Until yesterday the only way to do squats at my gym was on a Smith machine. I never really liked it, but had no choice. Anyhow, I got up to 410 using a pyramid scheme on my 4th set. Not bad I thought...Well a few of us had requested that the gym buy a squat rack. The gym did & it came in yesterday. I loaded 320 on the bar to warm up with and to my suprize I almost busted my a$$...lol. There is such a major difference in the two methods! So instead of warming up with 320, I had to try really hard to pump out 9 reps.I know this is no revelation concerning the difference. I just wanted to share my personal introduction with real squats.