can i be swole with a jacked lower back?

[juggy54]

heres the deal.....as an ex football player and then getting into powerlifting, my training has always centered around squats, deads, cleans, and then throwing in some aux. lifts.

i guess im getting old, and me being a body type with a long torso, but it is a constant fight with my lower back going out every few months, and me being in terrible pain for weeks at a time. i have decided to retire the deadlift and possibly the squat from my training. its just not worth it to me to be crippled up for a month when i make the tiniest wrong movement under a heavy load

i know i will never be able to have the same overall full body "power" if i retire the squats and deads, but can i still put on lower body mass without these?

thanks for any input

[Gettinripped]

you won't get many comments on this board if you talk about not using dl's and squats. I too have a bad lower back. My disc have deteriorated away to nothing between l1,2,3. The doc told me I have the back of a 60 year old man. I'm 35.

I think you can still be bigger w/o them. I hated not squatting because I just loved the pumps it gave my legs. Now I do them again I just don't go as heavy as I used to. I do more reps. As for the dl's, my buddy used to laugh at me when I told him you couldn't get big without them. He competed at one time. His response to me was this " bro, I used to as big as a house and I never dl'ed" He was pretty big and has much more experience than I. So i trusted him.

Also,I think if you lay off them for a while, you'll notice that you may be able to incorporate them into your workout again in the future, sparingly. it's the week in week out that really taxes the body.

hope that helps. good luck to you. back spasms suck!!

[Animalpwr00]

I know people will hate me for this one but you can build size without back squatting *Though it is personally my favorite exercise* if you have issues with it, then change your exercises to uni-lateral exercises like split squats, bulgarians, step ups, etc.
Now pertaining to your lower back it may have to do with your range of motion through your lower body chain *ankle, knee, hip. In order to make sure you don't do any further damage put yourself through a foam rolling, core stability then core strength program to help with stabilizing and strengthening your core. Too many times no one even assesses their stability before they throw themselves into grueling programs.
I mean it may not go away but strengthening your core will minimize pain and the foam rolling will help rid your muscle of adhesions that effect flexibility. I have never assessed you so I do not what what your exact issues are but I hope this advice helps.

[silver_shadow]

i don't agree with the part that you won't get answers here. :)

anyway, as GR said, you might be able to find that balance of volume, frequency and intensity on DLs & squats which allows you to incorporate them into your lifting routine without aggravating your injuries. also, make sure that you are warming up well enough before you lift - it may seem obvious but it goes a long way in injury prevention. my warm up routines are as follows.

squats -
1) a few minutes of cycling to get the lungs and heart going and some blood flowing into my knees.
2) seated ab crunches done on the lat pull down machine
3) reverse hypers
4) very light good mornings
5) (weightless) squat down to an ass to calves position let the blood flow through my legs and lower back (you need to have a rounded back at the bottom). hold it for a few seconds. do this a few times.
6) maybe some plyo style jumps from the previous position.
7) finally start with a light weight on squats themselves.

deads:
1-3 as above for squats.
4) jump shrugs with a light weight
5) SLDLs
6) high pulls (from a hang position)
7) start DLs

[Cardinal Slin]

I am tall and have similar problems with my back, especially when I am dieting down and drop calories and therefore vitamins/minerals etc. I also used to get the problem in the past from diuretics.

I have a problem with my lower back and degeneration of discs etc. It was recommended I focus on my core to take some of the tension/stress on the lower back.

Don't know if this will help you or not but thought I'd let you know in any case.

[juggy54]

thanks guys.

I know one of my problems is my hips get imbalanced and one has a tendency to get tighter than the other, and then Bam! my back goes out. I have been doing romanian dls this past two weeks (very light) and it seems to keep everything stretched out better. I mean i might not get ronnie coleman legs without squats and deads, but hopefully i can still put on mass to some extent.