Barbell Step Up: Leg Training

BossArky

I'm recovering (fingers crossed) from a lower back injury sustained on the last rep of Deadlifting 156kg 3x5 back in Sept. Since then Squats and Deadlifts have been a no-go as they aggrevate my lower back.

I have been to doctor, physio and had an MRI. Everything is apparently ok, I just need to give my lowerback time to recover fully before getting back into Squats and Deadlifts. I'm not looking for medical advice as I've already received it.

My leg training now consists of Glute Ham Raise and Barbell Step Ups.

Questions:
1) How did you handle training around a lower back injury when unable to Squat or Deadlift? Personally I find anything which involves bending at the hips and extending the knee joint aggrevates the lower back... so Leg Extension, deep Squats, Deadlifts 60kg+ etc are out for the moment.

2) Thoughts on Barbell Step Ups? I read in the past year that a country team (Russia? Bulgaria?) used these in place of Squats and got great results.

3) If you have experience of Barbell Step Up: how did your Barbell Step Up weight compare to your Squat? Currently I'm doing sets of 5 alternating step ups each side per set. e.g. yesterday:

Set 1: 20kg
Set 2: 30kg
Sets 3-5: 35kg

That looks light when compared to my 130kg 3x5 squat from pre-injury, but 35kg across my shoulders seems to be a decent weight with correct form on step ups. Bascially it's ~half the weight per leg that I'd get from doing the heavy squat, but I'm guessing more effort goes into stablization and starting from "dead" on the barbell step up (vs. the slighty stretch and rebound out of the bottom of a squat).

I'm choosing a step which puts my raised leg in the "just below parallel / bottom of squat position" and using as little momentum as possible to get moving i.e. from a dead stop. Can feel these a lot in the glutes during the sets and DOMS-wise as I write this the next day.

If anyone has thoughts on the above please chime in or maybe it'll help someone else for ideas when training around a lowerback injury after seeking proper medical advice

Again, I'll reiterate that this thread is not about medical advice... I'm trying to start a discussion on Barbell Step Ups as an alternate leg exercise.

the drifter

Ive used them a bit as an assistance exercise when doing westside. I didnt rate them at all. Bulgarian Squats however i found savage.

i was pretty much taking the bar from squat stands at the time so the bar position was always the same as the squat.

Weight was pretty much the same think in was doing 140 5x5 on squats but about 40kg on stepups...

Bulgarians with chains are a horrible beast.

As an alternatrive leg exercise...ya id say there fine but not as a replacement.

squod

I'm doing these yokes with dbs in each hand. Seem to do the trick. Don't need much weight to build new muscle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z7E6Wzs3Dc

kevpants

My understanding is the Bulgarians leaked that they were just doing step ups and the Americans copied them. The Bulgarians then went on to destroy the Americans. The Bulgarians were not doing step ups.

As someone who asks "how will this affect my lower back" before I do anything hopefully I'm qualified to help!

As far as exercises that spare the lower back I've found anything that allows you to recruit your glutes more is very sparing on the lower back. Active glutes seem to help lower back muscle relax and they don't spasm or cramp.

As a result I found wide stance box squats a comfortable exercise when I was in the recovery stages of my latest lower back debacle. I know single leg work like Bulgarians and step ups are supposed to be good but I always found they put strain on my lower back and resulted in tremendous lower back pump. I now know that anything that causes lower back pump I either shouldn't be doing or I'm doing wrong. Your lower muscles are so small they shouldn't be asked to do so much.

As a demonstration of how disfunctional it is to have lower back pump all the time, I've ended up with mad hypertrophy of my lower back, the muscles there are huge. Not too long ago I turned side on in the mirror, shirtless (giggity), after a session that left my lower back on fire and noticed that I actually have a bicep like development of muscle mass in my lower back. It actually stands up the mucles there are so thick. This isn't a good thing. Those muscles will never be strong enough to support the weight I squat or pull and tellingly I was picking up lower back injuries left right and centre at the time. The hypertrophy was a sign that I was asking these muscles to do way too much. But I digress.

