Originally Posted by
carleton
Thanks! I'm not sure. Every gym I've used just had the rack with the safety arms, not a full cage. What's the benefit of the cage? To keep you from falling backwards when using heavy weights?
Safety is definitely a big issue if you are lifting in an isolated space - cage gives you more room for error and preventing you from getting pinned. It also means if you do need to drop a weight behind you to abort a lift then the weight will be held within the rack - cant miss or jump off the spotter arms and damage your floor. This means you dont have to pay to put substantial floor protection down infront of the rack as well as beneath it.
However there are plenty of training benefits too - having the cage above you gives overhead mounting points for resistance bands. This means you can change how the weights interact so the weights will be at their lightest at the bottom of the movement and heaviest at the top. Its a different training stimulus and can be quite handy when progressing to higher weights for example.
You can also have the spotter arms up high for overhead excercises. I have poor shoulders from previous injuries so knowing that if i fail i wont have to drop the bar far is a definite plus.
Well made cages are also useful for assistance exercises like pull ups or just to hang from to decompress the spine.