Giving up regular barbell squats and deadlifts.

For the 2nd time in about 8 months I recently at the end of April messed my lower back up while squatting. The first time it took me about 2 weeks to get back to normal training , this last time it was almost a month. Monday I started finally being able to train normally, and now today I had another surge of pain. Not as bad as before, but instead of paused barbell squats I did paused Bulgarian split squats.

It’s become pretty clear to me that if I want to continue to string together training cycles, barbell squats for whatever reason aren’t the most appropriate way to go about it. My squat and deadlift days are done in my basement so I don’t have access to a leg press or leg extension machines , so my question is could I just replace Bulgarian split squats , keeping the same rep ranges and variations and expect similar hypertrophy outcomes ? If not what other things could I add? Another thing I may try is front squats.

Sorry to hear about this, Brett.

I think this is probably best suited for a consult given the history, the narrative here, and need for specific advice that probably needs to be dynamic as the situation changes.

As far as if you could replace BSS with ? and get similar results, the prediction would be yes.

Some squat-type things you may be able to do at home:

-belt squat w dip belt or landmine attachment

  • reverse lunges/split squats (not rear foot elevated split squats)
  • step-ups
  • partial squats
  • banded leg extensions
  • cowboy squat/leg press
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