Why Your Lower Back Hurts on Squats & How to Fix it

Jan 29th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Exercise, Injury, Lower Back, Squat, Weight Lifting

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Lack of hip flexibility can make your lower back round on Squats. This stresses your back & can cause injuries like hernia. You can avoid this by working on hip flexibility doing the Squat Stretch & Leg Swings.

But hyper-extending your lower back is as bad as rounding. Reader Kabir hurt his lower back doing Deadlifts last year. He also reported back pain on Squats. Here’s a video of Kabir’s Squat technique before I gave him tips in the Forum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fi6z74LgaI

Why Your Lower Back Hurts. If you’re flexible, you’ll tend to avoid rounding your back by hyper-extending it. You see this best in rep 4. Kabir’s lower back stays arched. His wrists are also not inline with his forearms.

Hyper-extending your back puts posterior pressure on your lumbar vertebrae. This is a common error on Deadlifts: pulling back instead of bringing your hips forward. But it can also happen on Squats.

How to Avoid Lower Back Pain. Stand up & hyper-extend your back. Do it. Now squeeze your glutes. Your lower back straightens. Many of you will have problems involving your glutes on the Squat. Some tips:

Push Your Knees Out. This helps using your glutes. Push your knees to the side, rotate your hips out.
Glute Activation. If you sit a lot, you’ll have dormant glutes. Do glute activation exercises. 3 sets of 10 reps before doing Squats.
Posture. Also a cause for dormant glutes. Check your posture: do you have symptoms of lordosis? If you sit a lot, chances are you do.
Lower The Weight. Relearn how to Squat correctly. Lower the weight, and focus on bringing your hips up, while squeezing your glutes.

The Proper Way. Here’s a video of Kabir’s Squat technique weeks later. Form is still a bit shaky, but he uses his glutes now. Kabir wrote:

After Squats, my lower back was feeling majorly worked, no pain, just major muscle pump and my core was pretty spent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C5Kx-t0VyU

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11 Responses to “Why Your Lower Back Hurts on Squats & How to Fix it”

on 29 Jan 2008 at 7:03 pm1Kabir

Nice! So this is what you had in mind for the article. It really is night and day between the two squats. I’m thankful you were able to coach me, because now i can focus on the weight

I’m sad though, my camera broke recently so i can’t be taping myself anymore. Need to get it fixed:(
on 29 Jan 2008 at 7:12 pm2Mehdi

@Kabir
Thanks to you for the videos, appreciated. It’s not perfect yet, but your back is fine now, that’s a good base to start from.

Fixed the labels on the videos btw, thanks for that too Kabir.
on 29 Jan 2008 at 9:57 pm3Lauren

Nice post Mehdi, a lot of people lack the hip mobility to do a proper squat. Glute activation is key. Getting those babies going will really get you a better squat. Thats clear from the two videos. As soon as they are firing, so many other problems disappear. Thanks for yet another insightful post.
on 29 Jan 2008 at 10:30 pm4Mehdi

@Lauren
Glad to read you like it Lauren, especially coming from you. I know you’re a big fan of posterior chain training
on 30 Jan 2008 at 3:55 am5Jack

The other day I saw two people at the gym who did full squats and I was amazed at their form. I find the squat the most difficult exercise because of my height (I’m 6′5), and I was wondering if my height will prevent me from ever achieving that kind of depth. I can go to parallel but once I get lower my lower back rounds. Are there other exercises besides leg swings and the squat stretch that I could use.
on 30 Jan 2008 at 10:33 am6Mehdi

@Jack
Height is irrelevant. Flexibility matters. Check this post if your lower back rounds. The Squat Stretch mimics the movement best, that’s the exercise you should focus on.
on 30 Jan 2008 at 5:14 pm7NQ

I’m also 6′5″ and have had similar problems - I have improved a lot since I started working on my hamstring and groin flexibility.
on 31 Jan 2008 at 2:21 am8Dave

I’ve also observed that it is important to stick the backside out rather hang off the knees. Good info. Thanks
on 24 Mar 2008 at 4:31 pm9Matt

I am not new to weight lifting but am new to strength training.I haven’t done a lot in the realm of squating and need some advice.I have pretty good flexability in my thighs and still hurt my lower back today.I have been doing squats with a belt until today and after my second set my lower back just above the hips had a sharp pain.I may be hyper-extending my back. If after taping i find this to be the case is there anything that I need to do or change? I also have the bar high on my shoulder. Think I ought to drop down in weight until I get comfortable/confident with the bar in the low position?
on 24 Mar 2008 at 6:28 pm10Matt

One thing that I forgot to mention is that I am closing on my 1.5 body weight in about a month.I may have started to heavy to soon.
I weigh 180 lbs and am squating 255 lbs.
on 04 Apr 2008 at 7:40 pm11Sam

Hi Mehdi,

i also noticed that my lower back rounds slightly just as i go below parrallel. I am going to do supermans and squat stretches to get my flexibility up and strengthen my back and maybe start doing box squats to give me a good base to work on as i am relatively new to squating. My question, is shall i stop squating while i get my flexibility and do supermans and if so for how long would you reccomend doing these things until i squat again?

P.S. Stronglifts is great, keep up the good work.

Thanks

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