In case you are travelling and cannot bring the bar with you ;-) a good alternative is the "prisoner squat". Place both hands behind you head crossing your fingers. With elbows out as much as you can do the squat like prisoners do it, veeery sloooowly, start with 4 x 12.

I would also recommend "Wall Sits". Very similar.

If it's your back your worried about, I would recommend deadlifts over squats. They're much easier to do from a technique standpoint & have less risk. Also squats are more for leg strength. Deadlifts are great for your back and also work several other muscles, including your legs.

Squats are great for building leg strength but have a high risk of back & knee injury under heavy loads if done incorrectly. Even if you do them correctly, a heavy load might force you to lean forward which can damage your back. There are much safer lifts for those of us who aren't experts, such as hex bar squats.

According to Rippetoe if it's a low bar squat it's OK to lean forward as long as your back is straight[1].

Of course as anything in fitness it's always up for debate.

[1]https://startingstrength.com/article/squat-mechanics-a-clari...

From my own experience in the gym, leaning forward can cause an almost instinctual movement to lift the bar by "pushing back" with the back.

That is, rather than lifting the bar using the legs, lifting the bar by bending back. Of course, Rippletoe would never recommend doing this, and while leaning forward doesn't guarantee improper form, it can sure make it easier.

Thank you for clarifying that. That is exactly what I meant but obviously failed at communicating.

Leaning forward is okay while doing squats. A heavy weight causing you to lean forward out of your position is bad.

> Even if you do them correctly, a heavy load might force you to lean forward which can damage your back.

Leaning forward damages your back? Then why are you suggesting deadlifts?

Squats are not hard to do correctly. Risk of injury is probably not higher than deadlifts. And squats work more than just legs. They do work the legs hard, but they also work the back. Front squats will also work the upper back quite a bit.

It appears "leaning forward" was not a great phrase to use. I meant to say it may force you to lean forward an additional amount into a bad position where you need to lean backwards to correct it. This is where hurting your back would occur.

I agree, front squats are great! But I personally feel squats do minimal to back muscles.

Those back muscles are doing a ton of work keeping you from falling forward. They don't work as much in the squat as in the deadlift, but they still do a lot of work in the squat.

The amount of work the lower back does is directly related to how far forward the body leans (at the hips; I'm assuming we're not discussing bent-back lifts). The lower back does a lot of work in a deadlift to counteract the torque the weight creates via the upper body lean. In a low-back back squat, the amount of work the lower body does is reduced somewhat because the lean and therefore the torque reduced. It's reduced even further in a high-bar squat, and in a front squat the back muscles are mostly doing isometric work in conjuction with the abs to keep your spine from collapsing.

Even if your squat form is bad and you're leaning excessively, you're probably not putting more stress on your back than in a deadlift. Unless maybe you're dive-bombing your squats and letting your lower back round a ton at the bottom.

Why not both? Plus other mobility and cardio work. It's all beneficial in various ways.

Of course do both. I was not advocating otherwise. :)

That's the whole point of doing the exercise in the first place. You get hurt and have bad form because you are weak. Squats are not just for leg strength. They work the entire posterior chain. Any exercise has the potential to hurt you if you do it incorrectly.

I don't disagree. My argument is that getting the technique right on certain exercises is harder & have a higher risk than others.

In traditional calisthenics, there is a progression beyond a simple squat with your body weight. Uneven squats, half one-leg squats, assisted one-leg squats, all leading up to one-leg squats.

I'm also a big believer in calisthenics and bodyweight progression, but it's worth noting that pistol squats and several other advanced bodyweight squats can strengthen your quads and glutes very well, but end up teaching you a different movement pattern from a biomechanically-sound (i.e. straight-spined) squat. It's basically impossible to avoid tucking the pelvis and rounding the spine when doing a pistol.

E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NvOuty_Fnc

Edit: Shrimp squats are an exception, I suppose.

Safe alternative: hip belt squat. Don't load your back/spine. Google it.

Yes, take the back entirely out of the exercise. That will definitely help with strengthening the back.

There are safer exercises for strengthening the back. Squats are good for the legs.

Squats are awesome for the back and quite safe unless done very improperly. If you can’t squat the weight safely, it’s too much for your legs anyway. You have an imbalance, by definition, if the weight that is appropriate for your legs is enough to put your back at risk.

Legs are stronger than your back. So a good load for the legs will probably be too much for the back. Also there is only a limited amount of repeated compression that the vertebral discs can handle.

> Legs are stronger than your back. So a good load for the legs will probably be too much for the back.

Well, yes and no. In unnatural movements like the hip belt “squat” where you have no range of motion and have almost created an isolation movement, sure. In more natural movements like a lunge or squat, where the muscles must work together and you use reasonable range of motion, not necessarily true. It’s more commonly the legs that fail in a squat.

You do realize that the glutes and hamstrings are part of the legs, right? They execute the hip hinge that makes bending at the hips possible. When you take the back out of a squat, you largely remove these as well.

> Also there is only a limited amount of repeated compression that the vertebral discs can handle.

This is a definite “citation needed” sort of claim. The spine produces synovial fluid and heals like the rest of the joints.

Obviously there are limits to how much it can heal, but that applies to every joint and consistently studies indicate better joint health among strength training individuals. A few dozen squats a week is definitely not the maximum the spine can handle.

I’m not sure what problem you’re trying to solve.

Back squats and front squats are good because they involve the posterior chain.

Often all of that has to work together. A squat with a small load will show you where you are deficient and will help you improve as you learn to squat properly.

As the article states:

> At best, we might undertake ［squatting］ during Crossfit, pilates or while lifting at the gym, but only partially and often with weights (a repetitive maneuver that’s hard to imagine being useful 2.5 million years ago)

I kind of go along with that. Squatting with a bar on your back is a weird maneuver.

Squats under load are pretty fundamental. Carrying a killed deer on your back, or stone, clay, or a mate or a child all require effective loaded squats.

Where is the rest of the movement, then? Why not pick a big bag of sand and place it on your back, walk around with it, and set it back down again?

Wouldn't our ancestors carry far less, maybe max 90kg, then people do today? It doesnt make sense to brutally punish your joints with much more than that for part of that action and completely ignore the other part of it.

Sandbag carries and farmer walks do just that :). As for the idea that you are brutally punishing your joints, I don't believe that to be the case. Controlled squats vs running? Yeah, controlled squats will be way better on the knee. I do weighted exercises regularly and have a marketed reduction in joint pain from before. A barbell squat with good form will not put undue stress on the knee joint and builds muscle that supports it. For me, the added muscle also removed my lower back pain. This also comes with the caveat that you need to stretch and mobilize too.

“Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.” ― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man