One controversial thing I've discovered that flies in the face of a lot of "how to squat" speak is that arching your back hard while squatting can mess up your lower back. That must-avoid lower back pump was there all the time if I was pushing my squat at all.

How I got it dissappear was to stop arching my back and allowing my hips to roll forward a bit more so my lower back is flat, not arched and not rounded. My upper back is "tight" with my shoulders back and scaps retracted hard. Post-injury this technique allowed me to get back squatting earlier than I would have using my old technique. The reason for this from what I can see lies in what I mentioned above about active glutes protecting the lower back. Arching your lower back too hard deactivates your glutes. Rolling the hips forward to back flattend allows them to act as a mjor support muscle. I noticed the following things happened.

- No more lower back fatigue while standing at the top position of the squat on sets with high reps.
- Glutes can be felt acting as a "brake" at the bottom and keeping my upper body vertical on the way back up.
- DOMS in my glutes moreso than my quads after squatting.
- No lower back pump, DOMS or injury!

I put alot of faith in my new way of squatting and kicked off smolov a few weeks back, it's been slightly stunted with Xmas breaks etc but my last two sessions were 197.5kg 10x3 and 170kg 4x9. These nearly ended me but my lower back is shoing no signs of fatigue. This wouldn't have been possible in the past.

I don't know if this applies to you as much as me, you can work it out for yourself but it migh give you something to think about.

I think a lot of us, definitely me, threw the baby out with the bathwater in terms lower back position. Arching way too hard in an effort to prevent rounding at all costs.

Reading this back I really went on and off topic but what I was trying to get across was that if you can find a way of bring your glutes more into a movement then you should notice you lower back is protected more and you can start back slowly instead of not being able to do the movements at all. Sumos or belt squats might be good ones where you'd find it easy to recruit your glutes.

"Recruit your glutes". There's a T-Shirt in that.

d'Oracle

kevpants wrote: »

My understanding is the Bulgarians leaked that they were just doing step ups and the Americans copied them. The Bulgarians then went on to destroy the Americans. The Bulgarians were not doing step ups.

As someone who asks "how will this affect my lower back" before I do anything hopefully I'm qualified to help!

As far as exercises that spare the lower back I've found anything that allows you to recruit your glutes more is very sparing on the lower back. Active glutes seem to help lower back muscle relax and they don't spasm or cramp.

As a result I found wide stance box squats a comfortable exercise when I was in the recovery stages of my latest lower back debacle. I know single leg work like Bulgarians and step ups are supposed to be good but I always found they put strain on my lower back and resulted in tremendous lower back pump. I now know that anything that causes lower back pump I either shouldn't be doing or I'm doing wrong. Your lower muscles are so small they shouldn't be asked to do so much.

As a demonstration of how disfunctional it is to have lower back pump all the time, I've ended up with mad hypertrophy of my lower back, the muscles there are huge. Not too long ago I turned side on in the mirror, shirtless (giggity), after a session that left my lower back on fire and noticed that I actually have a bicep like development of muscle mass in my lower back. It actually stands up the mucles there are so thick. This isn't a good thing. Those muscles will never be strong enough to support the weight I squat or pull and tellingly I was picking up lower back injuries left right and centre at the time. The hypertrophy was a sign that I was asking these muscles to do way too much. But I digress.

One controversial thing I've discovered that flies in the face of a lot of "how to squat" speak is that arching your back hard while squatting can mess up your lower back. That must-avoid lower back pump was there all the time if I was pushing my squat at all.

How I got it dissappear was to stop arching my back and allowing my hips to roll forward a bit more so my lower back is flat, not arched and not rounded. My upper back is "tight" with my shoulders back and scaps retracted hard. Post-injury this technique allowed me to get back squatting earlier than I would have using my old technique. The reason for this from what I can see lies in what I mentioned above about active glutes protecting the lower back. Arching your lower back too hard deactivates your glutes. Rolling the hips forward to back flattend allows them to act as a mjor support muscle. I noticed the following things happened.

- No more lower back fatigue while standing at the top position of the squat on sets with high reps.
- Glutes can be felt acting as a "brake" at the bottom and keeping my upper body vertical on the way back up.
- DOMS in my glutes moreso than my quads after squatting.
- No lower back pump, DOMS or injury!

