How To Squat After Back Pain?

Thank you for joining us for today’s livestream where we talked about squatting and back pain. We’re going to be talking specifically about how you can ensure you’re squatting with good form in order to help your back pain, as well as simple tips to help if you’re new to strength training. Squatting is a functional exercise in the sense that we use this motion on a daily basis to pick up things from the floor, load the dishwasher or washing machine etc.

Core Engaged With A Neutral Spine
As we show in the video, you should have a maintained spinal curve as you squat down. You don’t want to be rounding the bottom or shifting out of alignment at any point during the squat. You need to brace your core throughout the whole process, if you lose it at any point then you need to re-engage before the next repetition.

Shallow Depth To Begin
When you’re first starting, getting your form right with a shallow movement is going to be best. If you’re naturally lacking in some flexibility in the hips, you may not be able to go quite far down without compromising your alignment or core engagement. As you improve you should be able to go a bit further down but there’s no need to push it beyond your limitations.

Think About Knees & Ankles
You need to make sure that your knees don’t drop inwards and that they’re staying stable, facing forward. When you’re first starting you may find your knees drop inwards, so holding onto a support or door frame will help you to get that form right. You also need to make sure that you’re not shifting forwards with your knees into the squat, you can test this by performing the squat in front of a door, squatting down and this should ensure you don’t shift your head or knees forwards but are hinging back from your hips instead.