What is Stacking?
Stacking refers to placing the body in a position where the ribs are parallel to the pelvis — commonly known as a "neutral spine." This is the position that allows us to lift the heaviest weight with the least chance of injury.
Picture a stack of wooden blocks. Stacked directly on top of one another, the tower can support a heavy weight pressed straight down on it. Tilt the blocks even slightly out of alignment and the same weight causes the tower to buckle at the weakest joint. Your spine works the same way — when the ribcage sits directly over the pelvis, load travels straight down through the vertebrae. When the ribs flare up and forward, or the pelvis tucks under, that same load creates a shearing force at whichever segment is least aligned.
A common example: a client picks up a laundry basket by bending forward with a rounded back and straight legs. The basket weighs almost nothing, yet an awkward twist afterward causes a back spasm. It was never the weight of the basket — it was the unstacked spine trying to resist a shearing force it was never positioned to handle.
What is Bracing?
Bracing refers to filling the central core muscles with air and contracting them to produce a stable, pressurised cylinder of support around the spine, using the Valsalva Manoeuvre: rather than simply inhaling and holding, the athlete forcefully expires against a closed glottis — the space between the vocal folds — creating high intra-abdominal pressure.
An easy way to picture this: an empty soda can crushes under a small amount of hand pressure, but a sealed, pressurised can supports a surprising amount of weight without deforming. Bracing turns the torso from the empty can into the pressurised one — the trunk muscles work together to build pressure inside the abdominal cavity, and that pressure becomes a rigid support structure around the spine before any weight is even lifted.
Clients already know how to do this — everyone braces reflexively the moment before a hard sneeze, a heavy cough, or bracing for impact in a fall. The goal in coaching is simply to make that unconscious reflex something the client can trigger on command, every single rep, before the bar ever leaves the floor.
Teaching Stacking: The Cable Zercher Squat
Cable Zercher Squat — to teach the stack:
- Using a strap or handle attached to a low cable, hold the weight in the Zercher position (forearms parallel, elbows bent at 90°, weight in the crooks of the arms).
- Fight the pull of the cable and remain upright, letting the knees come as far forward as needed.
- A heel plate assists those with limited ankle mobility.
Barbell Zercher Squat — to teach the brace
Learning the Squat
Cable Zercher Squat
- Keeping feet around shoulder-width apart, squat down and up slowly, trying your best to maintain posture.
- Fight the pull of the cable, being upright and letting the knees come as far forward as they need to.
Barbell Zercher Squat
- Go up and down slowly, trying your best to maintain the posture practised with the cable.
- Over time you will automatically start bracing the abs hard as you try and stand up at the top of each rep. Closing the mouth and applying the Valsalva Manoeuvre is strongly encouraged.
If a client still cannot feel the brace after several sets, try this troubleshooting cue: have them place two fingers just below their belly button and cough once, hard. Ask them to describe what tightened under their fingers — that sensation, held rather than released, is the brace you are teaching. Most clients need this one physical reference point before verbal cues like "brace" or "tighten your core" mean anything concrete to them.