I put alot of faith in my new way of squatting and kicked off smolov a few weeks back, it's been slightly stunted with Xmas breaks etc but my last two sessions were 197.5kg 10x3 and 170kg 4x9. These nearly ended me but my lower back is shoing no signs of fatigue. This wouldn't have been possible in the past.

I don't know if this applies to you as much as me, you can work it out for yourself but it migh give you something to think about.

I think a lot of us, definitely me, threw the baby out with the bathwater in terms lower back position. Arching way too hard in an effort to prevent rounding at all costs.

Reading this back I really went on and off topic but what I was trying to get across was that if you can find a way of bring your glutes more into a movement then you should notice you lower back is protected more and you can start back slowly instead of not being able to do the movements at all. Sumos or belt squats might be good ones where you'd find it easy to recruit your glutes.

"Recruit your glutes". There's a T-Shirt in that.

K-pants.

Hanley

I heavily agree with Kev on all of that.

Also- unilateral work like BSS and step ups have the potential to put a lot of rotational torque, and therefore stress on your lower back. Esp if hip mobility and glute activation aren't up to scratch, just something to consider.

Oh and I don't think 30kg step ups will do anything for your squat, regardless of how hard they feel. I don't even know if they'll make you feel better, emotionally or physically.

Turbo_diesel

kevpants wrote: »

My understanding is the Bulgarians leaked that they were just doing step ups and the Americans copied them. The Bulgarians then went on to destroy the Americans. The Bulgarians were not doing step ups.

As someone who asks "how will this affect my lower back" before I do anything hopefully I'm qualified to help!

As far as exercises that spare the lower back I've found anything that allows you to recruit your glutes more is very sparing on the lower back. Active glutes seem to help lower back muscle relax and they don't spasm or cramp.

As a result I found wide stance box squats a comfortable exercise when I was in the recovery stages of my latest lower back debacle. I know single leg work like Bulgarians and step ups are supposed to be good but I always found they put strain on my lower back and resulted in tremendous lower back pump. I now know that anything that causes lower back pump I either shouldn't be doing or I'm doing wrong. Your lower muscles are so small they shouldn't be asked to do so much.

As a demonstration of how disfunctional it is to have lower back pump all the time, I've ended up with mad hypertrophy of my lower back, the muscles there are huge. Not too long ago I turned side on in the mirror, shirtless (giggity), after a session that left my lower back on fire and noticed that I actually have a bicep like development of muscle mass in my lower back. It actually stands up the mucles there are so thick. This isn't a good thing. Those muscles will never be strong enough to support the weight I squat or pull and tellingly I was picking up lower back injuries left right and centre at the time. The hypertrophy was a sign that I was asking these muscles to do way too much. But I digress.

One controversial thing I've discovered that flies in the face of a lot of "how to squat" speak is that arching your back hard while squatting can mess up your lower back. That must-avoid lower back pump was there all the time if I was pushing my squat at all.

How I got it dissappear was to stop arching my back and allowing my hips to roll forward a bit more so my lower back is flat, not arched and not rounded. My upper back is "tight" with my shoulders back and scaps retracted hard. Post-injury this technique allowed me to get back squatting earlier than I would have using my old technique. The reason for this from what I can see lies in what I mentioned above about active glutes protecting the lower back. Arching your lower back too hard deactivates your glutes. Rolling the hips forward to back flattend allows them to act as a mjor support muscle. I noticed the following things happened.

- No more lower back fatigue while standing at the top position of the squat on sets with high reps.
- Glutes can be felt acting as a "brake" at the bottom and keeping my upper body vertical on the way back up.
- DOMS in my glutes moreso than my quads after squatting.
- No lower back pump, DOMS or injury!

I put alot of faith in my new way of squatting and kicked off smolov a few weeks back, it's been slightly stunted with Xmas breaks etc but my last two sessions were 197.5kg 10x3 and 170kg 4x9. These nearly ended me but my lower back is shoing no signs of fatigue. This wouldn't have been possible in the past.

