to guarantee the best position for your height and range of motion.

Despite how much easier squat stands are to move around compared to a full squat rack, many designs lack stability due to their narrow base frame.

Valor Athletics have helped to reduce the risk of any movement when returning the bar to the rack by adding weight plate storage pegs to the base of each stand.

This not only allows you to weigh the stands down for increased stability, but also keeps your weight plates close at hand for when you want to change the weight on the bar.

Lift heavy free weights safely at home

One of the main benefits of lifting weights in a commercial gym is that you will often have a spotter available (someone to assist with the weight if it gets too heavy).

If you want to workout from home with heavy weight on a regular basis, buying exercise equipment that has safety features for preventing getting pinned under the bar is crucial.

This is why the Valor Athletics BD-8 Squat Stands have been designed with two features that let you lift heavy weight in confidence, without fear of injury:

The Quick Lock catches are the metal hooks that you find just under the main barbell supports.

These can quickly be rotated to hold a barbell in position while you change the weight plates. This means you don’t need to worry about the bar becoming unevenly balanced and sliding off the stands.

Being free-standing also means you can position the stands to support the barbell at the collars, whether it’s a 5ft barbell, 6ft barbell, or full Olympic size (7ft).

The safety support rails can be adjusted through a number of settings to catch the bar when you need it most, whether you are squatting or bench pressing.

How the BD-8 set compares to the BD-9 squat stands

While the Valor Athletics BD-8 Squat Stands will be ideal for many home gym setups, it’s worth mentioning the next model up in the range; the BD-9 squat stands.

Although this is a more expensive set than the BD-8 stands, they do provide some additional support height, which can be useful for taller lifters (42.75″ compared to 36″).

There’s also a tapering base section to the frame, creating more space to walk out with the bar when squatting, as well as an extra set of barbell catches.

Both designs feature the same large catchment area for the barbell at the top of the supports, and perhaps most importantly, an expandable base design.

This expandable base means you can adjust the length of the base frame to provide additional support and stability to the uprights.

Customer reviews

A great benefit of buying from Valor Athletics is their range of specialist weightlifting equipment. A quick browse through online shopping sites doesn’t just show large numbers of customer reviews, but also some very impressive average ratings.

The BD-8 squat stands are no exception, with dozens of highly rated reviews on Amazon alone.

While you can always read the full reviews on Amazon, we’ve also put together a couple of quick summary lists for the most frequently mentioned pros and cons.

Pros:

Cons:

• One customer reported the rubber caps on the feet sliding off when put under heavier weights (200 lb+)
• Doesn’t have as high a weight limit as conventional squat racks / power cages