Back workout from squats???

[Zoran]

Ok well here goes...everytime I do squats my lower back gets real tight. It doesn't take over till the last set and thats where it gets so tight it gets hard to stand up. I have asked many people at the gym, who have a great knowledge of bodybuilding and they say my form is great. I am going paralell sp? The people I asked said they feel it too but I damn I feel like I just did a set of deadlifts!!! Whats goin on?? Do you think my lower back is not as strong as I think it is? Thanks you for all the info everyone!!

bar for 20
135 for 12
185 for 10
225 for 10-12
360 for 10
360 for 8-10
385 for 8-10 strip all the way down

[goldenear]

It's really hard to diagnose technical problems over the Internet. I can only give you a couple of things to look for. First, are your hips bailing out of the hole? What I mean is during the initial push from the bottom, do your hips/butt go up while your chest & shoulders dip a bit? If you're doing this even slightly, your lower back will take a beating. It's very important for your core to remain tight to prevent this from happening. Plus, you're more efficient throughout the entire range of the lift.

Second, are you driving your abs into your belt? This will also help tremendously to stabilize your core. If you don't have a real powerlifting belt, then get one. The difference between a real belt and $20 piece of 1/8" thick leather is unbelievable.

Third, be sure to keep your chest out front and your shoulders back. This will preserve the natural arch of your spine and protect your back.

Lastly, you're doing a lot of reps before you even reach your working set(s). I would drop the high volume warm-up sets and up the intensity with your working set(s). For example, if you're shooting for sets @ 385, your warm-up should be like this:

135 x 10-12
225 x 8
295 x 5
340 x 3
385 x 10

Add up my warm-up reps compared to your's. You're doing 72 reps before you even get to your 385 set! THAT'S CRAZY, LOL. Instead, I've got you doing 26. And that's plenty. You're not gonna grow with warm-up reps because you're not overloading your body. So do as few as it takes to get warmed-up so that you can put 100% of your effort into your working set(s). I bet you could bump up the 385 to 405 and get 8 pretty handily just be dropping all of the volume.

[KeyMastur]

Could have what I have - spondylolysis. I created an entired thread on it once. Check it out if you're ineterested.