Now, before I start, I want it to be clear I am not a Chek clone, and I LOVE squats and deadlifts.
Today I got into a bit of a debate. Someone said that they think squats and deads put pressure on, or compress the spine. They said that the discs in the spine slowly compress with age, and that putting alot of weight on the spine will speed up this process and I may be sorry in the future, as it may cause back problems if the discs become too compressed.
I argued that keeping good form puts the pressure on the muscles, and not on the spine. I can’t help but wonder though. I would like to hear everyones opinions and information anyone could offer.
Are we going tpo be sorry for squatting and deadlifting heavy? Are we hurting our backs for the long run?
I would really love for everyone to explain why squatting and deadlifting is OK for our backs, but whatever the truth is, lets hear it!
You could say that like most things, moderation is key. Unless you are an athlete or competitor, how strong do you really need to be?? Just like running. Do you really need to do a marathon and trash your body to get the benefits of running, or will a few miles a few times a week do. Look at weights the same way.
At some point you are just wearing down your body (joints etc.). Work out with a long term goal to avoid injuries and surgery and still be active when you are real old.
That level of frequency and intensity will be different for everyone. I do think the number of injuries to non athletes from weight training is excessive. It’s one thing to get hurt from contact sports, but I know far more people that were hurt in the gym!!! (Not all from poor technique, some people just push themselves too much for no reward.) No real answer,just something to think about.
I think that squatting might be worse for your back than deadlifting, even though you often use more weight in the DL. In the DL, because of the motion from bent to straight torso (keeping your spine straight), the weight is never pulling straight down on your spine (exept in lockout). The weight is trying to bend your spine, but you counter this with your back musculature.
In the squat however, the weight is more or less pressing straight down on your spine, thus compressing your discs more.
I’m not a doctor and this is just my gut feeling. What do you think?
I know much less then many people on this site, but I would say use the logic method.
What would happen to you muscles if you lifted balls to the wall and never stretched? You would get short muscles that are in-flexible.
I would “assume” that the spinal cord, and disks in your back could be held to the same principal. Yes you undoubtedly are putting pressure on your spine, especially when squatting (I think not so much with dead lifts with proper form). That being said though what happens then you are doing pull ups or chin ups? The weight of your lower body is stretching the spin in a gentle way. I personally stretch after every work out and include a day of plyometrics in my work out for a good stretch. Something that you may try is just hanging from the pull up bar for as long as you can, it feels good on my back when I had some light pains. I know my back is much stronger from my squats and dead lifts. Before I started them I used to get back pain all the time, and now I rarely experience the lower back pain like I used to.
kheaslim, sent you a pm with an attatchment about squat theory and execution, forgot where i downloaded it from but should answer all your questions, references at end of article.
The real deal is this: as you get older flexibility diminishes, aches and pains creep in, and you slow down. This is going to happen regardless of whether you lift or not. When it happens to the lifter the soft and gooey bastards, in an effort to justify inactivity, will say “see, we were right, ______ IS bad for your ______.”
Doesn’t make it so. Squat and do deads and improve the quality of your life for years to come. A big strong older guy with a trick knee, or chronic shoulder annoyance is way better then a soft, fat old guy with all bad joints and high blood pressure and borderline diabetes. The benefits of hard, smart lifting far outweigh any downsides.
Well, to offer a counter theory, most aspects of the physical body strengthen with use, as long as the use itself isn’t directly causing undo damage.
So, you want stronger muscles, you have the use them. You want stronger bones, you need to put stress on them.
Perhaps putting manageable loads on the spine conditions the tissues and ends up making them more resilient and better able to resist compression due to disuse and age?
Considering that use and stress is the way that the body conditions almost every other element of itself, why would it be any different for the spine?
Jumping and landing puts a great deal of compressive loading on the spine as does landing while running. The ability of the spine to withstand these pressures in trained individuals is mind boggling. I suggest reading Stuart McGills “Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance”. He goes into quite a bit of detail about what types of forces the back can and cannot safely take.
[quote]kheaslim wrote:
Today I got into a bit of a debate. Someone said that they think squats and deads put pressure on, or compress the spine. They said that the discs in the spine slowly compress with age, and that putting alot of weight on the spine will speed up this process and I may be sorry in the future, as it may cause back problems if the discs become too compressed.
[/quote]
I’ve been squatting regularly for more than twenty-one years now and some how I’m taller now than when I first started squatting at age seventeen…
I’ve had up to seven hundred pounds resting on my back, if squatting compresses the spine, it only seems to be a very temporary thing for me…
as far as I know, most of the shrinkage that occurs with age happens after age 50…perhaps concerns about squatting hastening degeneration of the spine will be more promanent for older lifters…
then again, it may be possible that an intellingent squatting routine could strengthen the muslces around the spine enough to slow down the degenerative process…
someone making the excuss not to squat because they’re afraid of shrinking sounds like a bullshit cop-out to me…