I don't know if this applies to you as much as me, you can work it out for yourself but it migh give you something to think about.

I think a lot of us, definitely me, threw the baby out with the bathwater in terms lower back position. Arching way too hard in an effort to prevent rounding at all costs.

Reading this back I really went on and off topic but what I was trying to get across was that if you can find a way of bring your glutes more into a movement then you should notice you lower back is protected more and you can start back slowly instead of not being able to do the movements at all. Sumos or belt squats might be good ones where you'd find it easy to recruit your glutes.

"Recruit your glutes". There's a T-Shirt in that.

Kevpants this along with your Westside thread are probably two of the best posts I have ever read on boards! Ever think about coaching?

kevpants

Turbo_diesel wrote: »

Kevpants this along with your Westside thread are probably two of the best posts I have ever read on boards! Ever think about coaching?

I'm just waiting for something even more outlandish than Crossfit to start up and I'm going to hitch my wagon to that. Hopefully it will be something to do with frisbee. I fucking love frisbee.

Barry.Oglesby

I like step ups. But as a replacement for squatting I think you have to be increasing loading to a level where you are just risking injury by missing the box one day. Also it doesn't work as a simple 100% on 2 legs, 50/50 on each leg equation. The technique is just too different to break it down like that. Firstly there's just not enough hamstring involvement for comparison. Secondly, miniscule changes in angle, height of the box, and makeup of the guy stepping change the exercise a lot. You can adjust for these of course and I guess you could say the same about any exercise, but if the question is "can this replace the squat" then I think you'd have to say it depends.

If you're going to use single leg work, I think variety is better. So mixing in step ups, bulgarians, etc. would be the way I would go. If I was going to recommend going heavier on a single leg lift it would be the lunge as you don't need to go that heavy on the barbell to make it hard and you are always on terra firma, can do them in a rack and they're much easier to spot.

the drifter

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

I like step ups. But as a replacement for squatting I think you have to be increasing loading to a level where you are just risking injury by missing the box one day. Also it doesn't work as a simple 100% on 2 legs, 50/50 on each leg equation. The technique is just too different to break it down like that. Firstly there's just not enough hamstring involvement for comparison. Secondly, miniscule changes in angle, height of the box, and makeup of the guy stepping change the exercise a lot. You can adjust for these of course and I guess you could say the same about any exercise, but if the question is "can this replace the squat" then I think you'd have to say it depends.

If you're going to use single leg work, I think variety is better. So mixing in step ups, bulgarians, etc. would be the way I would go. If I was going to recommend going heavier on a single leg lift it would be the lunge as you don't need to go that heavy on the barbell to make it hard and you are always on terra firma, can do them in a rack and they're much easier to spot.

good post barry...

I never even considered the lunge. Maybe it comes from a hatred of deadlifting heavy and having some young one do walking lunges past you...very distracting.

So outside of lunges/step ups/Bulgarians what else have we?

I think your options for leg training that doesnt involve some hip / knee joint movement are going to be limited...

BossArky

Thank you for the replies. Food for thought.

Cheers.

itsallaboutheL

On a completely unrelated note, heavy sets of 5 across on convential deads are stupid and i hate them.

BossArky

11 months on: thread update.

Back in Jan I was messing about looking for leg training alternatives (as you can read above) due to a lower back injury. Lots of physio, stretching, foam rolling and months later I was still experiencing lower back pain. Finally in June pain seemed to ease off and I got back to Squatting. My strength was in the toilet and I started almost from scratch.

On June 18th this year I started back Squatting twice a week, moving up in increments of 2.5kg each session. My training consisted of working up to a top set of 5 reps, followed by 2 sets of 10 reps.

