I hurt myself doing squats earlier this year. I am making this thread to prevent others from making the same mistake I did. Please no flaming.

I am not a newcomer to squats. I had been doing them for about 1.5 years, but I had never really pushed myself to go above my own body weight (195lbs @ 6'2''). Late 2012 I decided it was time to start working towards some respectable squat #s.

I got to the point where I could rep 3x 10 of 225lbs (no belt). I started noticing some discomfort coming from my back after workouts, but I wasn't sure which exercise was causing it.

Skip forward a few weeks (Jan 2013). On my 7th rep of 245lbs, on my way up I felt some serious discomfort coming from my lower back. I decided to do one more rep to convince myself that the squats were causing it (terrible mistake). On the way up from my 8th rep there was an immediate pain that set in my lower back. The best way I can describe the sensation is like a kink right in my lower spine.

My poor squat form caused me to seriously injure myself. My lower back was rounding at the bottom of the lift. Here is a video I found that sort of has an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl_kDg6fBWE
(skip to 0:50)

The next day I started having sciatic nerve pain that started in my left butt cheek and ran down the back of my leg almost to the knee. This pain would set in every time I bent over or stood up from a seated position.

I didn't go to the doctor. 2 weeks after the injury it started feeling better. 6 weeks after the injury it felt like it had healed maybe 70% of the way back to normal, which I was thrilled about. So I went skiing for a day with some friends. I didn't crash, but it was a full day of aggressive skiing. At the end of the day the nerve pain not only came back, but was even worse than when I first injured myself.

Now it is incredibly painful to do the simplest tasks such as bending over to tie my shoes or getting up out of my chair to go take a piss. A friend suggested I go see a chiropractor, which I did. After 2 or 3 visits with no notable improvements I decide it is time to go see a spine care specialist.

I explain my situation to the doctor and tell him that I desperately need a proper diagnosis. He sends me to go get an MRI.



(green arrow is doctor's note)

I had a L5 disc herniation. Fortunately the disc was not ruptured. He sent me to physical therapy and said it will get better with time, but it will never be back to 100%.

Now it is 8 months after the injury and thankfully I have no more nerve pain. For all intensive purposes I am back to normal. The only difference is that when I bend over, my lower back feels weak.

I'm now in a position where I need to determine if I can safely pick up doing squats again. I know from experience how a back injury can simply ruin your quality of life. Is it worth the risk?

With all of the co-pays and the MRI this set me back about $1000 even with insurance.




tldr version:

Tldr:
Don't have shitty form

Could have had a combo.

But nooooooooooo

Yolo cos yolo

sorry to hear
i will try to make sure i have good form and use a belt when doing squats

That's the thing. I didn't know I had shitty form until I injured myself. Even though I was lifting with my legs it was still putting pressure on my back.

Newcomers to squatting I advise guidance from someone who really knows what they are doing just to be safe.

are you questioning the use of squats as an effective muscle building tool, using your own poor squat form as evidence of the dangers?

brb benching in a way that compromises my rotator cuffs, claiming bench is evil

Glad i'm kind of a maniac with my form, specially if the exercise involves lower back/rotators

When I first started practicing the squat movement with a stick as a bar, had this problem and kept improving my form until it was decent (it probably isn't perfect though)