Are Back Squats Safe?

The barbell back

  squat has been called the king of all exercises. When done correctly, it is tremendous for building strength and muscle. Which is why it’s been a mainstay in athletic training for decades.

But back in 2009, world-renowned strength coach and Men’s Health training advisor Mike Boyle said that he no longer prescribed the classic barbell squat.

Bodybuilders, powerlifters, and personal trainers on Internet forums everywhere went into a frenzy, posting comments such as “Sounds like Mike Boyle is incapable of teaching the squat” and “He doesn’t look very strong.”

So we wondered: Five years later, has Boyle changed his tune?

The answer is no.

For perspective, Boyle points out that his job is to improve athletic performance and lower injury risk. That’s what he gets paid to do by Major League Baseball, NHL, and NFL players, as well as Olympians.

To understand his point of view, he first wants you to know that the squat isn’t a lower-body exercise; it’s a lower-back exercise. “After a certain point, your lower back doesn’t allow you to transfer force to your bottom half,” says Boyle. “It’s the weak link, stopping your lower-body muscles from producing maximum work capability.”

When this happens, it sets you up for injury, says Boyle. In order to complete the lift, your back may compensate by extending or flexing under the bar. “Your spine should avoid extreme movement, because it’s meant to stabilize your body. 

Say you’re squatting 400 pounds. Boyle says that you’ve not only compressed your spine with an extreme amount of weight, but now you’re asking it to move in ways it shouldn’t. That’s a recipe for disaster, and your back will pay the price, he explains.

Instead, Boyle has his athletes perform rear-foot-elevated split squats, also known as Bulgarian split squats. “The back gets injured the most when squatting, so we train our legs for size and strength by bypassing the back,” he says. This strategy allows an athlete to load one leg to the same degree as a conventional two-leg squat, but the spine handles only half the amount of weight. Since subbing the two-leg squat stance for the single-leg stance five years ago, Boyle says he’s seen a dramatic decrease in the number of back injuries at his gym. 

He’s witnessed serious strength gains, too. For instance, Meghan Duggan, Captain of the U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team, is training with Boyle for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Duggan can complete 10 reps of the Bulgarian split squats with a 36-kilogram kettlebell in each hand for a total of 159 pounds. 

“It’s extremely unlikely that she could squat 318 pounds for one rep with two legs,” says Boyle. “This proves that a person’s legs can handle far more weight than his or her back is capable of transmitting.” Plus, athletes do almost everything in sports in a split stance, or by pushing off one leg from a parallel stance, so it just makes sense to train your body that way, he says.

So what do you do if you’re not ready to give up the traditional two-leg squat? Boyle recommends switching to dumbbells or kettlebells. Try using a goblet hold (in front of your chest) or simply hold them at arm’s length next to your sides. These holds cause less back stress, but still work the same lower-body muscles.

Ultimately, the decision to back squat or not to back squat is up to you. When Boyle announced that the conventional squat was dead, we didn’t delete the exercise from Men’s Health exercise library. Many great strength coaches still effectively use the exercise, and won’t likely change their methods in the future.

But Boyle’s argument makes a lot of sense, and that’s especially true if you’re concerned about injury risk. And who can argue with his success?  After all, if he doesn’t deliver, professional athletes stop calling.

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Article source: http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/are-back-squats-safe