Week 1 Day 1: 80kg 1x5, 60kg - 2x10
Week 1 Day 2: 82.5kg 1x5, 62.5kg - 2x10
Week 2 Day 1: 85kg 1x5, 65kg - 2x10
Week 2 Day 2: 87.5kg 1x5, 67.5kg - 2x10
Week 3 Day 1: 90kg 1x5, 70kg - 2x10
Week 3 Day 2: 92.5kg 1x5, 72.5kg - 2x10
Week 4 Day 1: 95kg 1x5, 75kg - 2x10
Week 4 Day 2: 97.5kg 1x5, 77.5kg - 2x10
Week 5 Day 1: 100kg 1x5, 80kg - 2x10
Week 5 Day 2: 102.5kg 1x5, 82.5kg - 2x10
Week 6 Day 1: 105kg 1x5, 85kg - 2x10
Week 6 Day 2: 107.5kg 1x5, 87.5kg - 2x10
Week 7 Day 1: 110kg 1x5, 90kg - 2x10
Week 7 Day 2: 112.5kg 1x5, 92.5kg - 2x10
Week 8 Day 1: 115kg 1x5, 95kg - 2x10
Week 8 Day 2: 117.5kg 1x5, 97.5kg - 2x10
Week 9 Day 1: 120kg 1x5, 100kg - 2x10
Week 9 Day 2: 122.5kg 1x5, 102.5kg - 2x10
Week 10 Day 1: 125kg 1x5, 105kg - 2x10
Week 10 Day 2: 127.5kg 1x5, 107.5kg - 2x10
Week 11 Day 1: 130kg 1x5, 110kg - 2x10

After 10.5 weeks I was back up to 130kg x5 thankfully, took a little deload (as my previous best was 132.5 - 3x5 pre injury)... and got back into it for two more cycles. I organized the next two cycles to be approx 6 weeks each, again Squatting twice a week.

Cycle 2:
started at 100kg 1x5, 80kg - 2x10
.... went up in 5kg per session until 125kg on top set, then 2.5kg per session afterwards
.... and ended at 132.5g 1x5, 112.5kg - 2x10

Cycle 3:
started at 100kg 1x5, 80kg - 2x10
.... went up in 7.5kg per session until 115kg on top set, then 2.5kg per session afterwards
.... and ended at 135g 1x5, 115kg - 2x10

Did my first competition straight after that cycle 3 above. Squatted 142.5kg, then 150kg successfully, before falling backwards on 155kg attempt (which would have been a 2.5kg pb if I'd managed it)

Going forwards, I want to stick with a similar approach (Squat twice a week, work up to a top set of 5, then two sets of 10 at 20kg less....) ... but maybe adding in a single first at 10kg-15kg over the set of 5. I'm thinking this may give me more confidence on competition day when going for heavy singles. I found this approach worked for generating confident / familiarity when going for heavy bench attempts.

In parallel to the Squat story above ^^ I had many failed attempts at bringing back in my Deadlift and flitting between convo and sumo. Just before the competition I got 4 weeks of conventional training in. I started at 80kg - 3x5 and got up to 120kg 3x5 by Deadlifting twice a week (not optimal for recovery I know...). You can read the full competition write up in my log --> my results: 150/100/155.

Long ramble above... so what is the point I'm trying to make / questions I'm now asking myself?

- if you're injured, stick with it. I went through 14 months questioning whether I'd ever compete again. Sticking with it paid off and I got back to attempting Squat pbs... (yeah I didn't get the 155kg Squat but wasn't far off it).

- Long slow build up works. It's dosen't look too exciting when only adding 2.5kg per session... but it got my Squat back up there

- If I'm ever going to total 500kg at 83kg, then I'm probably gonna have to do it by Squatting 200kg.... as my bench seems stuck at 100kg for the past few comps and my Deadlift won't venture far ahead of Squat.

- Will adding a single 10kg above the Squat set of 5 reps help my comp prep going forwards? Cycle #4 will aim to finish on 137.5 kg x5, 117.5kg 2x10... meaning I should throw in 147.5kg x1 first. Cycle #5 will aim to finish on 140 kg x5, 120kg 2x10... meaning I should throw in 150kg x1 first. Given that my Squat opener after Cycle #5 (around the time of the next comp) will be 145kg ish, then yeah.... that should instill some confidence.

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

I'm just waiting for something even more outlandish than Crossfit to start up and I'm going to hitch my wagon to that. Hopefully it will be something to do with frisbee. I fucking love frisbee.

*AHEM*

...you do know I keep a frisbee in my car at all times too?